Donald Trump's push to investigate left-leaning groups in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination has quietly run into a wall of conservative opposition
I think the answer is the complete elimination of all political donations, and public finance for office. If you take money, no matter how small an amount, and definitely larger amounts you are beholden to someone else's idea, and you OWE someone. The mere fact that it takes 10's of millions of dollars to earn a job that pays $200k per year is proof enough it's all broken.
Destroy and obliterate all NGO's, all PAC's all political fundraising, and the party committee's themselves. Return government to what it was supposed to be. PUBLIC SERVICE!!! These people aren't public servants, they are serpents!!!
I once worked with someone that suggested serving in congress should be like jury duty. You get randomly selected and you do your 2 years. Obviously an outrageous idea but there’s some things that would definitely improve!
Like Marjorie Taylor Green, cough cough. 5 years and a day. Announced her resignation in October or November, effective in January the day after she reached 5 years. And she pretended to be all MAGA.
Do something real about insider trading, while you're at it. And make Congress obey the same personnel rules they impose on everyone else.
Massie stopped caring about his constituents once his new lady friend came along. Where he once didn't care if he got shunned by DC's social circles, now he does. His new woman has compromised him.
Almost nobody is all good or all bad, our opinion will vary based on how we understand them and weigh what we think are their good and bad points. I was mildly positive about MTG and then slightly disappointed but not surprised at how mercenary she was about the pension… tho, who can blame her, she didn’t create it?
I see no problem with her getting a pension. She did a good job while she was in office, and attempted to represent her constituents. Most of those Congress Critters do as little as possible.
I rarely disagree with you but on MTG I do. I live next to her district and shop/travel through it more than my own. She used her mouth to push back on Trump, not on truly important things but on Epstein. Also she quit one year before the end of her term( one day after she became eligible for lifetime congressional pension). She complained about healthcare but did nothing but complain about it. Her past
" business " experience is more than suspect, as in look into the whole history of Green Construction to get whole picture. Just an FYI...
After I ETS'ed, I worked as a pipeline laborer while I was figuring shit out and going to school. I'll get a pension from those five years, MTG getting an 8K pension is a nothingburger.
And when they take a job paying less than $200K and manage to become multi millionaires within a few years -- while maintaining a residence in DC, and back in their home states.
For example, you work your butt off, you pay tons in taxes, you stress over college funds, orthodontist costs, health care costs, retirement, your mortgage........while your elected officials literally gave your money away to the lowest IQ people on the planet with the likely justification being kickbacks into their campaigns and outright voting support.
Not only did these Somali fraudsters rake in millions, they did so in cash while filing for govt benefits at the same time. Let that sink in. The state gave them millions in income, they paid themselves in cash and got govt welfare support.
We dutifully trudge off to work every day, earning dollars that are worth less and less, and then dutifully pay our taxes — and for what?
The government doles out BILLIONS of dollars to fraudsters in multiple states, while the Pentagon fails several audits in a row, and Trump wants to increase its budget to $1.5 TRILLION. I’m not sure which is worse. The money dropped into a black hole at the appropriately named War Department is much higher, but somehow more abstract. The money going to fraudsters in multiple states is more in our faces. When independent journalists document dozens of fake day cares, autism treatment centers, or medical transport services receiving millions of dollars apiece, while serving absolutely no clients, we can immediately spot the fraud.
That is one of the perks that truly angers me. That is one of the reasons the cities & states are going bankrupt. In my own little hometown, I was shocked to see how much these people had voted to pay themselves. Double what the average citizen makes.
No, members of Congress do not get full,100% salary-equivalent pensions for serving only five years.
While it is true that members of Congress become vested in the federal retirement system after five years of service—meaning they qualify for a pension starting at age 62—the amount is based on a formula and is far from a full salary.
Here are the key facts regarding congressional pensions for 5 years of service:
Vesting Period: Members must serve at least 5 years to qualify for any pension under the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS), which covers most members.
Pension Amount: With only 5 years of service, a member’s annual pension would be relatively small, typically around 5% to 8.5% of their "high-3" average salary (roughly $8,500–$8,700 annually for a rank-and-file member, based on 2025/2026 data).
Age Requirement: To receive an unreduced pension with only 5 years of service, the member must be at least 62 years old.
Full Pension Requirements: A "full" or more substantial pension requires much longer service (e.g., 20–30+ years) or reaching specific age/service combinations (e.g., age 50 with 20 years, or age 62 with 5 years
The thing you wrote is not true, and not even close to true, that's how so. After 5 years, a Congressperson is vested and gets a pension, but it's not anywhere near a full pension. And nobody in Congress gets what is commonly understood by "full pension" no matter how many years they serve.
I dont know that term limits would work. theres plenty of psychos in line to take their places that are just as bad or worse. u need to scale back the power and scope of government so that the reward for office is much less or it will ineveitably go back to how it is now. the main reward they get is power. you need to take their power away and they wont give it up willingly.
There's so much to like about this idea...but in practice I'm afraid it would just mean that the Administrative State wielded even more power. They would run rings around a 2-year Congressman.
California implemented term limits and now it's totally run by the staffers. Yea, if you make term limits a law you also need to limit the staffer terms. And don't forget the lobbyists. That's anothe whole can of worms...
It sounds good, but it is naive. God bless them, but I know too many people who can’t balance a checkbook or manage a credit card (understand what 17% interest will do to them), much less finesse the budget of this country, our tax dollars. We’ve all seen the funnies of people on the street asked where is Tennessee? Or who is the gov of your state? Or what ocean is to west of California? So many can’t answer, They don’t let anyone just become neuro surgeons, and there is a reason for that. We can’t pretend a government of 350000 million and our dealings with the world is a simple uncomplicated thing. It’s not. We the people just have to pay more attention to who we elect, and what they accomplish. Maybe term limits is the answer, I don’t know. I do think insider trading and the obscene amount of money poured into our political process, must end.
I get your point. But a lot of these congresspeople can't afford to travel and rent a place to live in DC. A lot of us regular folks could never. Especially as there wouldn't be any campaign funds to play with.
No no no, not good enough - it should be a PUNISHMENT! Criminals, especially those against the state, must "repay their debt to society" in the most logical conceivable way!
"'You're a public servant - get me a glass of water!!!'" - George Carlin
In all seriousness, I actually don't think that's "an outrageous idea" at all, and your co-worker is by no means the only person to have it.
I think the same. Wish there's a way to abolish all campaign donations. All candidates get equal amount for campaign financing from the government, federal for the WH and state for state rep/state level offices. No person or corporation can have outsized influence then. And limit Congressional reps from stock investments except ordinary mutual funds & retirement funds.
There's so much to like about this idea...but in practice it just means that the government (i.e. the Administrative State) gets to define who counts as a bona fide candidate.
I wouldn't say so. There are rules about who qualifies to get government funds to run, but I believe even those are set by actual statute (i.e. Congressional vote) rather than by bureaucrats. That has its own problems, of course, and has been very effective in shutting out third parties. But even if a majority party in Congress set rules to deny the opposition government-supplied campaign funds, as long as other funding sources remain legal, it would not be a kill shot to the opposition.
Indeed, it is campaign-finance money which has fully corrupted Congress. Mainly the defense industry, pharma, and the Israel lobby. NGO's and non-profits are basically money-laundering and tax-avoidance-for-the-rich operations. Eliminate tax-exempt status for everything except churches (although some, like LDS, are enormously wealthy on their own), since they are among the few orginizations who provide real charity to the needy.
I should add that the other elephant in the room are gazillionaire donors, the "donor class." This is why Trump kisses Netanyahu's patootie whenever he comes to visit, and fetes the tech gazillionaires in the White House..
It's kind of a necessary evil. I dislike Jeff Bezos, but it's probably better for him to have more of a say how things are run than someone on welfare.
I think it's fair to require x number of signatures and get to on the ballot. That would leave out a sizable number of crackpots. A good idea in '20 was to require a certain number (amount?) in small dollar donations to get on the ballot.
I tried to run for Congress in 2002ish. You needed X number of signatures, but the kicker was the woman told me when I was in there inquiring that unless I could raise 3 or 4 million dollars I shouldn't bother. This was in 2002ish. The job paid $175k.. why did I need $3M or $4M?!?!
The signatures could have gotten me on the ballot. In PA for Congress you need 1,000 signatures I think it was, and at that time you didn't need to provide a statement of finance. The woman was in the local Board Of Elections office. I was asking for advice.
To be precise, as legacy media face more competition from alternatives? Good point. Maybe that’s why the UK government is trying to censor the alternatives. They used to be able to trust the legacy media to “keep the line”, especially on immigration.
I’ve been saying the same thing for years now! You said it even better than I could have. Worrying about retribution when another administration comes in just shows how these scumbags operate and how much they know their money wields power. It’s time to get the govt back into the hands of the people.
I remember during an interview of Pat Buchanan probably 25 years ago, where Buchanan said that it takes a minimum of $250mil to run for President. That was 25 years ago. Kamala Harris burned through over one billion dollars in about 3 months. It amazes me that Americans think the situation is okay.
Awful take. People should run for office because voters are willing to support them. A blank check to every wannabe Senator is a license to steal. Hell I’ll run for Congress just to have a full time job campaigning for a year or so.
The way to eliminate the abuse is to eliminate the ability of the political class to fund every freaking election and make them national.
Here is a better fix:
1) The only people who can donate to a campaign are individuals who can cast a vote in that election. No PACs, no union money, no corporation, no GOP or DCCC campaign slush funds. Just people ( with heatbeats) who live in the district or state
2) Therefore you can donate at the Fed level to a) POTUS b) the Senate and 3) your member of the house.
No one else! Violators are charged with bribery. Officials who knowingly take money .. lose their seat if elected.
3) Give all you want. Who cares at some point its wasted
4) All extra campaign $ must be returned pro rata to all donors 45 days after the vote ( no more war chests for next campaign)
5) No pensions for serving in Congress. No health care except Medicare during your term. You serve , you leave… no extras.
6) All elected officials must blind trust their investments and are precluded from buying individual stocks.
Serving will no longer beca gravy train but a job.
Those who want to work vs be treated like royalty will still run. Fewer gadflies and idiots one hopes.
You touch on some of the bigger issues after your 2nd point. The finer details can be ironed out sure, but I wasn't being specific. I was working towards a quick fix that may be feasible, and won't be as easy to circumvent. In the citizens can vote vein, the Soros's and Musk's and tech guys can still lean elections.
As they should be able to. But if Elon or Soros give 100MM to one person running for senate it will be public knowledge and those voters can reject that. And its one vote.
If he gives $5MM to every candidate ( 150MM since 1/3 of the Senate is up each election) it gets lost in the campaign and he influences 33 votes
You can’t stop them from being involved. And you cant get money out of elections but you can limit the damage.
Sounds great. Sadly, as someone who worked closely with those in Board of Elections... It just won't work. Not without a complete burn to the ground rebuild of the entire system.
Equally critical is Voter ID to assure non citizen and dead people can't vote ( and assuring folks can't vote more than one time). I still can't understand how Democrats get a pass on the red face test for failure to support Voter ID. Bringing in voters was quite a popular tactic as well. Look at how much money went to bringing in certain immigrant populatons and setting them up with housing, food stamps, education and health benefits. And of course there was the outright banning of President Trump from Twitter and other media.
" I still can't understand how Democrats get a pass on the red face test for failure to support Voter ID."
A few reasons. The press backs them up for the most part. Their actions enable them to get more votes so they win and therefore they can continue. They wrap their arguments into the history of poll taxes and literacy tests, claiming demanding voter ID is the same as those old forms of discrimination (that the Democrats implemented and benefited from). And the democratic press and stupid voters buy into it.
You know that if demanding voter id benefited them they'd be all over it.
Remember, right and wrong don't matter. Getting power and then keeping it and never losing it is what's important to Democrats. And they will do most anything to achieve those goals.
Campaign finance is a critical issue. I am not an advocate of public finance, much prefer contributions limited to individual US citizens residing in the district or state of election. No PACS, no “ in kind”, no advocacy ads from outside organizations and absolutely no contributions from non citizens. Limited to $ 1000 or less per year. No exceptions.
No lobbyist activity at any level of government, no NGO jobs for relatives.
Accurate and timely campaign contribution filing, disqualification from office for any non compliance or fraudulent contributions.
Just like charity organizations, no campaign should be financed by taxpayer dollars.
To avoid the specter of “ self financed “ campaigns the $1000 or less/ year limit should apply to the candidate also. No reason you should be a millionaire with a built in advantage.
Unspent campaign funds should be returned to donors, not contributed to others campaigns or kept by the candidate.
In Canada we have donation limits of under $2K per citizen and corporations are not eligible to donate to politicians or political parties. This allows parties with many supporters to gather more money (as they should) while preventing a small number of wealthy donors from controlling political success through donations.
Of course, Citizens United is a major obstacle to something similar in the US.
I don't know. Canada is fully controlled by the WEF, and the new world order of the surveillance state. I am not sure that's really much better. Perhaps we are just all screwed.
Couldn’t disagree more. Rather than government funding of campaigns—chosen by government employees— I would propose unlimited contributions by individuals and outlaw all anonymous giving. Donations would also need to be posted within 48 hours of their being received by the Campaign.
I've been thinking about this for a while. I used to buy into the free speech argument, and that money is speech (and it is, too a degree), because it can take money to get the word out.
But it's also clear that, certainly in this century anyway, our political parties do not listen to voters, although Democrats seem to be more afraid of their left wing than Republicans are wary of any of their stupid, ignorant voters. So Pharma and NGOs and labor unions get their way regardless of what voters want.
So I've thought that, yes, everyone deserves the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. But petitions don't have to be accompanied by checks.
I now am tending toward limiting donations only to US citizens, and to a certain amount ($2000, $5000, or something like that). This way voters, not special interests with deep pockets, have our representatives attention.
So, yes, companies, unions, NGOs, charities - anything that is not a citizen individual - cannot donate money to campaigns. Why should Pharma, or teachers unions, or the Sierra Club, or Big Oil, have outside influence on our government? All those organizations can tell our representatives what they think of legislation but they can't buy access with money. Most of us commenting cannot buy access but all of those entities can.
But the other thing, which I know I'll never see because it cannot be reversed to any real extent, is a much smaller government that has much less influence over our lives. When the Feds spend trillions and regulate most aspects of our lives then there is a big incentive for groups to get their pieces of the pie.
>> Why should Pharma, or teachers unions, or the Sierra Club, or Big Oil, have outside influence on our government
Because voters are too uninformed/busy/stupid/whatever to understand every issue. Same with politicians-- they are more or less empty vessels. The average person has little to no understanding about how much the price of oil impacts our daily lives. Or how EU sanctions on big tech chip away US hegemony. I'm not going to defend the AFT, but labor unions in general formed for a very good reason . Lobbying is a necessity, it's just that there has to be some way to limit the power of lobbyists and their money.
I hear you. My concept doesn't stop lobbying. As I wrote, everyone can "petition the government for a redress of grievances." If they're not an individual citizen they just cannot send a check with their petitions.
I'm not against lobbying. I think companies and organizations can validly represent groups of people with similar ideas and that's okay. I don't like the fact that those with money have outsize influence. In the GOP they've been pro immigration for decades because of the Chamber of Commerce, even when the majority of Republicans and Conservatives were against it.
And I get your point about uninformed and stupid voters. And they drive me crazy. But I am reluctant to say that we should trade their stupidity for the dominance of special interests. Both situations are bad.
And I'm open to debate about this. I know my proposal comes with consequences so vigorous debate is necessary. But there is something very wrong with our Congress and therefore with our government. It's self-centered and unresponsive and lazy and gives massive influence to the unelected bureaucracy. We seem to have the worst of all worlds.
I reject the false equivalence here. I don't remember the tea party rioting, burning cars and assaulting law enforcement. Any groups that fund those activities should be investigated and exposed, whether they are foreign or domestic, left or right.
Groups that FUND criminal activities ought to be investigated and exposed. No doubt! But, groups that promote or even fund legal political activities ought not be harassed. That's how we are losing our high-trust society and looking more like Mexico every year.
Fine line here. I agree 100% that they shouldn't be prosecuted or criminally harassed but I certainly wouldn’t object to some fact-based press examination to the public benefit. So much of the problem is that the modern press prosecutes rather than reports. A free and neutral press is the foundation of public trust.
Agreed. The marketplace of ideas should be open and free. What troubles me is that one man's "criminal" could be another's heartfelt cause. Not so long ago they wanted to criminalize COVID skepticism and election denial. We can't take that path and preserve what has made us prosperous and great.
The paradox is that we need to pretend/believe in the rule of law in order to restore it. The greatest danger is when everybody assumes a winner-take-all attitude. If we postpone regular order until after we defeat our "enemies" we have burned the village in order to save it.
I guess I see civilization as the great pretender, the great balancing act. Regular order is the calm over chaos.
The winner who takes all will rise and fall on the strength and weakness of power without mercy. This is the winner who will tear the loser apart and will be torn apart in turn, as sure as night follows day.
Our political behavior has become barbaric, as unmasked hatred of each other, and it's scary.
Even here, in such forums built on rational give and take, civility fails with an argument and the teeth come out.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you. I think I,m just too old. Or maybe the difference comes down to place - DC is in my drinking water, and DC is definitely not a clear mountain steam.
While I agree with you - what follows may be taking it too far; but my point is that the grip on our minds is all encompassing.
The struggle for our minds today is multi-faceted. It arrives daily at us with persuasions of traditional media, in digital media and through "influencers". It flows with crowd funding and on plays out on university campuses. It is a battle without soldiers in uniforms or guns. Everyone participates because we are not living in peacetime; we exist within permanent conflicts which most simply do not recognize as war.
Yes, for sure. My point would be that we have to break that grip with all the will we can muster. I no longer watch tv news, or read newspapers, or engage social media at all (beyond a couple of online news and culture sources I find interesting and more or less reliable). I'm at peace with the fact that I,m often a day or even days behind events. If something notable happens I manage to hear about it quick enough one way or another. Live and immediate reporting is usually no more than supposition and invention anyway so seems essentially pointless.
These days I'd go for homeschool and flip phones. Books are better than screens.
No arguing with your premise--I left the city long ago.
Assange argued that internet leaks forced the government to have to return to old school ways--pencil and paper, and through this process the government lost a lot of power. Leaks created friction within the government.
The digital world created a reality where the government itself would seek less power.
Any roof can spring leaks - its material doesn't much matter. Rain is rain and people are people.
I wasn't paying much particular attention back then, though I will confess that both Assange and Manley gave me visceral creeps. I've heard stated with equal vehemence the opposite views that the published classified material was and was not dangerous to sources and methods. Maybe the truth is still out on that, but I don¡t know.
Seems to me that the government very likely classifies a significant amount of material that can and should be made public in reasonable time. Time-sensitive national security secrets need to be protected - if that means frisking officials and searching briefcases, that,s what should happen.
I am always interested in your comments, noting how similar we are in weird ways, and yet with reactions usually so markedly different.
Power is a big enough word to cover a lot of the ground between good and evil, so many kinds and degrees - governing and military for sure, but also physical, athletic, legal, parental, moral, intellectual, inventive, mathematical, verbal, artistic, the list goes on. Power depends on control - lose the wheel and power will spill out your life-blood against a tree.
A simple life depends upon having sufficient power of self-knowledge and self-control to enable and preserve it.
I agree only the groups that fund illegal activity should be investigated. But groups like CREW fund legal activity like keeping Trump on the ballot make us look stupid too. Listening to the Supreme Court transcript this week not being able to define a women made me feel like I was living in late stage USSR….
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this, but you are going to hear responses about January 6th, Unite the Right Rally, etc. I mean, sorta kinda maybe, but it's not the same thing as what the NGO protest industrial complex churns out to manufacture consent.
I reject it, too. Lazy thinking with a blind spot for the actual crimes of the Biden administration, which is a recurring theme here.
Biden's IRS and FBI targeting of people was pure political retribution and abuse using the fictional J6 as cover. In the case of Trump there are actual organized groups and funding arms dedicated to destroying him and his cabinet - and therefore our Republic - and any who want the president to succeed. They fund all the infiltration, riots, and fraud we see crippling Dem cities and states, as well as the lawfare clogging up our courts. This is an organized machine dedicated to preventing the President from governing. Entirely different.
And don't get me started on the Seditious 6 mentioned as a throwaway here. Perhaps a clip from the late night *comedian* Jimmy Kimmell or darling of integrity Rachel Maddow could lend some valuable context? /s
Fine line here. I agree 100% that they shouldn't be prosecuted or criminally harassed but I certainly wouldn’t object to some fact-based press examination to the public benefit. So much of the problem is that the modern press prosecutes rather than reports. A free and neutral press is the foundation of trust.
Right, and when the AutoPen bozo's administration did it, or the Bush and Obama admins did it it wasn't as big a deal as when Orange Man does it.
This hypocracy just keeps it going.
"Sources familiar with the matter" and tipoffs to CNN, MSDNC and FOX are all bogus, no matter what the pundits say.
In the case of these operatives who are actively seeking to undermine literally everything that holds this strange animal we call the US together, especially in MN we need to make an actual stand and bring the people responsible to justice.
Otherwise why do we even pay taxes at all?!?
To be shat upon?
To see the people who commit treason just skate along like nothing ever happened?
Well said. Unlike the non-stop, "not a legitimate" President after 45 was duly elected and then immediately undermined, impeached twice, etc on the basis of nothing, the charges leveled against "the resistance" Never Trumpers, Roger Stone raid, etc, etc are grounded in fact and the historical record.
We are currently working through the George Floyd riots mark II, with some of the same actors reprising their Floyd roles. As Matt notes, Hitler is still Hitler, just as Bush was Hitler and Vance, or Rubio will be Hitler. The narrative is tired and unchanging.
Yes, images of ICE officers yanking people from cars splash the sausage-making of immigration reform into America's living rooms in ways most would prefer to avoid - and is the only card the trump-hating media can play. Americans voted for safe streets and secure borders. Securing the border proved easiest and everyone sensible understood that narratives of children being ripped from the arms of their parents by Trump's Gestapo was always going to be the response of the destroyers of America's working class.
Dems understand that if Minnesota burns again, Republicans will do well - but only if the economy continues to recover. If the economy does recover, Dems who ignored fraud in Dem run states and cities in particular, and instead shrieked that Hitler is waging war on Americans will have only a partisan audience. Unhappy independents will vote with their wallets when push comes to shove.
If Trump manages to cap credit card rates at 10 percent with Warren this summer, that's going to significantly reduce the sting of the ICE images on the screen at the end of year one of Trump's reforms. Jobs improve, removals will continue, confirming Trump's resolve in the face of adverse criticism. Let the dogs bark, the caravan moves on.
Nice summary. Speaking of Hitler, he was ecstatic when the Great Depression started, because he knew that it guaranteed his NSDAP party would get enough votes and support to take over the government. Can always find a Hitler analogy!
Oh noes, tHe iNsUrReCtIoN. You wouldn't know what to call it if you didn't have the MSM cartoon running in your head. Hell, even the MSM no longer calls it an insurrection.
How was it an insurrection when not a single person was charged with "insurrection"? Did you know the average age at that protest was 57? Yeah im sure a bunch of boomers were going to take over the government.
You would be wise to remember it is our HOUSE - you know the PEOPLE's house.
Also i can count on both hands how many Ds have denied election results...including HRC.
What exactly was it that Trump said that caused your precious insurrection?
Did you know, on film, Pelosi both admitted she should've immediately brought in the National Guard (per trumps request) and she said verbatim; it is my fault - on camera!
How about 4 months of rioting, looting and violence all across the country where a felon and drug addict with a rap sheet a mile long became your savior. Do you realize the destruction caused tens of billions in damage (most often to black biz owners - the very people they were supposedly protesting for) and over 30 deaths.
I suppose that gave you a boner. Govern me harder, baby! I remember a day when liberals were against the man. Love of country is not the same as love of government.
No reasonable person would call 1/6 an insurrection. Not a single person other than a Trump supporter died from 1/6.
I would get worn out harboring the HATE that has consumed you. Put your mask back on so you can follow tHe sCiEnCe!
And BTW I'm a moderate, not a Trump simp, but I have two eyes.
Yes, a resurrection without weapons! So smart…all the while they were invited into the people’s house. If they were democrats, it would have been called peaceful protesting!
Elmer Stuart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy. What did Trump say? How about innumerable lies saying he won? How about saying, "We're going to go to the Capital and fight like hell. Do 2020 riots justify trying to steal the 2020 election and trying to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. The balance of your text is just one one after another. You and your ilk are delusional nut jobs. Get help.
Yes, they should just go after the people who weaponized government because they will crucify republicans no matter what. Conservatives always think they should be about ethics and not play hardball and somehow that will win in the end--it never does.
They were not trying to overturn anything, you goofball.
There was massive fraud in the 2020 elections, and they were attempting to convince Congress Critters to hold off on certification until that fraud was investigated. Yes, it did deteriorate into a riot, but do you seriously believe that the people who own the most firearms in the country would leave them all at home the day they were trying to "overturn" anything?
But “overtuend”? have heard of no J6er who wanted to overturn a clean election. They all wanted it cleaned up; investigated, not a priori overturned. So yes, Biden and Co were indeed weaponizing government. The other Biden moves against such as Catholics and concerned parents are flagrant cases of vilification and oppression. Accountability for this hasn’t been seen yet.
In the case of the leftist Floyd and anti-ICE riots, the motivation is explicitly anti-law and anti-enforcement. (eg “No borders, no wall, no USA at all”.)
Risking a tangential thought- The POTUS pledges to defend the Constitution against all enemies., which includes a bunch of groups like Islamists, Marxists, Socialists, globalists, etc. Thta incudes the so-called “uni-party”. Tough job, really. Bari Weiss after the 10/7 massacre posted a piece about the bad optics of self-defense, which applies to the USA (not to mention Western Civ’ in general).
But to your question, yes, for reasons well-summarized elsewhere. Busy now, but I can try to get you an outline off the top of my head later.
Of course, another both sides are guilty article from the Fence-Sitter in Chief, Mr. Taibbi. What Mr. Taibbi conveniently forgets is that Donald Trump had over 90 bogus charges against him in four separate criminal cases. Plus nearly 1600 J6ers were arrested for exercising their constitutional rights. Which a very large majority did peaceably and without incident. Nearly 1300 J6ers were convicted and over 700 were sent to prison. How many Democrats and FBI/DOJ people have been sent to prison for trashing the constitutional rights of their political opponents? ZERO.
It's apparently very easy to get a bunch of swampy RINOs and Never Trumpers to bash MAGA and Trump. But it must be impossible to find any MAGA people to interview, because none are present here.
As for FIRE, did they defend any J6 defendant in any case? I can't find any. They are just like the ACLU, they defend only those they agree with politically.
I wanted to say a few words here in defense of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.
In a brutal environment they're trying their hardest to stick up for speech principles, irrespective of politics. It’s a thankless job. I’d hope people would remember how much they’ve done over the years to stand up for academic freedom and the First Amendment.
Way back in December of 2000, before there was any public conception of “wokeness” or any idea about a problem with civil liberties on the liberal left, they took a stand against "diversity statements” at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. They did this not because they were against diversity, but because these statements – which became epidemic – are compulsory speech. Asking academic applicants to submit essays explaining their “commitment to diversity,” they said, was as objectionable as a 1950s question asking for a statement from an applicant about his or her "commitment to patriotism.”
Conversely, the ACLU’s failure to stand up against “diversity statements” was a major early red flag. In the early 2000s the ACLU was singularly focused on George W. Bush and the civil liberties problems that arose after 9/11 in connection with his War on Terror, which on one hand was fine because those problems were very real (illegal surveillance, blacklisting, torture, and on and on). Unfortunately, they missed a major anti-speech movement brewing on campuses. FIRE did not. It argued early for more due process in sexual harassment cases, repeatedly stood up for students were disciplined for insufficiently progressive views (amazingly they had to back a student who was effectively suspended after taking America’s side in a post-9/11 discussion in Arabic), and they took up the cases of a lot of teachers being squeezed on the academic freedom side.
When a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was disciplined for explaining Catholic views on homosexuality in an “Introduction to Catholicism” class, FIRE stood up for that professor. They went after Yale University for censoring the key cartoons in Jytte Clausen’s “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” i.e. the ones of Mohammed. That took courage. In a case that has relevance today, they went after a school with a professor who compelled undergrads to write letters opposing the Iraq War (the problem of schools mixing political activism with scholarship has since grown exponentially). In a case that unfortunately previewed practices by both political parties, they opposed Texas Tech University’s policy of creating a “free speech gazebo” where activities like pamphleteering were allowed, but only after a six-day review period. Free Speech Zones!
I could go on and on. FIRE has decades of cases showing they'll defend plaintiffs or complainants with the full range of controversial views. When they committed resources to taking on campus speech codes and compelled thought and cancel culture, no one else was doing this. They were a crucial resource for reporters like me when no one else in the legal community seemed to care about digital censorship. I won’t talk about what its founders and leaders are like personally, except to say I never felt they were anything other than totally committed to free expression.
Since Trump took office last year, they’ve been in a tough spot. This president often openly thumbs his nose at legal niceties. Some of his policymakers seem not to know or care what the law is. Even when Trump is ostensibly trying to fix civil liberties problems – the elimination of DEI litmus tests is one example – he ends up creating ranges of new problems by doing it in ways that are themselves not legal. If you read FIRE’s amicus brief in Harvard’s suit against Trump’s HHS, you can see their frustration:
“FIRE’s criticism of Harvard is well-deserved. Among other missteps, Harvard has maintained illiberal speech codes and unfair disciplinary procedures, pressured students to sign a civility pledge, blacklisted members of independent student organizations, and punished faculty for defending unpopular clients9 and making unpopular arguments. Harvard has finished dead last in FIRE’s annual campus free speech rankings for two years running…”
But, they wrote, “exactly none of Harvard’s problems… in any way excuse [the Trump administration’s] unlawful, unconstitutional demands.” They went on to cite a list of Trump policies that just aren't tenable, like “prohibiting the admission of international students who are ‘hostile’ to ‘American values’ or ‘supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,’” or “mandating viewpoint diversity among students and faculty,” and “ending recognition of pro-Palestinian student groups and disciplining student members of those groups.”
As to the last point, FIRE has occasionally taken heat from so-called liberals for the alleged crime of being insufficiently supportive of the pro-Palestine movement. This is because they've criticized pro-Palestinian student protests that themselves were no-brainer violations of the First Amendment – doing things like blocking pathways on campus or exercising the infamous “heckler’s veto.” (Is a free speech organization supposed to endorse those things?) Yet here they are joining up with Harvard, an organization they’ve criticized relentlessly, to say the Trump administration can’t use the threat of withholding funding to prevent the formation of pro-Palestinian groups, whom they're accused of not supporting.
Again, this is thankless work. It doesn’t win friends among conservatives and doesn’t particularly impress people on the other side.
As was the case with the ACLU in the Ira Glasser days, FIRE is sometimes slammed both for being too political and for not being political enough. That can’t be a fun place to be. I hope people appreciate what the group is trying to do. Civil liberties don’t have many true advocates left.
Matt, I appreciate you trying to balance some of these issues out.
However, I have growing doubts that this is a reasonable approach anymore. There are crazies on both sides, but I sense there are not reasonable, balanced people on both sides.
Just watching the Minnesota madness, there appears to be literally no one to talk the left down from complete irrationality, while there are still some on the right that might be able to convince the Trump admin to think about long term consequences of questionable actions. In fact, this what you article demonstrates - discussion is still possible on at least that side.
But Where were any sane voices on the left when they were escalating lawfare and censorship the past 10 years? Where are they now on Minnesota? Who on the left is not supporting Walz and company’s insane tactics? Who on the left would admit Biden’s infirmities until they became glaring? Who on the left publicly stated Kamala was a laughable candidate? There is no one on that side of the aisle with any courage or integrity. What do you do when there is no one you can deal with who is not corrupted?
I don’t know the answer, but to expect “balance” in this situation seems incredibly naive.
After Trump’s win, I told a distraught academic colleague and friend that any effective postmortem would have to begin with the admission that Harris was a truly awful candidate. She completely denied it. I suggested she watch a discussion on the blog Triggernometry where a Democrat strategist reviewed Kamala’s failings. She refused, saying she couldn’t spare half an hour on a Republican site.
Perhaps you didn't notice, but Trump won the election. Evidently tens of millions of Americans found him and his record acceptable, relative to Mrs. Harris.
That's one heck of a deep psychological rut you seen to be stuck in, Mr. Clark. I suggest you stop digging.
In particular, give up on the blatantly obvious, cheap ad hominems. In an intellectual storm, they're a sure sign that your ship is sinking.
All of you and the rest of the Trump obsessed leftist boomers have the exact same way of arguing. You can’t win on the merits so you try to make it a morality contest by arguing against words that were never said. It’s so disingenuous but at this point seems to be so baked into the way you all operate that you no longer realize you’re doing it
Kamala was by far the most hilariously inept nominee for president of my lifetime. There’s a real argument to be made she’s the worst in the history of America, although her prior boss is stiff competition on that front. In a world with truly objective media, one who didn’t view it as their duty to run cover for whoever the dems put up in a given race, neither Biden or Harris ever would have gotten anywhere near the White House. Arguing for the intelligence of Kamala Harris marks you as someone so far out of touch that it’s pointless to even argue this point….
Her total lack of incisive intelligence was difficult to ignore. Her response to nearly every seriously probing question (on the rare occasions when she actually submitted to spontaneous questioning) was to erupt in a blizzard of unfocussed New Age cliches. Word salad drenched in a fine vinaigrette lightly seasoned with a unique flavour of idiocy. Sometimes she just seemed dimwitted, when, struggling desperately, she bought time by declaring “I’m not Joe Biden,” causing the sympathetic audience to erupt in nervous laughter. Why do you think she’s never run in a primary?
Her total lack of incisive intelligence was difficult to ignore. Her response to nearly every seriously probing question (on the rare occasions when she actually submitted to spontaneous questioning) was to erupt in a blizzard of unfocussed New Age cliches. Word salad drenched in a fine vinaigrette lightly seasoned with a unique flavour of idiocy. Sometimes she just seemed dimwitted, when, struggling desperately, she bought time by declaring “I’m not Joe Biden,” causing the sympathetic audience to erupt in nervous laughter. It's no wonder she was afraid to actually run in a primary.
I think she should run as the Democrat Party candidate for President in 2028. In fact, let's keep up with tradition and dispense with the primaries entirely. Polling at 5% in a primary was never a legitimate reason to disqualify a great candidate like Kamala who checks so many boxes.
I agree with your comment. To steel man it, the lack of push back from the left on their own people shows an unholy intention toward our country. There’s enough out there now to support that. They say it out loud now. To strike a balance with an enemy like that is frankly, dangerous. Matt, I think you will find your readers will have a growing impatience with you if you retreat. There may be two sides to a story in peaceful times, but not when people have declared war on you. Why is it so hard to wrap your brain around it? Especially with everything you know, and have been through. Is your memory so short? You helped create the momentum. Now you back down from carrying through. It doesn’t compute.
Thanks Matt! I’ve almost lost hope for you on several occasions over the last year (I’m significantly more opposed and disgusted by Trump than you) but I still subscribe because I know deep down you really are principled about free speech. You are spot on about FIRE. I support them 100% both financially and their mission and work. It really is a thankless task to be principled and non partisan. Because they take flak from all sides depending on who they’re defending. I really wish more people could start with principles and get past tribalism but alas, it’s against human nature.
Try going on PowerLine blog and presenting two sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict. A lifetime ban could be in your future. They are definitely pro-Israel.
I used to be a regular donor to the ACLU. I defended them to Jewish friends in Skokie in "77" who were shocked at their defense of the NAZI rally. I attended the counter protest. I now donate to FIRE when I can. They are very consistent in their defense of free speech. Sadly, the ACLU is still getting the praise and money for defending "trans rights". FIRE needs more serious donors.
Agree on all points. I also support FIRE financially and subscribe to their newsletter. I have a lot of respect for what they do. We need more groups like this to evaluate on the issue only and not the politics. I'm so tired of the politics.
Matt, I agree with your position, which reminds me to send FIRE a donation. I have supported Trump as the superior alternative to the amazingly inept Harris, but I’m increasingly concerned about how he keeps shooting himself in the foot with some of these moves. Maybe he’s determined to give the opposition forces a taste of their own medicine. Or maybe he’s losing it. The recent photo of despicable neocon toad Lindsay Graham laughing happily with Trump is hardly reassuring.
FIRE used to publish a great book rating all the college campuses on their freedom of speech policies and behaviors, giving each college a green, yellow or red light in all different aspects of free speech on campus. We used it to choose what schools to consider for our youngest student. I remember being very grateful that such a publication existed.
You and Walter have discussed this a couple of months ago, but you missed what he was saying.
- Talking Points are the same as commercials, not Free Speech.
Ask Walter about the business guy that he talked to about hiring Paid Trolls to post/speak Talking Points.
They are essentially "laundering" commercials through hiring Paid Trolls to speak them. This is no different than paying someone to say what brand of beer or dish soap that they use.
- Talking Points are not Free Speech, they are commercials, and commercials are regulated.
The same as, paid "protestors" are not exercising their right of Free Speech.
Paying "protestors" to riot is a tactic used by all sides for centuries, They are not exercising their right to Free Speech.
BTW, I am a Free Speech absolutist, and when Walter mentioned the concept of "laundering" commercials through people, that put everything into context.
If you have a foreign student, paid to come to an American campus to protest, write articles in the campus paper, that is not Free Speech.
- They are an unregistered foreign agent, which is a crime.
When you have student "protestors" handed tents, headscarves, signs, etc..., and given training, that is not Free Speech, so they can be shut down.
That is the same for street "protestors". If they are paid, trained, handed gear, bricks, etc..., then that is not Free Speech, so they can be shut down.
A Lobbyist is a salesman, a huckster for a product. Everyone understands that what they are saying is a commercial for their product, not Free Speech.
- If they are unregistered, that is a crime.
Free Speech is the right to say whatever you want, but not to be a shill for somebody else.
BTW, Everyone understands when someone is trying to sell you something. As long as they are open about what they are doing, they are not breaking the law.
Paid Trolls speaking Talking Points, is commercial speech, Lobbying, and is not Free Speech. If they are doing that without stating that they are Paid Trolls, then they are breaking the law.
- They need to go to the Justice Department and turn State's Evidence.
That's the only way to shut down these networks of disruption.
With chatbots, one person can now command millions of "unique" voices.
What does "speech" even mean any more?
Setting aside how we are going to apply very old rules to a future we don't even understand yet--but even our basic definitions are lost in this new context.
It really is hard to understate the amount of change happening and the speed it is unfolding.
I think the more a person relies on rules, ritual and routine--the more they are completely unprepared for what is happening.
Looking to the past only works when the days repeat themselves.
Thanks for some very thought-provoking alternative ways of thinking about this. We often forget how much “consent” is manufactured. Old Hollywood movies used a few hundred extras and some clever camera angles to make it seem like 10,000 people were in the picture. In a similar vein, modern hired agitators jack up the noise/chaos volume to make it seem like they have much more support than they actually have.
But Matt, please answer my original question: Has FIRE defended ANY J6 defendant? All were not guilty. Or were they, all guilty by association? Did FIRE defend any of the over 8,000 military members discharged for refusing the COVID shot on religious grounds? That's a 1A right just as much as college students' speech. What about parents arrested for speaking out at school board meetings, or teachers fired for refusing to take the COVID shot? All of these are 1A violations by government entities. Do they not count because they were not on a college campus?
Is FIRE a true advocate of civil liberties if they only defend speech and only on college campuses? (Regardless of their claim of branching out from colleges)
According to Wikepedia, one of the co-founders of FIRE was Harvey Silverglate, who served on the board of the ACLU of Massachusetts. So, we have the Federal Government, the ACLU of Massachusetts, colleges, college students, and a former ACLU board member, all entities well known for their ideals steeped in traditional American values. And all of them defending each other against each other. Two thumbs up on that arrangement.
FIRE is a good organization and deserves support. They are great at championing the free speech of individuals being crushed by authoritarian institutions. I would want them on my side. Our current difficulty is the crushing of free speech by mobs, sometimes using violence (Minneapolis?) especially when the police have been politicized and can’t or won’t show up. Both sides do not play by the same rules.
FiRE and its supporters must believe that what was broken under obama and biden can be fixed. I just dont know that to be the case. Where is the evidence that the left will ever return to embrace such principles for all people and not just when its to their benefit?
Journalism is actually supposed to be a “both sides” exercise in which the reader is expected to think for themselves and form their own opinion. Or it was at one time, at least. Matt is simply attempting to defend FIRE (subject topic of this piece) and show examples of their nonpartisan interest in defending free speech - being what the ACLU once was. Yes, Trump got unfairly attacked with a bunch of bullshit charges, brought on by advocates pretending to be respectable prosecutors and judges. It never should’ve happened - it’s a stain on American history. But Trump has also since been disappointing with his respect and understanding of 1A when it serves his ideas of governance. Why it would be Matt’s job to turn a piece about FIRE in to an essay in defense of Donald Trump or J6 is beyond me. Regardless of what happened to Trump, 1A should viewed the same. And what happened to him shouldn’t be the blueprint for law-bending revenge.
For pure advocacy and propaganda disguised as journalism, simply pick your (formerly) mainstream media vehicle of choice - they’re mostly all still out there. And there’s also definitely no shortage of independent journalists who will blindly defend Trump, no matter what he says and does.
Matt, thanks for trying to stay atop that fence in order to see what’s happening on both sides.
I’m not sure where the idea that journalism was ever supposed to be a “both sides“ profession came from. Newspapers have always been owned by people that were trying to influence others. Maybe in schools they teach a high minded ideal that you should only seek the truth. We all know that’s bullshit. I think anybody who’s looking for a journalist on one side of the fence or the other, there are many many other publications that you can read from. I personally respect Matt’s objectivity. It seems that he is supporting FIRE and pointing out that the pendulum has swung the other direction. In politics, it always seems like a “you did this to me, I deserve to do it to you“ mentality.
We should all have freedom of speech without permission from some authority. However, I do agree with those who say that a visitor in this country does not have the right to propagandize. I would hate it if someone came into my house and started preaching to me about how I’m doing things wrong. I would never do that to another. Spout your opinions from your own house.
If you are not able to discern the complexities of an issue, someone such as Taibbi would seem like a fence sitter rather than a thoughtful individual. Gimme Matt any day of the week and twice on Sunday. He doesn’t park his brain in a parochial lot.
Some say a sign of adulthood is being able to holding in mind two opposing views at the same time. The strength to withstand the tension, the impasse forcing a new view. That’s not fence sitting, it’s intellectual courage.
U may b right about all the detail, I’m not well versed enough but tribalism is an outdated way to run a mind.
No. The vast majority of J06 protesters did not come close to assaulting police. Some did, and it was appropriate to charge them. The police assaulted numerous protesters. The tale is told by a simple comparison of J06 with the BLM riots in Minnesota.
Damages: BLM 1 billion, J06 1 million.
Deaths: BLM 2 citizens murdered by rioters, J06 2 protesters killed by police.
vast differences — BLM did 1,000 times the damage, yet the law enforcement response was disproportionate in the opposite direction of the damages
In BLM politicians Tim Walz and Jacob Frey let Minneapolis burn, doing essentially nothing.
It’s disingenuous to say J6 was a protest. It was partially that and I’ll concede most of them were peaceful. But that isn’t why it’s a day of infamy now is it?
Cade, you seem to be an independent thinker. I have strong feelings about this, and you raised a rhetorical question. I’m sure you have an answer worth hearing. I’m all ears.
Matt's not on the fence. He's captured by folks like you, as evidenced by his kid gloves response to your insulting pushback. When he gets similar insulting pushback back from obvious lefties, he doesn't hold back the snark.
Agree entirely with your description of MT’s weak position. It’s not just fence sitting, he goes to great lengths to avoid calling Trumps illegalities what they are.
Indeed. It took me awhile to accept because I'm a longtime fan, but the dude is probably the saddest and most severe case of audience capture I've ever seen. He handles left wing critiques with his signature snark and doesn't mince words. But when criticism comes from obvious right-leaning posters, he goes out of his way to explain away his perceived transgressions. For such a seemingly principled journalist, I imagine he can't feel great about his sliding scale approach to criticism and issue selection. But I bet the money helps. Sigh.
Trump didn't tell the US military not to obey commands--that's over the line. And compromises national security. Just because they said "illegal" orders doesn't excuse it. So I don't see that as equivalent to what they weaponized against Trump. That is much worse. And their weaponization was real; Trump has real basis for his claims that that video was seditious and that these officials in MN are close to insurrection themselves let alone inciting it.
Personally I would go after them. Especially the Soros money and the likes of Neville Roy Singham. To me it’s more than a civil liberties issue. The system of Super PAC money and black money etc has opened the door for foreign governments to influence not only our elections but more importantly our national narrative.
These protests are not spontaneous. They are organized and funded. I say follow the money
Glenn Beck already showed the orgs funding in three different categories. Protests, elections, and I can't remember the other. Soros, the usual Rockefeller, META, Google, the Linkind guy, and more.
Here’s a radical idea…close all the tax loopholes that allow these donor class assholes to drive the government’s actions. Then both teams would equally suffer and everyday Americans from both sides would be better off.
What you say. But as you report, “Trump is Hitler,” and “Trump is still Hitler.” Every single action of the Trump administration hounded to federal district court for injunctive relief+, which has been successful for the most part and granted for the most ridiculous of legal reasoning.
“Protesters” physically confronting uniformed law enforcement to prevent apprehension of proven forcible felons in this country illegally. Encouraged and excused by their “elected” leaders.
My point — there is no backing off by my former political party. So while you are admirable in your (and, my) ideals, the values of the opposition are changed. Their tactics are ruthless. No exceptions allowed.
Institutions as we formally recognized and respected them — gone. “Gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday, gone like a soldier in the Civil War, bang bang . . .” Despite our longing, they ain’t never coming back. Unless we can erase years of propaganda and brainwashing. Can we?
Elon's DOGE exposed USAID. Massive fraud. Massive waste. The reaction? Crucify him. Dems and news media (same thing) made him public enemy #1 (already hated of course for the sin of helping Trump get elected). Within weeks obedient sheep were vandalizing his cars. Politicians want to be politicians because that is the absolute best place from which to steal and never receive any punishment for the theft.
Trump hit the nail on the head when he had the Congress gathered at the Trump Kennedy Center a week or so ago. I heard the clip where Trump said something to the effect that Republicans just aren't as mean as Democrats. That's the simple truth
When Obama and Clinton deported millions of illegals, we conservatives never dreamed of violently protesting. In fact, why would anyone want to protest such a thing. Conservatives seem to be a different breed than liberals.
"Republicans are not as mean as Democrats" Maybe some truth to that, but I'm thinking "desperate" is more applicable. The current Republican Party represents the sane, the rational, traditional values, which has become as simple now as knowing what a woman is. The Dems on the other hand have gone so so far off the rails that they absolutely cannot compete in a fair competition of ideas, beliefs, or values, so that they are forced to resort to desperate measures, gross and constant lying of course, but also endeavoring to control speech, thought, election fraud
Sowell's "Vision of the Anointed" I thought explained it pretty well, except he called it the vision of the anointed (self-anointed, in my view), as opposed to the tragic vision. The tragic vision acknowledges that so many things in life are beyond our control, while the anointed vision always has "solutions", but never with any consequences.
Certain(same old) states are objecting to “showing their work” to the feds to audit expenditures. Do we need to hear anything more to evidence the corruption?
Same with providing their voter registration data bases. Now a Clinton judge says they don't have to. DOJ is just usurping their power. Devil forbid the start matching illegals as reg voters.
It’s amazing to me that many conservatives, touting liberty, freedom and all that, are willing to sacrifice their rights to privacy in order to find what amounts to a few “illegals”. Do know what and where the information DOGE absconded with is? Whose hands is it in? Do you know that information can be used to cut off access to your bank accounts? Also, the anti-protest attitude is bizarre. We were lied to over and over regarding the Viet Nam war. The protesters were right. The right to protest is ours, and the punishment for nonviolent civil disobedience used to be a couple nights in jail and a fine. Thats what separates free countries from authoritarianism or dictatorships. Now it’s evidently punishable by death at the hands of unvetted amateurs with 47 days of training.
Just for you, some pertinent details on some of the people detained by ICE in MN. Please enlighten us all on why you would "protest" to keep any of these people from being deported:
Hernan Cortes-Valencia, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico with a final order of removal dated Dec. 1, 2016, who’s been convicted of sexual assault against a child, sexual assault-carnal abuse and four DUIs.
Sriudorn Phaivan, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from March 8, 2018. He’s been convicted of strongarm sodomy of a boy, strongarm sodomy of a girl, another aggravated sex offense, nine counts of larceny, unauthorized use of a vehicle, four counts of fraud, vehicle theft, two counts of drug possession, obstructing justice, possession of stolen property, receiving stolen property, burglary and check forgery.
Ge Yang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from Oct. 16, 2012. He’s been convicted of strongarm rape, strongarm aggravated assault against a family member, aggravated assault with a weapon, an additional sex offense and domestic violence involving strangulation.
Vannaleut Keomany, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated Dec. 17, 2009. He’s been convicted of two counts of attempting to commit strongarm rape.
Tou Vang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated Oct. 31, 2006. He’s been convicted of sexual assault and sodomy of a girl under the age of 13 and procuring a child for prostitution.
Chong Vue, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated March 11, 2004. He’s been convicted of strongarm rape of a 12-year-old girl, kidnapping a child with intent to sexually assault her, and vehicle theft.
Kou Lor, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from Aug. 16, 1996. He’s been convicted of sexual assault, rape, rape with a weapon, statutory rape without force, two counts of burglary and shoplifting.
Pao Choua Xiong, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated Jan. 10, 2003. He’s been convicted of rape, fondling a child, two counts of domestic violence, burglary, larceny and disorderly conduct.
Gabriel Figueroa Gama, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico who was previously removed from the U.S. in 2002 and later convicted of homicide, battery, assault and amphetamine possession.
Abdirashid Adosh Elmi, a criminal illegal alien from Somalia who’s been convicted of homicide.
Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed, a criminal illegal alien from Somalia with a final order of removal dated Feb. 18, 2022. He’s been convicted of two counts of negligent manslaughter with a vehicle, two counts of DUI, larceny and damage to property.
Mongong Kual Maniang Deng, a criminal illegal alien from Sudan who’s been convicted of attempt to commit homicide, weapon possession and DUI.
Aldrin Guerrero Munoz, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico with a final order of removal from Dec. 17, 2015. He’s been convicted of homicide and assault.
Gilberto Salguero Landaverde, a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador with a final order of removal dated June 25, 2025. He’s been convicted of three counts of homicide.
Aler Gomez Lucas, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala with a final order of removal dated May 24, 2022. He’s been convicted of negligent homicide with a vehicle and DUI.
Galuak Michael Rotgai, a criminal illegal alien from Sudan who’s been convicted of homicide and assault.
Shwe Htoo, a criminal illegal alien from Burma who’s been convicted of negligent homicide with a weapon.
Mariama Sia Kanu, a criminal illegal alien from Sierra Leone with a final order of removal from July 5, 2022. She’s been convicted of two counts of homicide, four DUIs, three counts of larceny and burglary.
Thai Lor, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from June 15, 2009. He’s been convicted of two counts of homicide.
It isn't that we're "willing to sacrifice" our rights; it's simply a recognition of the reality that our privacy rights are being violated all day, every day, by entities using the Inter Webs.
Our "anti-protest attitude" is because what we're seeing in MN is not simply "protest." It is anarchy. Protesters march along the sidewalk, carrying signs and chanting slogans. They do not interfere in law enforcement activities by placing themselves between ice agents and those they're attempting to detain. They do not ram ICE vehicles with their cars, hit ICE agents over the head with shovels, or "Drive, baby, drive" toward them.
Wow, you'd rather we give billions over to corruption in the name of privacy. Perhaps it is even trillions. We have tens of millions of illegals in our country sucking the system dry.
I see moderate democrats IRL but not in politics. The ones who are secretly moderate try to hide it bc they are afraid of the far left for reasons I do not understand at all.
Every moderate democrat i know irl is pretty darned brainwashed and also never engages with anyone outside their political bubble. They may be moderate, but they also believe that ice is evil and anyone who supports them is a racist. Its a funny kind of moderation that reminds me of certain ostriches
Not so sure holding our noses to leftist illegal activity and donors will work out so well. It is like not disciplining your kids when they steal from you. The Democrats WILL weaponized govt when they are back in power. That is a guarantee. The ONLY thing that has a chance to slow them down is remorse-free retribution. That’s it. It is either now over the next year and right up to the mid-terms or never. This next year will decide the fate of the Republican Party. If it does not nip all the democrat chicanery in the bud, it can kiss a majority goodbye for 40 years.
That's actually pretty tragic that it doesn't now. All of the poeple and organizations we used to be able to count on to protect our civil liberties and fight the abuse of the war machine sold out.
They had on their website the revelation that our immigration laws about illegal entry, and illegal harboring, were written in the 1920s, so therefore, were racist. And because they are racist, are void, and we don't have to follow them.
They also had on their site another revelation--because some undocumented people crossed the border at some time with valid visas or work permits now expired, they were not here illegally, because they didn't cross the border illegally.
When Obama didn’t roll back Bush Jr’s vast expansion of executive privilege, I took a good long look at history and figured this is an era of ‘you’re a chump’ if you don’t take advantage of the system in a bigger way than the last guy did.
i think it’s seeped down into the world of regular people. things are getting uglier every day.
Is prosecuting political organizations that promote violence really a weaponization of government? Political persecution surely exists, but facing consequences for criminal behavior doesn’t a political prisoner make.
In questioning the election results was Trump engaging in illegal behavior? No, as there are government mechanisms for doing so.
Organizing armed gangs to track and interfere with law enforcement, even going so far as to steal their actual weapons, is quite a bit different.
Are you perhaps stretching a bit too far to portray any investigation or prosecution as weaponization?
I believe a member of the Latin Kings gang has been arrested and charged with breaking into the federal LEO’s car and stealing his weapons. Do you have any reason to think that any Minnesota official or leader of any of the anti-ICE groups was in contact with the Latin Kings and encouraged or suggested that they commit this crime? If so you should call Kash Patel right away, I’m sure he’ll take your call.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to "weaponization" of government is that the Dems don't wet their pants when they do it.
I think the answer is the complete elimination of all political donations, and public finance for office. If you take money, no matter how small an amount, and definitely larger amounts you are beholden to someone else's idea, and you OWE someone. The mere fact that it takes 10's of millions of dollars to earn a job that pays $200k per year is proof enough it's all broken.
Destroy and obliterate all NGO's, all PAC's all political fundraising, and the party committee's themselves. Return government to what it was supposed to be. PUBLIC SERVICE!!! These people aren't public servants, they are serpents!!!
I once worked with someone that suggested serving in congress should be like jury duty. You get randomly selected and you do your 2 years. Obviously an outrageous idea but there’s some things that would definitely improve!
You know its fucking rigged when all they have to do is serve 5 years and they get a full pension.
Or when they weren't mandated to take the experimental gene therapy non-vaxx vaxx.
And, on...and, on....and....
Like Marjorie Taylor Green, cough cough. 5 years and a day. Announced her resignation in October or November, effective in January the day after she reached 5 years. And she pretended to be all MAGA.
Do something real about insider trading, while you're at it. And make Congress obey the same personnel rules they impose on everyone else.
I still like MTG.
She is not a Trump cultist, and she didn't hesitate to call him out when he strayed. We need more like her, as far as I'm concerned.
Agreed. Like Massie and Paul, she was one of the few good ones, caring more about her constituents than her donors.
Massie stopped caring about his constituents once his new lady friend came along. Where he once didn't care if he got shunned by DC's social circles, now he does. His new woman has compromised him.
Almost nobody is all good or all bad, our opinion will vary based on how we understand them and weigh what we think are their good and bad points. I was mildly positive about MTG and then slightly disappointed but not surprised at how mercenary she was about the pension… tho, who can blame her, she didn’t create it?
I see no problem with her getting a pension. She did a good job while she was in office, and attempted to represent her constituents. Most of those Congress Critters do as little as possible.
I rarely disagree with you but on MTG I do. I live next to her district and shop/travel through it more than my own. She used her mouth to push back on Trump, not on truly important things but on Epstein. Also she quit one year before the end of her term( one day after she became eligible for lifetime congressional pension). She complained about healthcare but did nothing but complain about it. Her past
" business " experience is more than suspect, as in look into the whole history of Green Construction to get whole picture. Just an FYI...
Yes, she has had her issues-Super Jew Lasers-but when it came down to taking the right stand or being a tool for MAGA, she made the right choice.
Yes. Just like that.
I always thought she had a screw loose, she just finally proved it.
So funny you posted this. I know someone just like her. Screw loose.
Too many stupid people fell for her line.
After I ETS'ed, I worked as a pipeline laborer while I was figuring shit out and going to school. I'll get a pension from those five years, MTG getting an 8K pension is a nothingburger.
Point taken, but you're the exception. But, I'm happy for you.
Thanks, it'll be beer money at best. For the congress-critters, I'd prefer the focus be on their insider trading - that's where my outrage lies.
Agree with that 100%
He's wrong. MTG will get a small pension for those 5 years, just like you.
And when they take a job paying less than $200K and manage to become multi millionaires within a few years -- while maintaining a residence in DC, and back in their home states.
Exactly. Makes me want to puke.
For example, you work your butt off, you pay tons in taxes, you stress over college funds, orthodontist costs, health care costs, retirement, your mortgage........while your elected officials literally gave your money away to the lowest IQ people on the planet with the likely justification being kickbacks into their campaigns and outright voting support.
Not only did these Somali fraudsters rake in millions, they did so in cash while filing for govt benefits at the same time. Let that sink in. The state gave them millions in income, they paid themselves in cash and got govt welfare support.
Exactly!
We dutifully trudge off to work every day, earning dollars that are worth less and less, and then dutifully pay our taxes — and for what?
The government doles out BILLIONS of dollars to fraudsters in multiple states, while the Pentagon fails several audits in a row, and Trump wants to increase its budget to $1.5 TRILLION. I’m not sure which is worse. The money dropped into a black hole at the appropriately named War Department is much higher, but somehow more abstract. The money going to fraudsters in multiple states is more in our faces. When independent journalists document dozens of fake day cares, autism treatment centers, or medical transport services receiving millions of dollars apiece, while serving absolutely no clients, we can immediately spot the fraud.
But that’s just cuz we’re “RACIST!”
Yeayah, I'm getting more "Racist" by the day..LOL
Correct me if i'm wrong, but wouldn't a DC residence be counted as an expense and be subsidized by taxpayers?
I feel sure. They vote themselves every perk they can.
No Obamacare
Make Congress (representatives and staff), the White House, and all federal government employees use Obamacare.
Damn. I forgot that one.
That is one of the perks that truly angers me. That is one of the reasons the cities & states are going bankrupt. In my own little hometown, I was shocked to see how much these people had voted to pay themselves. Double what the average citizen makes.
No, members of Congress do not get full,100% salary-equivalent pensions for serving only five years.
While it is true that members of Congress become vested in the federal retirement system after five years of service—meaning they qualify for a pension starting at age 62—the amount is based on a formula and is far from a full salary.
Here are the key facts regarding congressional pensions for 5 years of service:
Vesting Period: Members must serve at least 5 years to qualify for any pension under the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS), which covers most members.
Pension Amount: With only 5 years of service, a member’s annual pension would be relatively small, typically around 5% to 8.5% of their "high-3" average salary (roughly $8,500–$8,700 annually for a rank-and-file member, based on 2025/2026 data).
Age Requirement: To receive an unreduced pension with only 5 years of service, the member must be at least 62 years old.
Full Pension Requirements: A "full" or more substantial pension requires much longer service (e.g., 20–30+ years) or reaching specific age/service combinations (e.g., age 50 with 20 years, or age 62 with 5 years
Except they don’t.
Easier to be a clown than take 30 seconds to find the answer.
"all they have to do is serve 5 years and they get a full pension..."
False.
How so?
The thing you wrote is not true, and not even close to true, that's how so. After 5 years, a Congressperson is vested and gets a pension, but it's not anywhere near a full pension. And nobody in Congress gets what is commonly understood by "full pension" no matter how many years they serve.
Thanks, I just looked it up. They don't even get the 8700.00 until they turn 62..Guess that not so bad..
Thanks for the correction. But I stand by it being rigged in their favor on virtually everything.
At the very least, term limits for heaven’s sake.
With credit to Doctor Mists”s comment above, but you have to limit staff terms as well.
I dont know that term limits would work. theres plenty of psychos in line to take their places that are just as bad or worse. u need to scale back the power and scope of government so that the reward for office is much less or it will ineveitably go back to how it is now. the main reward they get is power. you need to take their power away and they wont give it up willingly.
There's so much to like about this idea...but in practice I'm afraid it would just mean that the Administrative State wielded even more power. They would run rings around a 2-year Congressman.
California implemented term limits and now it's totally run by the staffers. Yea, if you make term limits a law you also need to limit the staffer terms. And don't forget the lobbyists. That's anothe whole can of worms...
They do anyway.
Think it’s bad now? :-)
The biggest problem with term limits is the foundational belief that power yields to elections.
It's like confusing currency with productivity.
A police whistle has no power. A gun has power.
Term limits is worshiping the whistle over the gun.
It is the worship of symbols.
This was actually done in ancient Athens.
It sounds good, but it is naive. God bless them, but I know too many people who can’t balance a checkbook or manage a credit card (understand what 17% interest will do to them), much less finesse the budget of this country, our tax dollars. We’ve all seen the funnies of people on the street asked where is Tennessee? Or who is the gov of your state? Or what ocean is to west of California? So many can’t answer, They don’t let anyone just become neuro surgeons, and there is a reason for that. We can’t pretend a government of 350000 million and our dealings with the world is a simple uncomplicated thing. It’s not. We the people just have to pay more attention to who we elect, and what they accomplish. Maybe term limits is the answer, I don’t know. I do think insider trading and the obscene amount of money poured into our political process, must end.
I've been saying that since I worked for county government and worked with 3 people that went on to be congress critters.
I get your point. But a lot of these congresspeople can't afford to travel and rent a place to live in DC. A lot of us regular folks could never. Especially as there wouldn't be any campaign funds to play with.
I think they quietly managed to give themselves housing allowances.
Back in the good old days (early1800s) it was common that congressmen not only shared a rented room in DC, but also shared a bed!
Or lately slept in their office, which i think isn't allowed anymore.
They probably are still sharing beds..(^_^)
No no no, not good enough - it should be a PUNISHMENT! Criminals, especially those against the state, must "repay their debt to society" in the most logical conceivable way!
"'You're a public servant - get me a glass of water!!!'" - George Carlin
In all seriousness, I actually don't think that's "an outrageous idea" at all, and your co-worker is by no means the only person to have it.
Three cheers for that!
I kinda like that.
I think it was President Jackson who recommended something like this. He opposed career politicians.
I think the same. Wish there's a way to abolish all campaign donations. All candidates get equal amount for campaign financing from the government, federal for the WH and state for state rep/state level offices. No person or corporation can have outsized influence then. And limit Congressional reps from stock investments except ordinary mutual funds & retirement funds.
There's so much to like about this idea...but in practice it just means that the government (i.e. the Administrative State) gets to define who counts as a bona fide candidate.
Aren't they doing that already?
I wouldn't say so. There are rules about who qualifies to get government funds to run, but I believe even those are set by actual statute (i.e. Congressional vote) rather than by bureaucrats. That has its own problems, of course, and has been very effective in shutting out third parties. But even if a majority party in Congress set rules to deny the opposition government-supplied campaign funds, as long as other funding sources remain legal, it would not be a kill shot to the opposition.
Expanding the Minnesota daycare model to elections sounds like a terrible idea.
Indeed, it is campaign-finance money which has fully corrupted Congress. Mainly the defense industry, pharma, and the Israel lobby. NGO's and non-profits are basically money-laundering and tax-avoidance-for-the-rich operations. Eliminate tax-exempt status for everything except churches (although some, like LDS, are enormously wealthy on their own), since they are among the few orginizations who provide real charity to the needy.
I should add that the other elephant in the room are gazillionaire donors, the "donor class." This is why Trump kisses Netanyahu's patootie whenever he comes to visit, and fetes the tech gazillionaires in the White House..
It's kind of a necessary evil. I dislike Jeff Bezos, but it's probably better for him to have more of a say how things are run than someone on welfare.
The (make) War Industry. No defence involved at all.
I see no reason to not tax religion honestly. Large religious groups lobbu like everyone else.
If 10,000 Presidential candidates apply for the subsidy, do they all get the money? Who decides?
John McCain was for campaign finance reform because it advantages incumbents over challengers — just as an advertising ban favors established firms.
In the U.K., limits on campaign spending left the news media as kingmakers.
I think it's fair to require x number of signatures and get to on the ballot. That would leave out a sizable number of crackpots. A good idea in '20 was to require a certain number (amount?) in small dollar donations to get on the ballot.
I tried to run for Congress in 2002ish. You needed X number of signatures, but the kicker was the woman told me when I was in there inquiring that unless I could raise 3 or 4 million dollars I shouldn't bother. This was in 2002ish. The job paid $175k.. why did I need $3M or $4M?!?!
Could you still have gotten on the ballot anyway with just the signatures? Was the woman that told you that from a party or a government?
The signatures could have gotten me on the ballot. In PA for Congress you need 1,000 signatures I think it was, and at that time you didn't need to provide a statement of finance. The woman was in the local Board Of Elections office. I was asking for advice.
Good point on the UK—the unintended consequences the seen vs unseen effects make it less clear cut.
I was thinking the same thing, but it might be the tech cronies here.
Big sigh…
Is that still true today as legacy media dies off?
To be precise, as legacy media face more competition from alternatives? Good point. Maybe that’s why the UK government is trying to censor the alternatives. They used to be able to trust the legacy media to “keep the line”, especially on immigration.
Yea, well the McCains of the world can support campaign finance when you have personal war chests to fund yourself .
I’ve been saying the same thing for years now! You said it even better than I could have. Worrying about retribution when another administration comes in just shows how these scumbags operate and how much they know their money wields power. It’s time to get the govt back into the hands of the people.
And no out-of-state/district funds. If you can’t vote there or don’t operate a business there, you can’t fund campaigns there.
I remember during an interview of Pat Buchanan probably 25 years ago, where Buchanan said that it takes a minimum of $250mil to run for President. That was 25 years ago. Kamala Harris burned through over one billion dollars in about 3 months. It amazes me that Americans think the situation is okay.
Reality has a qay of reminding us that there will always be a big gap between what we wish for and what we can achieve
Awful take. People should run for office because voters are willing to support them. A blank check to every wannabe Senator is a license to steal. Hell I’ll run for Congress just to have a full time job campaigning for a year or so.
The way to eliminate the abuse is to eliminate the ability of the political class to fund every freaking election and make them national.
Here is a better fix:
1) The only people who can donate to a campaign are individuals who can cast a vote in that election. No PACs, no union money, no corporation, no GOP or DCCC campaign slush funds. Just people ( with heatbeats) who live in the district or state
2) Therefore you can donate at the Fed level to a) POTUS b) the Senate and 3) your member of the house.
No one else! Violators are charged with bribery. Officials who knowingly take money .. lose their seat if elected.
3) Give all you want. Who cares at some point its wasted
4) All extra campaign $ must be returned pro rata to all donors 45 days after the vote ( no more war chests for next campaign)
5) No pensions for serving in Congress. No health care except Medicare during your term. You serve , you leave… no extras.
6) All elected officials must blind trust their investments and are precluded from buying individual stocks.
Serving will no longer beca gravy train but a job.
Those who want to work vs be treated like royalty will still run. Fewer gadflies and idiots one hopes.
You touch on some of the bigger issues after your 2nd point. The finer details can be ironed out sure, but I wasn't being specific. I was working towards a quick fix that may be feasible, and won't be as easy to circumvent. In the citizens can vote vein, the Soros's and Musk's and tech guys can still lean elections.
As they should be able to. But if Elon or Soros give 100MM to one person running for senate it will be public knowledge and those voters can reject that. And its one vote.
If he gives $5MM to every candidate ( 150MM since 1/3 of the Senate is up each election) it gets lost in the campaign and he influences 33 votes
You can’t stop them from being involved. And you cant get money out of elections but you can limit the damage.
Sounds great. Sadly, as someone who worked closely with those in Board of Elections... It just won't work. Not without a complete burn to the ground rebuild of the entire system.
Equally critical is Voter ID to assure non citizen and dead people can't vote ( and assuring folks can't vote more than one time). I still can't understand how Democrats get a pass on the red face test for failure to support Voter ID. Bringing in voters was quite a popular tactic as well. Look at how much money went to bringing in certain immigrant populatons and setting them up with housing, food stamps, education and health benefits. And of course there was the outright banning of President Trump from Twitter and other media.
" I still can't understand how Democrats get a pass on the red face test for failure to support Voter ID."
A few reasons. The press backs them up for the most part. Their actions enable them to get more votes so they win and therefore they can continue. They wrap their arguments into the history of poll taxes and literacy tests, claiming demanding voter ID is the same as those old forms of discrimination (that the Democrats implemented and benefited from). And the democratic press and stupid voters buy into it.
You know that if demanding voter id benefited them they'd be all over it.
Remember, right and wrong don't matter. Getting power and then keeping it and never losing it is what's important to Democrats. And they will do most anything to achieve those goals.
Campaign finance is a critical issue. I am not an advocate of public finance, much prefer contributions limited to individual US citizens residing in the district or state of election. No PACS, no “ in kind”, no advocacy ads from outside organizations and absolutely no contributions from non citizens. Limited to $ 1000 or less per year. No exceptions.
No lobbyist activity at any level of government, no NGO jobs for relatives.
Accurate and timely campaign contribution filing, disqualification from office for any non compliance or fraudulent contributions.
Just like charity organizations, no campaign should be financed by taxpayer dollars.
To avoid the specter of “ self financed “ campaigns the $1000 or less/ year limit should apply to the candidate also. No reason you should be a millionaire with a built in advantage.
Unspent campaign funds should be returned to donors, not contributed to others campaigns or kept by the candidate.
You're insulting the snakes.
In Canada we have donation limits of under $2K per citizen and corporations are not eligible to donate to politicians or political parties. This allows parties with many supporters to gather more money (as they should) while preventing a small number of wealthy donors from controlling political success through donations.
Of course, Citizens United is a major obstacle to something similar in the US.
I don't know. Canada is fully controlled by the WEF, and the new world order of the surveillance state. I am not sure that's really much better. Perhaps we are just all screwed.
A Scanner Darkly!
Yeah, the WEF is well known for its support of policies limiting the political influence of the wealthy.
This is a joke I hope....
You seemed to be suggesting that a policy limiting political donations was only possible with WEF control.
yes, is this country continues to take the wrong turns that’s one of the biggest ones—
Couldn’t disagree more. Rather than government funding of campaigns—chosen by government employees— I would propose unlimited contributions by individuals and outlaw all anonymous giving. Donations would also need to be posted within 48 hours of their being received by the Campaign.
I've been thinking about this for a while. I used to buy into the free speech argument, and that money is speech (and it is, too a degree), because it can take money to get the word out.
But it's also clear that, certainly in this century anyway, our political parties do not listen to voters, although Democrats seem to be more afraid of their left wing than Republicans are wary of any of their stupid, ignorant voters. So Pharma and NGOs and labor unions get their way regardless of what voters want.
So I've thought that, yes, everyone deserves the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. But petitions don't have to be accompanied by checks.
I now am tending toward limiting donations only to US citizens, and to a certain amount ($2000, $5000, or something like that). This way voters, not special interests with deep pockets, have our representatives attention.
So, yes, companies, unions, NGOs, charities - anything that is not a citizen individual - cannot donate money to campaigns. Why should Pharma, or teachers unions, or the Sierra Club, or Big Oil, have outside influence on our government? All those organizations can tell our representatives what they think of legislation but they can't buy access with money. Most of us commenting cannot buy access but all of those entities can.
But the other thing, which I know I'll never see because it cannot be reversed to any real extent, is a much smaller government that has much less influence over our lives. When the Feds spend trillions and regulate most aspects of our lives then there is a big incentive for groups to get their pieces of the pie.
>> Why should Pharma, or teachers unions, or the Sierra Club, or Big Oil, have outside influence on our government
Because voters are too uninformed/busy/stupid/whatever to understand every issue. Same with politicians-- they are more or less empty vessels. The average person has little to no understanding about how much the price of oil impacts our daily lives. Or how EU sanctions on big tech chip away US hegemony. I'm not going to defend the AFT, but labor unions in general formed for a very good reason . Lobbying is a necessity, it's just that there has to be some way to limit the power of lobbyists and their money.
I hear you. My concept doesn't stop lobbying. As I wrote, everyone can "petition the government for a redress of grievances." If they're not an individual citizen they just cannot send a check with their petitions.
I'm not against lobbying. I think companies and organizations can validly represent groups of people with similar ideas and that's okay. I don't like the fact that those with money have outsize influence. In the GOP they've been pro immigration for decades because of the Chamber of Commerce, even when the majority of Republicans and Conservatives were against it.
And I get your point about uninformed and stupid voters. And they drive me crazy. But I am reluctant to say that we should trade their stupidity for the dominance of special interests. Both situations are bad.
And I'm open to debate about this. I know my proposal comes with consequences so vigorous debate is necessary. But there is something very wrong with our Congress and therefore with our government. It's self-centered and unresponsive and lazy and gives massive influence to the unelected bureaucracy. We seem to have the worst of all worlds.
I reject the false equivalence here. I don't remember the tea party rioting, burning cars and assaulting law enforcement. Any groups that fund those activities should be investigated and exposed, whether they are foreign or domestic, left or right.
Groups that FUND criminal activities ought to be investigated and exposed. No doubt! But, groups that promote or even fund legal political activities ought not be harassed. That's how we are losing our high-trust society and looking more like Mexico every year.
Fine line here. I agree 100% that they shouldn't be prosecuted or criminally harassed but I certainly wouldn’t object to some fact-based press examination to the public benefit. So much of the problem is that the modern press prosecutes rather than reports. A free and neutral press is the foundation of public trust.
Agreed. The marketplace of ideas should be open and free. What troubles me is that one man's "criminal" could be another's heartfelt cause. Not so long ago they wanted to criminalize COVID skepticism and election denial. We can't take that path and preserve what has made us prosperous and great.
Are we so far gone that criminal is no longer defined by law? could things possibly be worse than even I thought?
I'm hoping that we can recover.
The paradox is that we need to pretend/believe in the rule of law in order to restore it. The greatest danger is when everybody assumes a winner-take-all attitude. If we postpone regular order until after we defeat our "enemies" we have burned the village in order to save it.
But, I'm still hopeful.
I guess I see civilization as the great pretender, the great balancing act. Regular order is the calm over chaos.
The winner who takes all will rise and fall on the strength and weakness of power without mercy. This is the winner who will tear the loser apart and will be torn apart in turn, as sure as night follows day.
Our political behavior has become barbaric, as unmasked hatred of each other, and it's scary.
Even here, in such forums built on rational give and take, civility fails with an argument and the teeth come out.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you. I think I,m just too old. Or maybe the difference comes down to place - DC is in my drinking water, and DC is definitely not a clear mountain steam.
While I agree with you - what follows may be taking it too far; but my point is that the grip on our minds is all encompassing.
The struggle for our minds today is multi-faceted. It arrives daily at us with persuasions of traditional media, in digital media and through "influencers". It flows with crowd funding and on plays out on university campuses. It is a battle without soldiers in uniforms or guns. Everyone participates because we are not living in peacetime; we exist within permanent conflicts which most simply do not recognize as war.
"the grip on our minds is all encompassing"
Yes, for sure. My point would be that we have to break that grip with all the will we can muster. I no longer watch tv news, or read newspapers, or engage social media at all (beyond a couple of online news and culture sources I find interesting and more or less reliable). I'm at peace with the fact that I,m often a day or even days behind events. If something notable happens I manage to hear about it quick enough one way or another. Live and immediate reporting is usually no more than supposition and invention anyway so seems essentially pointless.
These days I'd go for homeschool and flip phones. Books are better than screens.
That’s the path to calm refection which many should envy.
It works for me, and I'd encourage others to try it. It's much easier to think without all the noise.
No arguing with your premise--I left the city long ago.
Assange argued that internet leaks forced the government to have to return to old school ways--pencil and paper, and through this process the government lost a lot of power. Leaks created friction within the government.
The digital world created a reality where the government itself would seek less power.
That same formulation applies to individuals.
The simple life is for pleasure--not power.
Any roof can spring leaks - its material doesn't much matter. Rain is rain and people are people.
I wasn't paying much particular attention back then, though I will confess that both Assange and Manley gave me visceral creeps. I've heard stated with equal vehemence the opposite views that the published classified material was and was not dangerous to sources and methods. Maybe the truth is still out on that, but I don¡t know.
Seems to me that the government very likely classifies a significant amount of material that can and should be made public in reasonable time. Time-sensitive national security secrets need to be protected - if that means frisking officials and searching briefcases, that,s what should happen.
I am always interested in your comments, noting how similar we are in weird ways, and yet with reactions usually so markedly different.
Power is a big enough word to cover a lot of the ground between good and evil, so many kinds and degrees - governing and military for sure, but also physical, athletic, legal, parental, moral, intellectual, inventive, mathematical, verbal, artistic, the list goes on. Power depends on control - lose the wheel and power will spill out your life-blood against a tree.
A simple life depends upon having sufficient power of self-knowledge and self-control to enable and preserve it.
Agreed. But, it's a war with only pyrrhic victories.
Without an alert and discerning public, the victories are real enough to end life as we want it.
Here's hoping the public will finally wake up, take its medicine, do whatever is necessary to recover it’s birthright of self-determination.
Or, hoping that AI eventually becomes a wise ruler for our grandkids. (He said with tongue firmly in cheek.)
(You held your own against that Canoe nut in the other thread. I replied to him a couple of times. Am very interested in how he replies.)
I agree only the groups that fund illegal activity should be investigated. But groups like CREW fund legal activity like keeping Trump on the ballot make us look stupid too. Listening to the Supreme Court transcript this week not being able to define a women made me feel like I was living in late stage USSR….
Remember the softball shooting, neither does anyone else- not widely reported on.
The one with Steve Scalise? That was, unfortunately, a mentally ill Bernie Sanders fan.
Are you suggesting that there is an organization that FUNDED that? Or, are you just waving a bloody shirt?
God knows the lefties have done a lot of nasty shit. But, that's no excuse to go all Commie ourselves.
Yeah
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this, but you are going to hear responses about January 6th, Unite the Right Rally, etc. I mean, sorta kinda maybe, but it's not the same thing as what the NGO protest industrial complex churns out to manufacture consent.
I reject it, too. Lazy thinking with a blind spot for the actual crimes of the Biden administration, which is a recurring theme here.
Biden's IRS and FBI targeting of people was pure political retribution and abuse using the fictional J6 as cover. In the case of Trump there are actual organized groups and funding arms dedicated to destroying him and his cabinet - and therefore our Republic - and any who want the president to succeed. They fund all the infiltration, riots, and fraud we see crippling Dem cities and states, as well as the lawfare clogging up our courts. This is an organized machine dedicated to preventing the President from governing. Entirely different.
And don't get me started on the Seditious 6 mentioned as a throwaway here. Perhaps a clip from the late night *comedian* Jimmy Kimmell or darling of integrity Rachel Maddow could lend some valuable context? /s
Fine line here. I agree 100% that they shouldn't be prosecuted or criminally harassed but I certainly wouldn’t object to some fact-based press examination to the public benefit. So much of the problem is that the modern press prosecutes rather than reports. A free and neutral press is the foundation of trust.
Here here!
People who do violence are different than people who only talk.
Exactly.
I couldn't care less what these swamp dwellers think.
We are either a nation based on the rule of law, or we're a banana republic.
This is all so predictable:
First you break the law, and then cry rEtRiBuTiOn if Trump trys to get to the bottom of it.
And I ain't no Trump simp.
Right, and when the AutoPen bozo's administration did it, or the Bush and Obama admins did it it wasn't as big a deal as when Orange Man does it.
This hypocracy just keeps it going.
"Sources familiar with the matter" and tipoffs to CNN, MSDNC and FOX are all bogus, no matter what the pundits say.
In the case of these operatives who are actively seeking to undermine literally everything that holds this strange animal we call the US together, especially in MN we need to make an actual stand and bring the people responsible to justice.
Otherwise why do we even pay taxes at all?!?
To be shat upon?
To see the people who commit treason just skate along like nothing ever happened?
Yeesh
Well said. Unlike the non-stop, "not a legitimate" President after 45 was duly elected and then immediately undermined, impeached twice, etc on the basis of nothing, the charges leveled against "the resistance" Never Trumpers, Roger Stone raid, etc, etc are grounded in fact and the historical record.
We are currently working through the George Floyd riots mark II, with some of the same actors reprising their Floyd roles. As Matt notes, Hitler is still Hitler, just as Bush was Hitler and Vance, or Rubio will be Hitler. The narrative is tired and unchanging.
Yes, images of ICE officers yanking people from cars splash the sausage-making of immigration reform into America's living rooms in ways most would prefer to avoid - and is the only card the trump-hating media can play. Americans voted for safe streets and secure borders. Securing the border proved easiest and everyone sensible understood that narratives of children being ripped from the arms of their parents by Trump's Gestapo was always going to be the response of the destroyers of America's working class.
Dems understand that if Minnesota burns again, Republicans will do well - but only if the economy continues to recover. If the economy does recover, Dems who ignored fraud in Dem run states and cities in particular, and instead shrieked that Hitler is waging war on Americans will have only a partisan audience. Unhappy independents will vote with their wallets when push comes to shove.
If Trump manages to cap credit card rates at 10 percent with Warren this summer, that's going to significantly reduce the sting of the ICE images on the screen at the end of year one of Trump's reforms. Jobs improve, removals will continue, confirming Trump's resolve in the face of adverse criticism. Let the dogs bark, the caravan moves on.
Nice summary. Speaking of Hitler, he was ecstatic when the Great Depression started, because he knew that it guaranteed his NSDAP party would get enough votes and support to take over the government. Can always find a Hitler analogy!
That 10% cap on credit card interest may not make it through, but I'm glad that Fauxcahontas is doing something productive. Maybe she can help.
J6 insurrection fomented by Trump's lie was not "nothing." He should have been jailed on January 21, 2021 and should still be there.
Oh noes, tHe iNsUrReCtIoN. You wouldn't know what to call it if you didn't have the MSM cartoon running in your head. Hell, even the MSM no longer calls it an insurrection.
How was it an insurrection when not a single person was charged with "insurrection"? Did you know the average age at that protest was 57? Yeah im sure a bunch of boomers were going to take over the government.
You would be wise to remember it is our HOUSE - you know the PEOPLE's house.
Also i can count on both hands how many Ds have denied election results...including HRC.
What exactly was it that Trump said that caused your precious insurrection?
Did you know, on film, Pelosi both admitted she should've immediately brought in the National Guard (per trumps request) and she said verbatim; it is my fault - on camera!
How about 4 months of rioting, looting and violence all across the country where a felon and drug addict with a rap sheet a mile long became your savior. Do you realize the destruction caused tens of billions in damage (most often to black biz owners - the very people they were supposedly protesting for) and over 30 deaths.
I suppose that gave you a boner. Govern me harder, baby! I remember a day when liberals were against the man. Love of country is not the same as love of government.
No reasonable person would call 1/6 an insurrection. Not a single person other than a Trump supporter died from 1/6.
I would get worn out harboring the HATE that has consumed you. Put your mask back on so you can follow tHe sCiEnCe!
And BTW I'm a moderate, not a Trump simp, but I have two eyes.
Yes, a resurrection without weapons! So smart…all the while they were invited into the people’s house. If they were democrats, it would have been called peaceful protesting!
Elmer Stuart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy. What did Trump say? How about innumerable lies saying he won? How about saying, "We're going to go to the Capital and fight like hell. Do 2020 riots justify trying to steal the 2020 election and trying to kill Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi. The balance of your text is just one one after another. You and your ilk are delusional nut jobs. Get help.
I think you forgot he also said protest peacefully. Turn off MSM bud, it’s. It help your TDS
Oh please.
There was MASSIVE fraud in the 2020 elections, and that was no "lie."
The Fedsurrection was a farce.
Literally was orchestrated by the FBI.
Amen. Well met
I think you mean “couldn’t care less”.
Flammable or inflammable?
Oh goodness, you're right. Just changed it
You’re a Trump simp.
It is beyond belief that conservatives think by playing nice with the left they will not be destroyed. Complete fools.
Yes, they should just go after the people who weaponized government because they will crucify republicans no matter what. Conservatives always think they should be about ethics and not play hardball and somehow that will win in the end--it never does.
Right. If it's agreed that government shouldn't be weaponized, then those who do should face consequences.
If it's agree that fomenting violent overthrow of government should be prosecuted, then prosecute such behavior.
Accountability is not the same as weaponization.
"Accountability is not the same as weaponization."
A statement worth repeating!
"Weaponized?" Is prosecuting rioting and trying overturn the 2020 election "Weaponization?"
They were not trying to overturn anything, you goofball.
There was massive fraud in the 2020 elections, and they were attempting to convince Congress Critters to hold off on certification until that fraud was investigated. Yes, it did deteriorate into a riot, but do you seriously believe that the people who own the most firearms in the country would leave them all at home the day they were trying to "overturn" anything?
Get a clue!
I think you just confirmed my point.
But “overtuend”? have heard of no J6er who wanted to overturn a clean election. They all wanted it cleaned up; investigated, not a priori overturned. So yes, Biden and Co were indeed weaponizing government. The other Biden moves against such as Catholics and concerned parents are flagrant cases of vilification and oppression. Accountability for this hasn’t been seen yet.
In the case of the leftist Floyd and anti-ICE riots, the motivation is explicitly anti-law and anti-enforcement. (eg “No borders, no wall, no USA at all”.)
Risking a tangential thought- The POTUS pledges to defend the Constitution against all enemies., which includes a bunch of groups like Islamists, Marxists, Socialists, globalists, etc. Thta incudes the so-called “uni-party”. Tough job, really. Bari Weiss after the 10/7 massacre posted a piece about the bad optics of self-defense, which applies to the USA (not to mention Western Civ’ in general).
But to your question, yes, for reasons well-summarized elsewhere. Busy now, but I can try to get you an outline off the top of my head later.
Corrections welcome.
Best regards.
That is what they SAY. I think it is their excuse not to do their jobs. They like things the way they are.
They're all a bunch of feckless weenies.
Yet, they always do.
Right. Rioting to try to overturn the 2020 election is playing nice.
We all know what happened on J6 already and you aren’t proving anything. We’ve had many J6s by Dems. Many many of them. Including right now in MN.
*yawn*
Of course, another both sides are guilty article from the Fence-Sitter in Chief, Mr. Taibbi. What Mr. Taibbi conveniently forgets is that Donald Trump had over 90 bogus charges against him in four separate criminal cases. Plus nearly 1600 J6ers were arrested for exercising their constitutional rights. Which a very large majority did peaceably and without incident. Nearly 1300 J6ers were convicted and over 700 were sent to prison. How many Democrats and FBI/DOJ people have been sent to prison for trashing the constitutional rights of their political opponents? ZERO.
It's apparently very easy to get a bunch of swampy RINOs and Never Trumpers to bash MAGA and Trump. But it must be impossible to find any MAGA people to interview, because none are present here.
As for FIRE, did they defend any J6 defendant in any case? I can't find any. They are just like the ACLU, they defend only those they agree with politically.
I wanted to say a few words here in defense of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.
In a brutal environment they're trying their hardest to stick up for speech principles, irrespective of politics. It’s a thankless job. I’d hope people would remember how much they’ve done over the years to stand up for academic freedom and the First Amendment.
Way back in December of 2000, before there was any public conception of “wokeness” or any idea about a problem with civil liberties on the liberal left, they took a stand against "diversity statements” at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. They did this not because they were against diversity, but because these statements – which became epidemic – are compulsory speech. Asking academic applicants to submit essays explaining their “commitment to diversity,” they said, was as objectionable as a 1950s question asking for a statement from an applicant about his or her "commitment to patriotism.”
Conversely, the ACLU’s failure to stand up against “diversity statements” was a major early red flag. In the early 2000s the ACLU was singularly focused on George W. Bush and the civil liberties problems that arose after 9/11 in connection with his War on Terror, which on one hand was fine because those problems were very real (illegal surveillance, blacklisting, torture, and on and on). Unfortunately, they missed a major anti-speech movement brewing on campuses. FIRE did not. It argued early for more due process in sexual harassment cases, repeatedly stood up for students were disciplined for insufficiently progressive views (amazingly they had to back a student who was effectively suspended after taking America’s side in a post-9/11 discussion in Arabic), and they took up the cases of a lot of teachers being squeezed on the academic freedom side.
When a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was disciplined for explaining Catholic views on homosexuality in an “Introduction to Catholicism” class, FIRE stood up for that professor. They went after Yale University for censoring the key cartoons in Jytte Clausen’s “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” i.e. the ones of Mohammed. That took courage. In a case that has relevance today, they went after a school with a professor who compelled undergrads to write letters opposing the Iraq War (the problem of schools mixing political activism with scholarship has since grown exponentially). In a case that unfortunately previewed practices by both political parties, they opposed Texas Tech University’s policy of creating a “free speech gazebo” where activities like pamphleteering were allowed, but only after a six-day review period. Free Speech Zones!
I could go on and on. FIRE has decades of cases showing they'll defend plaintiffs or complainants with the full range of controversial views. When they committed resources to taking on campus speech codes and compelled thought and cancel culture, no one else was doing this. They were a crucial resource for reporters like me when no one else in the legal community seemed to care about digital censorship. I won’t talk about what its founders and leaders are like personally, except to say I never felt they were anything other than totally committed to free expression.
Since Trump took office last year, they’ve been in a tough spot. This president often openly thumbs his nose at legal niceties. Some of his policymakers seem not to know or care what the law is. Even when Trump is ostensibly trying to fix civil liberties problems – the elimination of DEI litmus tests is one example – he ends up creating ranges of new problems by doing it in ways that are themselves not legal. If you read FIRE’s amicus brief in Harvard’s suit against Trump’s HHS, you can see their frustration:
“FIRE’s criticism of Harvard is well-deserved. Among other missteps, Harvard has maintained illiberal speech codes and unfair disciplinary procedures, pressured students to sign a civility pledge, blacklisted members of independent student organizations, and punished faculty for defending unpopular clients9 and making unpopular arguments. Harvard has finished dead last in FIRE’s annual campus free speech rankings for two years running…”
But, they wrote, “exactly none of Harvard’s problems… in any way excuse [the Trump administration’s] unlawful, unconstitutional demands.” They went on to cite a list of Trump policies that just aren't tenable, like “prohibiting the admission of international students who are ‘hostile’ to ‘American values’ or ‘supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism,’” or “mandating viewpoint diversity among students and faculty,” and “ending recognition of pro-Palestinian student groups and disciplining student members of those groups.”
As to the last point, FIRE has occasionally taken heat from so-called liberals for the alleged crime of being insufficiently supportive of the pro-Palestine movement. This is because they've criticized pro-Palestinian student protests that themselves were no-brainer violations of the First Amendment – doing things like blocking pathways on campus or exercising the infamous “heckler’s veto.” (Is a free speech organization supposed to endorse those things?) Yet here they are joining up with Harvard, an organization they’ve criticized relentlessly, to say the Trump administration can’t use the threat of withholding funding to prevent the formation of pro-Palestinian groups, whom they're accused of not supporting.
Again, this is thankless work. It doesn’t win friends among conservatives and doesn’t particularly impress people on the other side.
As was the case with the ACLU in the Ira Glasser days, FIRE is sometimes slammed both for being too political and for not being political enough. That can’t be a fun place to be. I hope people appreciate what the group is trying to do. Civil liberties don’t have many true advocates left.
Matt, I appreciate you trying to balance some of these issues out.
However, I have growing doubts that this is a reasonable approach anymore. There are crazies on both sides, but I sense there are not reasonable, balanced people on both sides.
Just watching the Minnesota madness, there appears to be literally no one to talk the left down from complete irrationality, while there are still some on the right that might be able to convince the Trump admin to think about long term consequences of questionable actions. In fact, this what you article demonstrates - discussion is still possible on at least that side.
But Where were any sane voices on the left when they were escalating lawfare and censorship the past 10 years? Where are they now on Minnesota? Who on the left is not supporting Walz and company’s insane tactics? Who on the left would admit Biden’s infirmities until they became glaring? Who on the left publicly stated Kamala was a laughable candidate? There is no one on that side of the aisle with any courage or integrity. What do you do when there is no one you can deal with who is not corrupted?
I don’t know the answer, but to expect “balance” in this situation seems incredibly naive.
May God give us wisdom!
After Trump’s win, I told a distraught academic colleague and friend that any effective postmortem would have to begin with the admission that Harris was a truly awful candidate. She completely denied it. I suggested she watch a discussion on the blog Triggernometry where a Democrat strategist reviewed Kamala’s failings. She refused, saying she couldn’t spare half an hour on a Republican site.
But Trump was somehow acceptable after his performance during Covid and J6?
Why would any sane person listen to you or anyone like you?
Perhaps you didn't notice, but Trump won the election. Evidently tens of millions of Americans found him and his record acceptable, relative to Mrs. Harris.
That's one heck of a deep psychological rut you seen to be stuck in, Mr. Clark. I suggest you stop digging.
In particular, give up on the blatantly obvious, cheap ad hominems. In an intellectual storm, they're a sure sign that your ship is sinking.
All of you and the rest of the Trump obsessed leftist boomers have the exact same way of arguing. You can’t win on the merits so you try to make it a morality contest by arguing against words that were never said. It’s so disingenuous but at this point seems to be so baked into the way you all operate that you no longer realize you’re doing it
It’s not worth discussing politics with people this dumb. Your goal should be to supporting building systems to disenfranchise them in the future.
None of these have gone away and everyone is still employed.
I'm an old school liberal who left the Democrats because of “coastal arrogance,” but I’d be considered “left,” and have written all those things.
“Kamala was a laughable candidate?”
Get deprogrammed.
Kamala was by far the most hilariously inept nominee for president of my lifetime. There’s a real argument to be made she’s the worst in the history of America, although her prior boss is stiff competition on that front. In a world with truly objective media, one who didn’t view it as their duty to run cover for whoever the dems put up in a given race, neither Biden or Harris ever would have gotten anywhere near the White House. Arguing for the intelligence of Kamala Harris marks you as someone so far out of touch that it’s pointless to even argue this point….
A literal slaver and a cop, but you all voted for her anyway. What part of ACAB is hard to understand? Is it the “all” part?
Her total lack of incisive intelligence was difficult to ignore. Her response to nearly every seriously probing question (on the rare occasions when she actually submitted to spontaneous questioning) was to erupt in a blizzard of unfocussed New Age cliches. Word salad drenched in a fine vinaigrette lightly seasoned with a unique flavour of idiocy. Sometimes she just seemed dimwitted, when, struggling desperately, she bought time by declaring “I’m not Joe Biden,” causing the sympathetic audience to erupt in nervous laughter. Why do you think she’s never run in a primary?
Her total lack of incisive intelligence was difficult to ignore. Her response to nearly every seriously probing question (on the rare occasions when she actually submitted to spontaneous questioning) was to erupt in a blizzard of unfocussed New Age cliches. Word salad drenched in a fine vinaigrette lightly seasoned with a unique flavour of idiocy. Sometimes she just seemed dimwitted, when, struggling desperately, she bought time by declaring “I’m not Joe Biden,” causing the sympathetic audience to erupt in nervous laughter. It's no wonder she was afraid to actually run in a primary.
I think she should run as the Democrat Party candidate for President in 2028. In fact, let's keep up with tradition and dispense with the primaries entirely. Polling at 5% in a primary was never a legitimate reason to disqualify a great candidate like Kamala who checks so many boxes.
I agree with your comment. To steel man it, the lack of push back from the left on their own people shows an unholy intention toward our country. There’s enough out there now to support that. They say it out loud now. To strike a balance with an enemy like that is frankly, dangerous. Matt, I think you will find your readers will have a growing impatience with you if you retreat. There may be two sides to a story in peaceful times, but not when people have declared war on you. Why is it so hard to wrap your brain around it? Especially with everything you know, and have been through. Is your memory so short? You helped create the momentum. Now you back down from carrying through. It doesn’t compute.
Thanks Matt! I’ve almost lost hope for you on several occasions over the last year (I’m significantly more opposed and disgusted by Trump than you) but I still subscribe because I know deep down you really are principled about free speech. You are spot on about FIRE. I support them 100% both financially and their mission and work. It really is a thankless task to be principled and non partisan. Because they take flak from all sides depending on who they’re defending. I really wish more people could start with principles and get past tribalism but alas, it’s against human nature.
Try going on PowerLine blog and presenting two sides of the Israel-Gaza conflict. A lifetime ban could be in your future. They are definitely pro-Israel.
I used to be a regular donor to the ACLU. I defended them to Jewish friends in Skokie in "77" who were shocked at their defense of the NAZI rally. I attended the counter protest. I now donate to FIRE when I can. They are very consistent in their defense of free speech. Sadly, the ACLU is still getting the praise and money for defending "trans rights". FIRE needs more serious donors.
Agree on all points. I also support FIRE financially and subscribe to their newsletter. I have a lot of respect for what they do. We need more groups like this to evaluate on the issue only and not the politics. I'm so tired of the politics.
Thanks for this in-depth look at FIRE. I've always admired their ability to remain nonpartisan, even (and especially) when pressured to be so.
Matt, I agree with your position, which reminds me to send FIRE a donation. I have supported Trump as the superior alternative to the amazingly inept Harris, but I’m increasingly concerned about how he keeps shooting himself in the foot with some of these moves. Maybe he’s determined to give the opposition forces a taste of their own medicine. Or maybe he’s losing it. The recent photo of despicable neocon toad Lindsay Graham laughing happily with Trump is hardly reassuring.
FIRE used to publish a great book rating all the college campuses on their freedom of speech policies and behaviors, giving each college a green, yellow or red light in all different aspects of free speech on campus. We used it to choose what schools to consider for our youngest student. I remember being very grateful that such a publication existed.
https://hillsdalecollegian.com/2024/10/hillsdale-responds-to-free-speech-warning-label/
Matt,
You and Walter have discussed this a couple of months ago, but you missed what he was saying.
- Talking Points are the same as commercials, not Free Speech.
Ask Walter about the business guy that he talked to about hiring Paid Trolls to post/speak Talking Points.
They are essentially "laundering" commercials through hiring Paid Trolls to speak them. This is no different than paying someone to say what brand of beer or dish soap that they use.
- Talking Points are not Free Speech, they are commercials, and commercials are regulated.
The same as, paid "protestors" are not exercising their right of Free Speech.
Paying "protestors" to riot is a tactic used by all sides for centuries, They are not exercising their right to Free Speech.
BTW, I am a Free Speech absolutist, and when Walter mentioned the concept of "laundering" commercials through people, that put everything into context.
But I digress.
To expand on what I'm saying:
If you have a foreign student, paid to come to an American campus to protest, write articles in the campus paper, that is not Free Speech.
- They are an unregistered foreign agent, which is a crime.
When you have student "protestors" handed tents, headscarves, signs, etc..., and given training, that is not Free Speech, so they can be shut down.
That is the same for street "protestors". If they are paid, trained, handed gear, bricks, etc..., then that is not Free Speech, so they can be shut down.
A Lobbyist is a salesman, a huckster for a product. Everyone understands that what they are saying is a commercial for their product, not Free Speech.
- If they are unregistered, that is a crime.
Free Speech is the right to say whatever you want, but not to be a shill for somebody else.
BTW, Everyone understands when someone is trying to sell you something. As long as they are open about what they are doing, they are not breaking the law.
Paid Trolls speaking Talking Points, is commercial speech, Lobbying, and is not Free Speech. If they are doing that without stating that they are Paid Trolls, then they are breaking the law.
- They need to go to the Justice Department and turn State's Evidence.
That's the only way to shut down these networks of disruption.
But I digress.
Excellent points.
With chatbots, one person can now command millions of "unique" voices.
What does "speech" even mean any more?
Setting aside how we are going to apply very old rules to a future we don't even understand yet--but even our basic definitions are lost in this new context.
It really is hard to understate the amount of change happening and the speed it is unfolding.
I think the more a person relies on rules, ritual and routine--the more they are completely unprepared for what is happening.
Looking to the past only works when the days repeat themselves.
Thanks for some very thought-provoking alternative ways of thinking about this. We often forget how much “consent” is manufactured. Old Hollywood movies used a few hundred extras and some clever camera angles to make it seem like 10,000 people were in the picture. In a similar vein, modern hired agitators jack up the noise/chaos volume to make it seem like they have much more support than they actually have.
But Matt, please answer my original question: Has FIRE defended ANY J6 defendant? All were not guilty. Or were they, all guilty by association? Did FIRE defend any of the over 8,000 military members discharged for refusing the COVID shot on religious grounds? That's a 1A right just as much as college students' speech. What about parents arrested for speaking out at school board meetings, or teachers fired for refusing to take the COVID shot? All of these are 1A violations by government entities. Do they not count because they were not on a college campus?
Is FIRE a true advocate of civil liberties if they only defend speech and only on college campuses? (Regardless of their claim of branching out from colleges)
According to Wikepedia, one of the co-founders of FIRE was Harvey Silverglate, who served on the board of the ACLU of Massachusetts. So, we have the Federal Government, the ACLU of Massachusetts, colleges, college students, and a former ACLU board member, all entities well known for their ideals steeped in traditional American values. And all of them defending each other against each other. Two thumbs up on that arrangement.
Neither the COVID refusal or J6 defendants were free speech matters.
FIRE is a good organization and deserves support. They are great at championing the free speech of individuals being crushed by authoritarian institutions. I would want them on my side. Our current difficulty is the crushing of free speech by mobs, sometimes using violence (Minneapolis?) especially when the police have been politicized and can’t or won’t show up. Both sides do not play by the same rules.
FiRE and its supporters must believe that what was broken under obama and biden can be fixed. I just dont know that to be the case. Where is the evidence that the left will ever return to embrace such principles for all people and not just when its to their benefit?
Right on. Had heard about these cats but didn’t know much about them until now. Thanks for this.
Thanks, Matt based on your examples, they seem to be playing it down the middle being fair, balanced, and basically acting Like neutral arbiters.
Journalism is actually supposed to be a “both sides” exercise in which the reader is expected to think for themselves and form their own opinion. Or it was at one time, at least. Matt is simply attempting to defend FIRE (subject topic of this piece) and show examples of their nonpartisan interest in defending free speech - being what the ACLU once was. Yes, Trump got unfairly attacked with a bunch of bullshit charges, brought on by advocates pretending to be respectable prosecutors and judges. It never should’ve happened - it’s a stain on American history. But Trump has also since been disappointing with his respect and understanding of 1A when it serves his ideas of governance. Why it would be Matt’s job to turn a piece about FIRE in to an essay in defense of Donald Trump or J6 is beyond me. Regardless of what happened to Trump, 1A should viewed the same. And what happened to him shouldn’t be the blueprint for law-bending revenge.
For pure advocacy and propaganda disguised as journalism, simply pick your (formerly) mainstream media vehicle of choice - they’re mostly all still out there. And there’s also definitely no shortage of independent journalists who will blindly defend Trump, no matter what he says and does.
Matt, thanks for trying to stay atop that fence in order to see what’s happening on both sides.
I’m not sure where the idea that journalism was ever supposed to be a “both sides“ profession came from. Newspapers have always been owned by people that were trying to influence others. Maybe in schools they teach a high minded ideal that you should only seek the truth. We all know that’s bullshit. I think anybody who’s looking for a journalist on one side of the fence or the other, there are many many other publications that you can read from. I personally respect Matt’s objectivity. It seems that he is supporting FIRE and pointing out that the pendulum has swung the other direction. In politics, it always seems like a “you did this to me, I deserve to do it to you“ mentality.
We should all have freedom of speech without permission from some authority. However, I do agree with those who say that a visitor in this country does not have the right to propagandize. I would hate it if someone came into my house and started preaching to me about how I’m doing things wrong. I would never do that to another. Spout your opinions from your own house.
Hell, When did it became only two sides?
Well said!
If you are not able to discern the complexities of an issue, someone such as Taibbi would seem like a fence sitter rather than a thoughtful individual. Gimme Matt any day of the week and twice on Sunday. He doesn’t park his brain in a parochial lot.
Some say a sign of adulthood is being able to holding in mind two opposing views at the same time. The strength to withstand the tension, the impasse forcing a new view. That’s not fence sitting, it’s intellectual courage.
U may b right about all the detail, I’m not well versed enough but tribalism is an outdated way to run a mind.
Excercising their constitutional right to assault police officers? 😂
No. The vast majority of J06 protesters did not come close to assaulting police. Some did, and it was appropriate to charge them. The police assaulted numerous protesters. The tale is told by a simple comparison of J06 with the BLM riots in Minnesota.
Damages: BLM 1 billion, J06 1 million.
Deaths: BLM 2 citizens murdered by rioters, J06 2 protesters killed by police.
vast differences — BLM did 1,000 times the damage, yet the law enforcement response was disproportionate in the opposite direction of the damages
In BLM politicians Tim Walz and Jacob Frey let Minneapolis burn, doing essentially nothing.
It’s disingenuous to say J6 was a protest. It was partially that and I’ll concede most of them were peaceful. But that isn’t why it’s a day of infamy now is it?
Cade, you seem to be an independent thinker. I have strong feelings about this, and you raised a rhetorical question. I’m sure you have an answer worth hearing. I’m all ears.
you're an idiot, slappy
Matt's not on the fence. He's captured by folks like you, as evidenced by his kid gloves response to your insulting pushback. When he gets similar insulting pushback back from obvious lefties, he doesn't hold back the snark.
Moronic. Blocked
Agree entirely with your description of MT’s weak position. It’s not just fence sitting, he goes to great lengths to avoid calling Trumps illegalities what they are.
Indeed. It took me awhile to accept because I'm a longtime fan, but the dude is probably the saddest and most severe case of audience capture I've ever seen. He handles left wing critiques with his signature snark and doesn't mince words. But when criticism comes from obvious right-leaning posters, he goes out of his way to explain away his perceived transgressions. For such a seemingly principled journalist, I imagine he can't feel great about his sliding scale approach to criticism and issue selection. But I bet the money helps. Sigh.
Trump didn't tell the US military not to obey commands--that's over the line. And compromises national security. Just because they said "illegal" orders doesn't excuse it. So I don't see that as equivalent to what they weaponized against Trump. That is much worse. And their weaponization was real; Trump has real basis for his claims that that video was seditious and that these officials in MN are close to insurrection themselves let alone inciting it.
I tend to agree. They walked a narrow and probably legal line, but the implication is seditious.
It appears to be a shadow government orchestrating a coup.
Personally I would go after them. Especially the Soros money and the likes of Neville Roy Singham. To me it’s more than a civil liberties issue. The system of Super PAC money and black money etc has opened the door for foreign governments to influence not only our elections but more importantly our national narrative.
These protests are not spontaneous. They are organized and funded. I say follow the money
Glenn Beck already showed the orgs funding in three different categories. Protests, elections, and I can't remember the other. Soros, the usual Rockefeller, META, Google, the Linkind guy, and more.
Linked in guy I think Hoffman.. he gave us Jean Carroll…
Maybe a Maduro-type action with Soros, except he accidently falls out of the plane.
Here’s a radical idea…close all the tax loopholes that allow these donor class assholes to drive the government’s actions. Then both teams would equally suffer and everyday Americans from both sides would be better off.
So a flat tax?
No
So, loopholes then.
No, a progressive tax similar to the one we have. But without the loopholes, esp those available to the most wealthy.
One can dream I suppose.
Educate me on the loopholes you want to eliminate.
Do a five minute search on loopholes used by wealthy people.
What you say. But as you report, “Trump is Hitler,” and “Trump is still Hitler.” Every single action of the Trump administration hounded to federal district court for injunctive relief+, which has been successful for the most part and granted for the most ridiculous of legal reasoning.
“Protesters” physically confronting uniformed law enforcement to prevent apprehension of proven forcible felons in this country illegally. Encouraged and excused by their “elected” leaders.
My point — there is no backing off by my former political party. So while you are admirable in your (and, my) ideals, the values of the opposition are changed. Their tactics are ruthless. No exceptions allowed.
Institutions as we formally recognized and respected them — gone. “Gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday, gone like a soldier in the Civil War, bang bang . . .” Despite our longing, they ain’t never coming back. Unless we can erase years of propaganda and brainwashing. Can we?
But….mOdeRAtE Democrats. NO SUCH THING
There’s a shit load of return on investment to be made on taxpayer funded transfer payments.
Elon's DOGE exposed USAID. Massive fraud. Massive waste. The reaction? Crucify him. Dems and news media (same thing) made him public enemy #1 (already hated of course for the sin of helping Trump get elected). Within weeks obedient sheep were vandalizing his cars. Politicians want to be politicians because that is the absolute best place from which to steal and never receive any punishment for the theft.
Trump hit the nail on the head when he had the Congress gathered at the Trump Kennedy Center a week or so ago. I heard the clip where Trump said something to the effect that Republicans just aren't as mean as Democrats. That's the simple truth
When Obama and Clinton deported millions of illegals, we conservatives never dreamed of violently protesting. In fact, why would anyone want to protest such a thing. Conservatives seem to be a different breed than liberals.
"Republicans are not as mean as Democrats" Maybe some truth to that, but I'm thinking "desperate" is more applicable. The current Republican Party represents the sane, the rational, traditional values, which has become as simple now as knowing what a woman is. The Dems on the other hand have gone so so far off the rails that they absolutely cannot compete in a fair competition of ideas, beliefs, or values, so that they are forced to resort to desperate measures, gross and constant lying of course, but also endeavoring to control speech, thought, election fraud
Sowell's "Vision of the Anointed" I thought explained it pretty well, except he called it the vision of the anointed (self-anointed, in my view), as opposed to the tragic vision. The tragic vision acknowledges that so many things in life are beyond our control, while the anointed vision always has "solutions", but never with any consequences.
Certain(same old) states are objecting to “showing their work” to the feds to audit expenditures. Do we need to hear anything more to evidence the corruption?
Same with providing their voter registration data bases. Now a Clinton judge says they don't have to. DOJ is just usurping their power. Devil forbid the start matching illegals as reg voters.
Just read on Townhall that a fed district judge has issued a TRO against ICE enforcement in MN. Looks like a bunch of pissant nonsense. Which it is.
It doesn't follow that i was cool with Musk and his incels pawing through my Social Security account.
The 30,000 other people in the SSA "pawing through your Social Security account" didn't bother you, but they did? Why, exactly?
Neither were the illegals.
It’s amazing to me that many conservatives, touting liberty, freedom and all that, are willing to sacrifice their rights to privacy in order to find what amounts to a few “illegals”. Do know what and where the information DOGE absconded with is? Whose hands is it in? Do you know that information can be used to cut off access to your bank accounts? Also, the anti-protest attitude is bizarre. We were lied to over and over regarding the Viet Nam war. The protesters were right. The right to protest is ours, and the punishment for nonviolent civil disobedience used to be a couple nights in jail and a fine. Thats what separates free countries from authoritarianism or dictatorships. Now it’s evidently punishable by death at the hands of unvetted amateurs with 47 days of training.
Just for you, some pertinent details on some of the people detained by ICE in MN. Please enlighten us all on why you would "protest" to keep any of these people from being deported:
Hernan Cortes-Valencia, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico with a final order of removal dated Dec. 1, 2016, who’s been convicted of sexual assault against a child, sexual assault-carnal abuse and four DUIs.
Sriudorn Phaivan, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from March 8, 2018. He’s been convicted of strongarm sodomy of a boy, strongarm sodomy of a girl, another aggravated sex offense, nine counts of larceny, unauthorized use of a vehicle, four counts of fraud, vehicle theft, two counts of drug possession, obstructing justice, possession of stolen property, receiving stolen property, burglary and check forgery.
Ge Yang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from Oct. 16, 2012. He’s been convicted of strongarm rape, strongarm aggravated assault against a family member, aggravated assault with a weapon, an additional sex offense and domestic violence involving strangulation.
Vannaleut Keomany, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated Dec. 17, 2009. He’s been convicted of two counts of attempting to commit strongarm rape.
Tou Vang, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated Oct. 31, 2006. He’s been convicted of sexual assault and sodomy of a girl under the age of 13 and procuring a child for prostitution.
Chong Vue, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated March 11, 2004. He’s been convicted of strongarm rape of a 12-year-old girl, kidnapping a child with intent to sexually assault her, and vehicle theft.
Kou Lor, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from Aug. 16, 1996. He’s been convicted of sexual assault, rape, rape with a weapon, statutory rape without force, two counts of burglary and shoplifting.
Pao Choua Xiong, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal dated Jan. 10, 2003. He’s been convicted of rape, fondling a child, two counts of domestic violence, burglary, larceny and disorderly conduct.
Gabriel Figueroa Gama, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico who was previously removed from the U.S. in 2002 and later convicted of homicide, battery, assault and amphetamine possession.
Abdirashid Adosh Elmi, a criminal illegal alien from Somalia who’s been convicted of homicide.
Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed, a criminal illegal alien from Somalia with a final order of removal dated Feb. 18, 2022. He’s been convicted of two counts of negligent manslaughter with a vehicle, two counts of DUI, larceny and damage to property.
Mongong Kual Maniang Deng, a criminal illegal alien from Sudan who’s been convicted of attempt to commit homicide, weapon possession and DUI.
Aldrin Guerrero Munoz, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico with a final order of removal from Dec. 17, 2015. He’s been convicted of homicide and assault.
Gilberto Salguero Landaverde, a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador with a final order of removal dated June 25, 2025. He’s been convicted of three counts of homicide.
Aler Gomez Lucas, a criminal illegal alien from Guatemala with a final order of removal dated May 24, 2022. He’s been convicted of negligent homicide with a vehicle and DUI.
Galuak Michael Rotgai, a criminal illegal alien from Sudan who’s been convicted of homicide and assault.
Shwe Htoo, a criminal illegal alien from Burma who’s been convicted of negligent homicide with a weapon.
Mariama Sia Kanu, a criminal illegal alien from Sierra Leone with a final order of removal from July 5, 2022. She’s been convicted of two counts of homicide, four DUIs, three counts of larceny and burglary.
Thai Lor, a criminal illegal alien from Laos with a final order of removal from June 15, 2009. He’s been convicted of two counts of homicide.
Source: https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-dozens-criminal-illegal-aliens-convicted-murder-child-rape-and-more
It isn't that we're "willing to sacrifice" our rights; it's simply a recognition of the reality that our privacy rights are being violated all day, every day, by entities using the Inter Webs.
Our "anti-protest attitude" is because what we're seeing in MN is not simply "protest." It is anarchy. Protesters march along the sidewalk, carrying signs and chanting slogans. They do not interfere in law enforcement activities by placing themselves between ice agents and those they're attempting to detain. They do not ram ICE vehicles with their cars, hit ICE agents over the head with shovels, or "Drive, baby, drive" toward them.
Wow, you'd rather we give billions over to corruption in the name of privacy. Perhaps it is even trillions. We have tens of millions of illegals in our country sucking the system dry.
A "few illegals"???!
How many illegal aliens do you find acceptable?
Oh, FFS.
What do you think DOGE was going to find out about you that isn't already available on the Dark Web, or known by intel agencies from Israel to the UK?
I see moderate democrats IRL but not in politics. The ones who are secretly moderate try to hide it bc they are afraid of the far left for reasons I do not understand at all.
Every moderate democrat i know irl is pretty darned brainwashed and also never engages with anyone outside their political bubble. They may be moderate, but they also believe that ice is evil and anyone who supports them is a racist. Its a funny kind of moderation that reminds me of certain ostriches
It's called being primary-d
Trump is threatening primary trouble for any conservatives crossing him.
Yes, and that is reprehensible.
I liked your comment, but is your last sentence sarcasm?
And reporting today that Congress approved $millions for the Global Info something or other, because they have to pass a bill. They are all revolting.
That’s some kind of censorship org?
The way I understood it, not saying I’m correct, another multi-$million gravy train for unaccountable make-work (probably Dem) bureaucracy.
Not so sure holding our noses to leftist illegal activity and donors will work out so well. It is like not disciplining your kids when they steal from you. The Democrats WILL weaponized govt when they are back in power. That is a guarantee. The ONLY thing that has a chance to slow them down is remorse-free retribution. That’s it. It is either now over the next year and right up to the mid-terms or never. This next year will decide the fate of the Republican Party. If it does not nip all the democrat chicanery in the bud, it can kiss a majority goodbye for 40 years.
I don't think we need to use remorse free retribution. Just actual accountability would shock their socks off!!
They’re already (or 5 minutes away from) seizing wealth in California
It's nice to see there are still a handful of small government conservatives in this country who actually have . . . principles.
I'm old enough to remember when the ACLU had principles.
That's actually pretty tragic that it doesn't now. All of the poeple and organizations we used to be able to count on to protect our civil liberties and fight the abuse of the war machine sold out.
Wow! That is old! Lol!
:) yup!
I remember that too, along with the dinosaurs walking around.
They had on their website the revelation that our immigration laws about illegal entry, and illegal harboring, were written in the 1920s, so therefore, were racist. And because they are racist, are void, and we don't have to follow them.
They also had on their site another revelation--because some undocumented people crossed the border at some time with valid visas or work permits now expired, they were not here illegally, because they didn't cross the border illegally.
ACLU: RIP.
That ship has sailed.
When Obama didn’t roll back Bush Jr’s vast expansion of executive privilege, I took a good long look at history and figured this is an era of ‘you’re a chump’ if you don’t take advantage of the system in a bigger way than the last guy did.
i think it’s seeped down into the world of regular people. things are getting uglier every day.
If charges like “insurrection” are levied, I should think our reaction should depend on whether they are true.
The same goes for investigations of donor malfeasance.
Is prosecuting political organizations that promote violence really a weaponization of government? Political persecution surely exists, but facing consequences for criminal behavior doesn’t a political prisoner make.
In questioning the election results was Trump engaging in illegal behavior? No, as there are government mechanisms for doing so.
Organizing armed gangs to track and interfere with law enforcement, even going so far as to steal their actual weapons, is quite a bit different.
Are you perhaps stretching a bit too far to portray any investigation or prosecution as weaponization?
I believe a member of the Latin Kings gang has been arrested and charged with breaking into the federal LEO’s car and stealing his weapons. Do you have any reason to think that any Minnesota official or leader of any of the anti-ICE groups was in contact with the Latin Kings and encouraged or suggested that they commit this crime? If so you should call Kash Patel right away, I’m sure he’ll take your call.
T_Ferguson is spot on.
The government has become too large to fear the governed anymore. It's one big patronage scheme. End it.
The difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to "weaponization" of government is that the Dems don't wet their pants when they do it.