ReportWire

Tag: Free speech

  • IRS Agents Who Revealed Details About Hunter Biden Investigation Lose Libel Suit Against Biden’s Lawyer

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    An excerpt from the long decision in Shapley v. Lowell by Judge Richard Leon (D.D.C.) filed today:

    This case arises from the multi-year criminal investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax compliance. Two of the Internal Revenue Service’s special agents involved, plaintiffs Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, revealed details about the investigation to Congress and the media due to their concerns that the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service were giving Hunter Biden preferential treatment during the course of the investigation. Plaintiffs filed this suit against one of Hunter Biden’s counsel, Abbe Lowell, alleging that he sent defamatory statements to the media that accuse plaintiffs of violating federal law….

    For a statement to be “actionable,” it must at least express or imply a verifiably false fact about the plaintiffs. … “[W]hen a writer gives a statement of opinion that is based upon true facts that are revealed to readers … such opinions generally are not actionable so long as the opinion does not otherwise imply unstated defamatory fact.” …

    Starting with context, the documents in which the challenged statements appear, and the circumstances of their alleged publication, cut against these statements being actionable. The statements are not isolated accusations of wrongdoing, as presented in the Complaint, but rather reasoned—albeit aggressive—positions that Biden’s attorneys took in the course of representing and advocating for their client. During a criminal investigation of then-sitting President Joe Biden’s son, Government agents disclosed details about the investigation to Congress and the media. Biden’s defense attorneys wrote letters to Government officials in an attempt to stop more information about their client from becoming public. The challenged statements are contained in these letters.

    In the lead letter, Lowell informs the reader that he is attaching the August 14, 2023 letter where he outlines the factual and legal reasons why he believes plaintiffs violated the law. He also attaches other correspondences, including Clark’s letter to DOJ’s Inspector General that provides a more detailed legal analysis. Viewed in the context of the letters, the challenged statements are a legal opinion advanced by defense attorneys to Government officials during a highly charged criminal investigation of their client.

    Turning to the circumstances of the statement’s publication, that too happened during Lowell’s legal representation of his client. The Government’s investigation of Hunter Biden received national attention, and Lowell believed that congressional representatives would publicly disclose the Biden attorneys’ correspondences “on a selective, self-serving basis.”. Lowell therefore represented that Biden’s legal team were making the correspondences available to the public for “any person” to review. It is apparent from the letter that Lowell wanted to change the narrative concerning the Government’s investigation of his client. Without a doubt, the authorship of the challenged statements and their subsequent publication were the product of legal advocacy.

    Beyond context, the challenged statements cannot be “said to imply undisclosed defamatory facts.” Just the opposite: the challenged statements are based on facts that are disclosed and undisputed. In the letters, Lowell provides the reader with a compilation of details about plaintiffs’ congressional testimony and their disclosures to the media. Plaintiffs do not dispute the truth of these disclosed facts—only the legal significance of them. Given the breadth of detail in the letters, the reader would not understand Lowell to be implying any false facts about the plaintiffs. Instead, “the reader understands” such opinions as the speaker’s “interpretation of the facts presented, and because the reader is free to draw his or her own conclusion based upon those facts, this type of statement is not actionable in defamation.”

    Finally, the challenged statements are not sufficiently factual to be “susceptible to proof of their truth or falsity.” While the statements describing plaintiffs’ conduct as “clear-cut crimes” and “quite simply felonies” may look like statements of fact at first blush, they express a legal opinion based on the application of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) and section 6103 of title 26 of the United States Code. And the application of these provisions is hardly straightforward. Rule 6(e) forbids the disclosure of grand jury material by certain persons, unless an enumerated exception applies. But our Circuit has held that, “when once-secret grand jury material becomes ‘sufficiently widely known,’ it may ‘los[e] its character as Rule 6(e) material,’” though “not every public disclosure waives Rule 6(e) protections.”

    So too § 6103 provides that tax “[r]eturns and return information shall be confidential” and shall not be disclosed except as authorized. The U.S. Courts of Appeals are split as to when such information is no longer confidential and subject to the restrictions of the statute, if it is in the public domain. Our Circuit has not, however, weighed in on this so-called “public domain exception” to § 6103. Thus, while the legality of plaintiffs’ conduct depends in part on questions of fact, it is ultimately a legal judgment. Due to the complexities in the law, that judgment is not readily verifiable as true or false….

    The Supreme Court’s decision in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Company is instructive. In that case, a high school wrestling coach argued that a local newspaper libeled him by printing a column that implied he had perjured himself in a judicial proceeding concerning his role in a brawl at a wrestling match. The column was entitled “Maple [Heights High School] beat the law with the ‘big lie,’” and stated, in part: “Anyone who attended the meet … knows in his heart that [the coach] … lied at the hearing after [he had] given his solemn oath to tell the truth.” The Supreme Court held that a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the column implied an assertion that the coach perjured himself in a judicial proceeding, and that “the connotation that [the coach] committed perjury is sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false” because “whether [the coach] lied … can be made on a core of objective evidence by comparing, inter alia, petitioner’s testimony before the … board with his subsequent testimony before the trial court.”

    Here, by contrast, the factfinder cannot determine whether the challenged statements are true or false by verifying whether the plaintiffs’ conduct violated established law; rather, the factfinder would have to decide, among other potential legal issues, the extent to which the public domain exceptions to Rule 6(e) and § 6103 are applicable to plaintiffs’ conduct and the information that they disclosed. That inquiry is not purely factual; it is a matter of legal judgment!

    Not surprisingly, plaintiffs disagree. They argue that Lowell did not “hedge his opinion or otherwise make clear that it was debatable” whether they committed felonies and that, by speaking with “finality,” the challenged statements are verifiable facts. According to plaintiffs, because there is a circuit split as to the application of § 6103, it is false that their activities were a “clear-cut crime” or a crime without “cognizable legal protection.” But the finality of a statement is not determinative of whether a statement is a fact as opposed to an expression of a firmly held opinion. Just as the qualifier “I think” does not transform a statement of fact into one of opinion, the lack of a qualifier does not necessarily turn an opinion into a fact. Here, Lowell made an assertive statement concerning nuanced law, and he was not required to provide a “balanced” view of his opinion.

    Our system of justice is adversarial, and the reader expects that criminal defense attorneys are not neutral arbiters! While that does not give an attorney a free pass to say whatever he pleases, Lowell provides the reader with the legal and factual bases for his statements, and the reader would understand, and expect, that Biden’s attorneys were advancing a legal position that was advantageous for their client….

    Even if the challenged statements were actionable, plaintiffs’ claims suffer from another fatal flaw: the Complaint does not plausibly allege that Lowell acted with “actual malice” [i.e., recklessness or knowledge as to the falsehood of the statements -EV] in allegedly publishing the letters….

    Charles Michael, Jason M. Weinstein, and Michael E. Stoll (Steptoe & Johnson LLP) represent defendant.

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    Eugene Volokh

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  • Meta removes ICE-sightings group after DOJ outreach

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    Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is the latest tech firm the Justice Department (DOJ) has successfully pressured into removing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent-tracking content from its platforms.

    On Tuesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media that “Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target [ICE] agents in Chicago” after her agency reached out to the company. Bondi plans to “continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.” 

    The Facebook group, ICE Sighting-Chicagoland, shared information about ICE agent sightings and was growing in popularity since the beginning of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign currently unfolding in Chicago. The page had reached nearly 80,000 members before being pulled. 

    Meta spokesman Francis Brennan told The New York Times that the group was removed for “violating our policies against coordinated harm.” The Coordinating Harm and Promoting Crime policy at Meta bans “outing the undercover status of law enforcement, military, or security personnel.”

    Of course, ICE operations have been no secret, and its agents have hardly been undercover, since President Donald Trump took office. Since January, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spent at least $51 million on an ad campaign “warning undocumented immigrants to either exit the country or be ‘hunted down,’” according to The New Republic. The agency has also supersized the production of social media recruitment campaigns and flashy videos showing arrests.

    The move comes just a couple of weeks after the Justice Department asked Apple and Google to remove ICE-tracking apps, like ICEBlock, from their respective app stores for “[putting] ICE agents at risk for doing their jobs,” according to Bondi. But while the DHS claims that assaults against ICE officers have risen 1,000 percent, little evidence has been brought forth connecting these assaults to online tracking apps or social media groups. 

    Proponents of the apps and groups argue that the technology is protected speech, despite the potential for a user to use the information provided nefariously. “ICEBlock is no different from crowd-sourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application… implements as part of its core services,” ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron told 404 Media after his app was removed from the Apple Store. “This is protected speech…we are determined to fight this with everything we have.” 

    But private companies like Apple, Google, and Meta aren’t limited in the same way as the federal government when it comes to infringing on users’ speech. Many companies’ user policy agreements regulate far more speech than would be permissible under the First Amendment, in part, because using these platforms is voluntary. There is even a chance these ICE-tracking apps and groups would’ve been taken down for violating certain policies without any prompting from the Justice Department. Regardless, it is very concerning that tech companies are being pressured to conform to the Justice Department’s wishes—rather than those of their consumers, who have broken no law. 

    Unfortunately, Facebook users have seen this before. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration pressured companies to censor content that questioned the pandemic’s origins, something Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he regrets succumbing to. “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote in an August 2024 statement. “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction—and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” 

    In the wake of Tuesday’s events, it seems clear that Zuckerberg isn’t actually ready to push back against the federal government’s pressure.

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    Autumn Billings

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  • “Viewpoint Diversity” Requirements as a New Fairness Doctrine: Chilling Effect on Controversial Faculty Speech

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    I have an article titled “Viewpoint Diversity” Requirements as a New Fairness Doctrine forthcoming in several months in the George Mason Law Review, and I wanted to serialize a draft of it here. There is still time to edit it, so I’d love to hear people’s feedback. The material below omits the footnotes (except a few that I’ve moved into text, marked with {}s, as I normally do when I move text within quotes); if you want to see the footnotes—or read the whole draft at once—you can read this PDF. You can see the opening sections  drawing the Fairness Doctrine / viewpoint diversity requirements analogy here; here is a section that explains how one of the problems with the Fairness Doctrine is likely to also arise with viewpoint diversity requirements.

    [V.] Chilling Effect on Controversial Faculty Speech and on the Hiring of Controversial Faculty

    [A.] The Fairness Doctrine

    Yet just as Red Lion offers some support for ideological diversity conditions on government funding, so the critiques of the Fairness Doctrine apply to ideological diversity conditions as well.

    To begin with, the Fairness Doctrine tended to deter broadcasters from featuring controversial speakers, because having such speakers would require the broadcasters to provide free time to rivals. The Red Lion Court pooh-poohed that concern:

    At this point, … that possibility is at best speculative. The communications industry, and in particular the networks, have taken pains to present controversial issues in the past, and even now they do not assert that they intend to abandon their efforts in this regard….

    [And] if present licensees should suddenly prove timorous, the Commission is not powerless to insist that they give adequate and fair attention to public issues….

    But just five years later, in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, the Supreme Court rejected a Florida statute that provided a right of reply to political candidates who were criticized in a newspaper, and it did so partly on chilling effect grounds:

    Faced with the penalties that would accrue to any newspaper that published news or commentary arguably within the reach of the right-of-access statute, editors might well conclude that the safe course is to avoid controversy. Therefore, under the operation of the Florida statute, political and electoral coverage would be blunted or reduced.

    That ruling did not directly invalidate the Fairness Doctrine, of course,  because the Court had concluded in Red Lion that broadcasters should be treated differently from newspapers under the First Amendment. But Miami Herald‘s reasoning did reinforce the view that, even if the chilling effect concerns are “speculative,” such speculation could be plausible and legitimate. Later criticisms of the Fairness Doctrine—including the FCC’s argument for finally jettisoning it in 1987—relied heavily on this chilling effect concern, as the quote in the Introduction illustrates. And subsequent empirical work linked the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine to an increase in informational programming—suggesting, perhaps, that the past chilling effect is no longer merely “speculative.”

    [B.] Viewpoint Diversity Rules and the Apolitical Safe Harbor Conjecture

    Viewpoint diversity requirements at universities are likely to have much the same chilling effect—and one that would indeed be viewpoint-based because it would be focused on controversial viewpoints. Here too this is speculation, but it’s likely correct speculation, given the foreseeable political environment in which the rules are likely to be enforced.

    Let me start with what I call the Apolitical Safe Harbor Conjecture: government officials will rarely demand greater viewpoint diversity from universities where faculty members focus on the discipline rather than on politics. Imagine, for instance, an English literature department in which the faculty are just interested in English literature. They have viewpoints about Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Thackeray, but they say little about modern politics, in class or out. Or imagine a mathematics or chemistry department in which the faculty likewise focus on publicly uncontroversial (or maybe even publicly incomprehensible) features of their subject, rather than trying to draw controversial political connections between their views and, say, global warming or the disparate effects of chemical pollution on different communities.

    Such a department is unlikely to draw concerns about viewpoint diversity, whether from government officials or political activists. If a university is required to proactively audit the department despite the lack of such concerns, it will presumably issue a report saying that the department is fundamentally apolitical. (Indeed, even a law school or a public policy department might avoid much scrutiny from those who worry about viewpoint diversity if its faculty keep a relatively low political profile—at least compared to similar departments at other universities—and tend to avoid the most controversial topics.)

    To be sure, one could imagine a literal reading of “viewpoint diversity” under which such an apolitical department would be required to hire more ideologically vocal faculty. “Where are your vocal Marxists?” auditors might ask the apolitical English department. “Where are your vocal Objectivists?” “Where are your vocal adherents of left-wing or right-wing schools of literary criticism?” “Where,” they might ask the Chemistry department, “are your advocates of a critical race theory approach to chemistry or chemistry education? You must hire more faculty like that.”

    But this literal reading seems practically unlikely. Among other things, if the department’s faculty aren’t seen as political in the first place, there is likely not to be much pressure to introduce ideological components into fields that many legislators, administrators, faculty, alumni, parents, and students might see as quite properly apolitical. Indeed, people who object to lack of viewpoint diversity also often object, for plausible reasons, to departments that are unduly “politicized.” There would likely be little pressure to create more viewpoint diversity by deliberately politicizing departments that are currently apolitical.

    One could also imagine a reading of viewpoint diversity under which the inquiry examines what the faculty believe deep down inside, regardless of whether their teaching or public commentary reflects that. For instance, one could review voter registration records or submit surveys asking faculty for their views on various political issues. {Beyond implicating the First Amendment rights of universities, such requirements might also implicate the First Amendment rights of professors. Hiring professors based on their party affiliation would usually be unconstitutional at a public university. The government pressuring private universities to hire professors based on their party affiliation would likewise generally be unconstitutional. Query whether the same would apply to party-balance hiring policies. }

    But here too I expect that the government and activists would place little pressure on a university where the faculty appear middle-of-the-road. For example, if 60% of the chemistry faculty are registered independent and offer generally centrist answers to survey questions, 20% are moderate Democrats, and 20% are centrist Republicans, the department will likely be safe from having to substantially change its hiring practices. And if that’s correct, prospective faculty will have plenty of reason to register as independents and to give centrist answers. After all, not being able to vote in a Democratic or Republican primary—or in a Green or Libertarian primary—involves little tangible loss, while becoming more employable by controversy-averse departments involves great tangible gain. {Indeed, in states that have open primaries, voters might not have to register as party members at all.}

    Finally, one could imagine another literal reading of “viewpoint diversity” under which the government would evaluate the department based on its diversity of intra-disciplinary viewpoints. Under this reading, the English department would need to have a mix of different views about how to interpret texts or how to evaluate aesthetic qualities. There would need to be a mix of people who believe that poetry is best when rhymed and metered, and those who instead favor blank verse. Likewise, physics departments might need to have a mix of people with different views on the implications of quantum theory. Medical schools might need to have a mix of people with different views on the best ways to treat or prevent cancer or heart disease. This might be a sensible idea in principle, at least to some degree. Indeed, some departments probably already try to have some such mix of intra-disciplinary viewpoints.

    But again, it’s fairly unlikely that there will be much government or public pressure for departments to insist on this as a primary hiring criterion. Many legislators and government officials might not even know the main intra-disciplinary rifts in various fields. And there will be considerable internal pressure for departments not to focus unduly on such intradisciplinary viewpoint diversity, given that there are so many other hiring criteria that might be necessary. A department might, for instance, reasonably insist more on a mix of subject matters than viewpoints, and within each subject (e.g., 20th-century English-language poetry) a small department might only have one hiring slot available. As a result, “viewpoint diversity” is likely to focus on political views and not on intradisciplinary views.

    [C.] The Risk Posed by Faculty with Controversial Views

    If having relatively apolitical faculty offers departments a safe harbor, then hiring faculty who are known to have more controversial views would jeopardize that safe harbor. Say a department has 20 tenured faculty who don’t have any prominent political profile. (Most faculty members in most departments are indeed apolitical, at least in their professional lives.) Two retire, and the department has to decide among a pool of replacements, some of whom are likewise apolitical, but others are publicly known to be left-wing, whether based on their scholarship, their public commentary, or both.

    The department will likely feel some pressure to avoid hiring the visibly political candidates. Once it starts having prominent left-wing faculty, it will start to draw attention from critics who ask, “Where are the right-wing faculty to provide viewpoint diversity?” The presence of many non-left-wing apolitical faculty is unlikely to be much protection: Because the apolitical faculty are less noticeable in such debates than the political ones, a department can get a reputation as being highly skewed even from just a few controversial hires.

    Now this wouldn’t be the end of the world, of course: The department could respond to critics by assuring them that it will then add some right-wing hires to provide diversity. But the important thing is that—if my Apolitical Safe Harbor Conjecture is correct—hiring prominently ideological faculty would cause trouble for the university: It would draw unwanted attention from government officials, and it would constrain future hiring—something no department likes. (After all, there might be only a small pool of hires with the suitably balancing viewpoints available, and they might not fit well with the department’s curricular needs.)

    To be sure, the hypothetical department of 18 apolitical faculty and two left-wingers is actually more viewpoint-diverse than that of the 20 apolitical faculty (even if a department with 10 apolitical faculty and 10 with a broad range of political views would be even more viewpoint-diverse). But, for the reasons discussed in the previous subpart, the department with all apolitical faculty is going to draw many fewer objections of lack of viewpoint diversity. To borrow from the FCC’s criticism of the Fairness Doctrine, “instead of promoting access to diverse opinions on controversial issues of public importance, the actual effect of the doctrine is to ‘overall lessen[] the flow of diverse viewpoints to the public.’”

    Likewise, let’s return to the 20-person department in which the faculty are apolitical in their professional lives. Say that five of them, motivated by some issue in the news that’s related to their discipline, are considering publicly expressing themselves—for instance, in op-eds, congressional testimony, or a coauthored paper. That has long been understood as a proper role of university faculty: to apply their expertise to the problems facing their community, the nation, and the world, and to offer that application to the public.

    But say they’re aware that their views are going to be politically controversial and will cause them to be publicly labeled as “left-wing” or “right-wing.” For example, some of the chemistry department faculty are considering speaking out on matters related to global warming, “environmental justice,” or the need for controversial international treaties to deal with acid rain or fossil fuel use. They—and their Dean or University President—will realize that this expression will start to draw attention to their department, and that it may produce questions about whether the department is ideologically skewed and thus in need of more viewpoint diversity. The foreseeable result is that the professors will be reluctant to express controversial views, whether because of pressure from supervisors or because of their own worries about such political pushback. {And this chilling effect can remain even if the federal government takes a light hand in enforcing any viewpoint diversity mandates, for instance, by carefully screening public complaints and acting only on a few of the ones that it receives. See 1985 Fairness Report (likewise concluding that “there is a substantial danger that many broadcasters are inhibited from providing controversial issues of public importance by operation of the fairness doctrine,” even if “the Commission requests broadcasters to respond to only a small number of the complaints it receives annually”).}

    Consider, by way of comparison, what the FCC said in 1987 in rejecting the Fairness Doctrine:

    Each time a broadcaster presents what may be construed as a controversial issue of public importance, it runs the risk of a complaint being filed, resulting in litigation and penalties, including loss of license. This risk still exists even if a broadcaster has met its obligations by airing contrasting viewpoints, because the process necessarily involves a vague standard, the application and meaning of which is hard to predict….

    [E]ven if [the broadcaster] intends to or believes that it has presented balanced coverage of a controversial issue, it may be inhibited by the expenses of being second-guessed by the government …. Further, in view of its dependence upon the goodwill of its audience, a licensee may seek to avoid the possible tarnish to its reputation that even an allegation that it violated the governmental policy of “balanced” programming could entail.

    Furthermore, … the doctrine inherently provides incentives that are more favorable to the expression of orthodox and well-established opinion with respect to controversial issues than to less established viewpoints…. [Many of the broadcasters] who had been denied or threatened with the denial of renewal of their licenses on fairness grounds … [had] espoused provocative opinions that many found to be abhorrent and extreme, thereby increasing the probability that these broadcasters would be subject to fairness doctrine challenges.

    Change a few of the words, and the analysis would apply much the same way to university viewpoint diversity requirements.

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    Eugene Volokh

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  • Dad with cancer in ICE custody is separated from doctors, suit says, & more cases

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    Thousands of legal cases reach U.S. courts every year. Read on to learn about some of the latest cases, including a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of a father, Jose Daniel Contreras-Cervantes, who is detained in ICE custody. This provided photo shows Contreras-Cervantes, his wife and their children.

    Thousands of legal cases reach U.S. courts every year. Read on to learn about some of the latest cases, including a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Michigan on behalf of a father, Jose Daniel Contreras-Cervantes, who is detained in ICE custody. This provided photo shows Contreras-Cervantes, his wife and their children.

    ACLU of Michigan

    The summaries below were drafted with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists in our News division. All stories below were reported, written and edited by McClatchy journalists.

    Thousands of legal cases reach U.S. courts every year. From accusations of mistreatment in prisons to fraud to sexual abuse and beyond, here are some of the latest from across the country.

    Dad with leukemia in ICE custody is separated from his doctors in MI, suit says

    In Michigan, a federal lawsuit says Jose Daniel Contreras-Cervantes, a father of three with leukemia, is not receiving proper medical care while detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The ACLU of Michigan is advocating for his release, arguing that a new ICE directive is preventing bond hearings, which could allow for his conditional release. His family is concerned about his health and the time lost with him due to his detention, according to the ACLU. | Published Oct. 6 | Read More

    Deputy mayor faked bomb threat related to Israel at Los Angeles city hall, feds say

    In Los Angeles, former Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Brian K. Williams was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to making a fake bomb threat, according to federal prosecutors Williams fabricated the threat due to stress and anxiety during a meeting, prosecutors say. Williams was not motivated by political reasons, but his actions diverted police resources and created a dangerous environment, prosecutors wrote in court documents. | Published Oct. 7 | Read More

    3 college students die trapped in burning Cybertruck, reports say. Lawsuits filed

    In California, the families of two college students have filed wrongful death lawsuits against Tesla after their children were trapped and died in a burning Cybertruck. The lawsuits say the vehicle’s design flaws, including inaccessible door handles and hidden emergency releases, left the occupants with no practical means of escape. The tragic incident has raised concerns about the safety of Tesla’s design, as the families seek justice and answers. | Published Oct. 7 | Read More

    Immigration lawyer critical of ICE has phone seized at MA airport, lawsuit says

    In Massachusetts, immigration attorney Andrew Lattarulo is suing the government after his phone was seized by federal agents at Boston Logan International Airport, according to his federal lawsuit. Lattarulo, who is critical of ICE, says the seizure was in retaliation for his public criticisms. A judge has temporarily prohibited the government from searching his phone, pending a hearing, court records show. | Published Oct. 10 | Read More

    Teacher fired over online Charlie Kirk posts wants her job back in TN, suit says

    In Tennessee, Susannah O’Brien is suing to get her job back after she says she was fired for Facebook posts about Charlie Kirk’s death. O’Brien argues her posts were shared as a private citizen and did not disrupt her school. She claims her termination violated her free speech rights and is seeking reinstatement and damages, according to her federal lawsuit. | Published Oct. 10 | Read More

    McClatchy News continues to follow lawsuits and legal cases from around the country. Check back for more legal stories.

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    Stories by Real-Time News team, with AI summarization

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  • As USC considers Trump’s offer tying funding to conservative policies, MIT firmly rejects it

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    As USC weighs its options, MIT has become the first of nine universities to forcefully reject a White House proposal that asks them to adopt President Trump’s conservative political agenda in exchange for favorable access to federal funding.

    In a letter to Trump administration officials, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said Friday the campus disagrees with provisions of the proposal, including some that would limit free speech and the university’s independence. She said that Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is inconsistent with MIT’s belief that scientific funding should be based on merit alone.

    “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” Kornbluth said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House officials.

    The MIT rejection comes as University of Southern California has been roiled by the proposed compact since receiving it earlier this month. The school’s faculty members strongly denounced the offering at a meeting this week, calling it “egregiously invalid,” “probably unconstitutional” and “antithetical to principles of academic freedom.”

    But interim President Beong-Soo Kim told the roughly 500 attendees the university “has not made any kind of final decision.”

    At the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom has aggressively weighed in, challenging USC “to do the right thing” and reject the offer. He threatened to withhold state funding to any California university that agrees to it.

    White House spokesperson Liz Huston said that “the Trump Administration’s only request is for universities to end discrimination. Any university that refuses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform higher education isn’t serving its students or their parents — they’re bowing to radical, left-wing bureaucrats.”

    “The truth is, the best science can’t thrive in institutions that have abandoned merit, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth,” Huston said. “President Trump encourages universities to join us in restoring academic excellence and commonsense policies.”

    What’s in the compact

    The higher-education compact circulated this month requires universities to make a wide range of commitments in line with Trump’s political agenda. In exchange, universities that agree to the terms would get more favorable access to federal research grants and additional funding, as well as other benefits.

    They would have to accept the government’s definition of gender — two sexes, male and female — and would not be allowed to recognize transgender people’s gender identities. Foreign student enrollment would be restricted. The compact also calls for a five-year tuition freeze for U.S. students.

    It asks colleges to require the SAT or ACT for all undergraduate applicants and to eliminate race, sex and other characteristics from admissions decisions. As for free speech, schools would have to commit to promoting a wide range of views on campus — and change or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” according to the compact.

    The universities were invited to provide “limited, targeted feedback” by Oct. 20 and make a decision no later than Nov. 21.

    Other institutions that received the 10-page proposal are: Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, Brown University, the University of Texas and the University of Virginia. It was not clear how the schools were selected or why.

    Leaders of the Texas system were “honored” that the Austin campus was chosen to be a part of the compact and its “potential funding advantages,” according to a statement from Kevin Eltife, chair of the board of regents.

    University leaders face immense pressure to reject the compact amid opposition from students, faculty, free speech advocates and higher education groups. Leaders of some other universities have called it extortion. The mayor and City Council in Tucson, home of the University of Arizona, formally opposed the compact, calling it an “unacceptable act of federal interference.”

    Some conservatives have criticized it. Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, called it “profoundly problematic” and said the government’s requests are “ungrounded in law.”

    “I am deeply sympathetic to the Trump critique of higher education,” he told The Times on Friday. “I support just about every point in the compact, but even I have real concerns about the way it has been framed and proffered.”

    But Hess noted that the compact has become something of a “Rorschach test.”

    “If you look at it one way, you see a bullying attempt by the administration to impose its will,” he said. “If you look at it another way, it is the Trump administration offering a positive, constructive vision of the federal-university partnership.”

    The view from Los Angeles

    The USC faculty’s vociferous disapproval of the compact during a meeting of the university’s academic senate on Oct. 6 was in line with the reactions of similar bodies at other affected campuses.

    In stark terms, USC department heads, professors and others condemned the compact, with several saying there should be no negotiations with the Trump administration.

    Kim, the interim president, attended the meeting, but did not share his opinion of the compact. He noted that USC did not solicit the offer from Trump. “I wanted to make sure that I heard from the community and received your input,” he said.

    Asked for comment Friday, a USC spokesperson referred The Times to comments Kim made Oct. 3, when he said that he would consult with the school’s board of trustees and other stakeholders to “hear their wide-ranging perspectives” on the proposal.

    Trump’s proposal comes at a fraught time for USC, which is in the midst of widespread layoffs as it faces down a $200-million budget deficit.

    Across town, UCLA has also been grappling with dire financial issues of its own, albeit ones that directly relate to the president’s forceful attempt to remake higher education.

    UCLA has been negotiating with the Trump administration over a $1.2-billion settlement proposal that would resolve a federal investigation into alleged civil rights violations on campus. The claims stem from UCLA’s handling of alleged antisemitism during spring 2024 pro-Palestinian protests. UC leaders say the fine would be “devastating” to the 10-campus system and have broadly indicated that other proposals violate the university’s mission and values.

    Speaking at a UC-wide academic senate meeting Thursday, UC President James B. Milliken said the “landscape changed” after the Trump administration offered the compact last week to non-UC campuses.

    He did not indicate whether the proposal affected UC negotiations but said that there was a “shift from a bespoke pursuit of universities to a wholesale” targeting of higher education, which he suggested put UC in a safer position. He said he did not know the impact of the compact on UCLA.

    In some ways, the compact presented to USC matches the settlement proposed to UCLA. Both, for example, make stipulations about binary definitions of gender that exclude transgender people.

    But the compact differs in proposing strict limits on foreign student enrollment and the tuition freeze for U.S. citizens.

    Although the compact has not been offered to UC, university officials are studying its contents to better understand Trump’s positions on higher education and formulate a negotiation strategy.

    Colleges nationwide debate compact

    Besides USC and MIT, the compact has been the subject of fierce debate at several other campuses that received it.

    At an Oct. 3 convening of the University of Virginia senate attended by interim President Paul G. Mahoney and hundreds of faculty, senate representatives voted down the compact.

    According to notes on the meeting provided to The Times, faculty expressed concern over academic freedom, discrimination against transgender individuals — and said they feared complying with it would have a “chilling” effect on free speech.

    Three days later, at a meeting of the University of Arizona faculty senate, 81% of voting members rejected the government’s proposal.

    At Dartmouth, President Sian Leah Beilock has also expressed hesitation over signing.

    “I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence,” Beilock said in a statement. “You have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.”

    Some university faculty, including at USC, have voiced skepticism over Trump’s willingness to adhere to the terms of the compact should an institution accept it. That, Hess said, is “a valid concern.”

    “If you look at the deal that have been struck [by the Trump administration] around tariffs and tech, there is certainly a sense that deals … are not written in stone,” he said. “Normally, in these conversations, I am usually very skeptical of faculty concerns, but from what we’ve seen … a lot of these practical concerns are very legitimate.”

    Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

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    Daniel Miller, Jaweed Kaleem, Collin Binkley

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  • Ken Paxton drags TCU over Turning Point USA event. He forgot one crucial thing | Opinion

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    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks against Republicans supporting Rep. Dustin Burrows in the Texas House speaker’s race at the headquarters for Texas Scorecard, a conservative think tank, in Leander, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks against Republicans supporting Rep. Dustin Burrows in the Texas House speaker’s race at the headquarters for Texas Scorecard, a conservative think tank, in Leander, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025.


    Jay Janner

    USA TODAY Network

    We’re starting to wonder if Ken Paxton is pining for his college days at Baylor.

    After all, the attorney general seems unusually engaged in just about every on-campus controversy and debate — or at least the ones where he finds political advantage.

    This time, it’s TCU in the spotlight. Chloe Cole, who advocates against gender transition for minors, alleged that the university canceled a scheduled event planned by the university chapter of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. School officials say the event was never scheduled to begin with because it did not have a secure space available on relatively short notice. Paxton, a master of speaking boldly when he knows little, declared he would get to the bottom of this “free speech” issue.

    We can’t believe we have to say this to a self-described conservative Republican, but: TCU is a private institution. It can welcome or reject any campus visitor or event, for any reason. It’s a different standard than the state-supported universities that have previously drawn fire.

    Once upon a time, Republicans cherished that difference. Many stood up for the rights of private businesses or entities against what they saw as intrusive government.

    These days, Ken Paxton is that intrusive government.

    Republican populism flexes government power

    As the GOP has moved inexorably in a populist direction, elected officials have increasingly sought to use the government power that they once feared to get the policy outcomes they desire — or simply to intimidate private institutions.

    Paxton has taken this to a new level. Over three terms, he has morphed the job of attorney general into enforcer of whatever his political side wants at the moment. Republicans have developed grievances in recent years with technology companies, Big Pharma and, most recently, universities, including the University of North Texas. To be clear, many of these complaints have merit, and there’s a role for government to counter expansive corporate power.

    The hypocrisy is inescapable, though: The party that ascended to majorities in no small part by bashing “frivolous lawsuits” decided by “activist judges” is more than happy to turn to the courts or hang the looming threat of litigation over schools and companies if they don’t get the outcome they desire.

    It’s mobster government. Nice university you’ve got there; it would be a shame if anything happened to it.

    Colleges, even private ones like TCU, must embrace free speech

    TCU, like all colleges, should embrace and promote freedom of speech. Institutions of higher education must be vigorous promoters of a free-expression culture, and not just in narrow, legalistic ways. They should be devoted to the idea that unpopular ideas are often those that need the most vigorous defense. They should reject the heckler’s veto and counter the idea that speech, however noxious or even hateful, is equivalent to violence.

    A poster promoting a conservative commentator's speaking tour
    A poster for conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s ‘Live Free’ tour taken from the Turning Point USA TCU chapter’s Facebook page. Courtesy of Turning Point USA at TCU

    But in this case, there’s no evidence of anything other than a logistical issue. Kirk himself held an event on campus in 2023, and the Turning Point chapter had a memorial service for him after his assassination last month.

    Perhaps university officials could have worked a little harder to find a space and fulfill the roles we describe above. But what happened is not a suppression of anyone’s rights, and it’s well within the university’s prerogative to control the scheduling of its facilities.

    State universities have an obligation to be even more open, and elected officials should hold their feet to the fire. But private institutions — think hard, General Paxton, surely you still understand the difference — are more immune from government scrutiny.

    But again, activists at all levels seem to be forgetting this distinction. Tarrant County Republican Party Chairman Bo French has been on a separate crusade against TCU, dropping “investigations” of the university’s diversity practices, its professors’ comments and whatever else he can find in an attempt to keep the outrage fire stoked.

    French gets more attention for his ignominious comments about minorities, gay people and immigrants. Tarrant Republican leaders should ask tough questions about who’s doing the actual work of the party — raising money, winning campaigns and assisting with the conduct of elections — while French sticks his nose in so many other people’s business.

    French and other critics of TCU like to drop the cliche that the university should remember what the “C” in “TCU” stands for. (Newsflash: If you’re the 18,000th person to post that thought on X, it’s not all that clever.) We’re not aware of a time when Jesus addressed the procedure of booking lecture halls. TCU’s history is largely secular, while still dedicated to Christian values. It’s not Baylor, no matter how much Paxton might want it to be.

    The attorney general seems to be everywhere all the time. That’s one way to bolster his U.S. Senate campaign or distract from his personal and professional controversies.

    It’s just a shame that so many institutions, especially private ones, must suffer in service to Paxton’s ambition.

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    Read more by clicking the arrow in the upper right.

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    The Editorial Board meets regularly to discuss issues in the news and what points should be made in editorials. We strive to build a consensus to produce the strongest editorials possible, but when we differ, we put matters to a vote.

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    We focus on local and state news, though we will also weigh in on national issues with an eye toward their impact on Texas or the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

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  • Trump Regards Millions of Americans As Enemies of the People

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    Russ Vought’s coming for you!
    Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

    There are a lot of developments that can be cited to illuminate the crucial differences between the first and second Trump administrations, ranging from the simple idea that “practice makes perfect” to the observation that the president has carefully ensured no one around him will exercise a restraining influence over his darker impulses. But the government shutdown has brought to light one very specific change that is especially ominous, as Toluse Olorunnipa and Jonathan Lemire explain at The Atlantic:

    Thirty-four days into the previous government shutdown, in 2019, reporters asked President Donald Trump if he had a message for the thousands of federal employees who were about to miss another paycheck. “I love them. I respect them. I really appreciate the great job they’re doing,” he said at the time. The following day, caving after weeks of punishing cable-news coverage, he signed legislation to reopen the government, lauding furloughed employees as “incredible patriots,” pledging to quickly restore their back pay, and calling the moment “an opportunity for all parties to work together for the benefit of our whole beautiful, wonderful nation.”

    Doesn’t really sound like the same guy, does it?

    It sure doesn’t. Trump has greeted the 2025 shutdown as a heaven-sent opportunity to fire hundreds of thousands of employees at what he calls “Democrat Agencies” at the behest of his budget director, Russell Vought, the government-hating religious zealot whose nihilistic suggestions in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 were considered so politically radioactive that Trump claimed to know nothing about the initiative. Now he’s posting AI video of Vought as the Grim Reaper come to life to get rid of bureaucrats who aren’t engaged in the holy MAGA trinity of killing, jailing, or deporting people.

    Yes, the president loves trolling people, and Vought swears by the value of “traumatizing” the denizens of the “deep state” who resist or simply get in the way of the administration’s agenda. But this is by no means an isolated incident of the vastly expanded list of Americans Trump now considers his current enemies and future victims. If you want to understand the most crucial difference between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0, look to the targets of his wrath.

    Coming out of the 2024 election, there were many justifiable fears that Trump would act on his frequent threats of vengeance against highly placed “enemies” ranging from Republican “traitors” such as Liz Cheney, to the federal prosecutors who tried and failed to hold him accountable, to “fake news” media executives, to conspiracy-theory suspects like vaccine scientists. Likely targets included whole institutions thought to have betrayed him (like the FBI) and “radical left” policies like DEI and climate change that were campaign-trail hobgoblins.

    True to his malicious word, Trump has urged prosecutors and investigators and his social-media bullies to “go after” all these prominent symbols of the hated opposition. But now the ranks of “enemies of the people” has expanded far beyond the liberal elites and Never Trumpers who were objects of so much presidential ire in the past. Enemies now include whole categories of Americans deemed guilty by association with institutions and causes deemed inimical to the mission of “saving America.” Trump has signaled that entire cities will become “training grounds” for the U.S. military, denied self-governance and basic civil liberties because of their inherently perfidious nature as “the enemy within.” Major sectors of civil society, most obviously higher education, have been declared presumptively hostile and subject to shakedowns and forced takeovers. Anyone voicing opposition to the administration’s mass-deportation program is being treated as consciously treasonous and the ally of “invaders.” And most recently, in the wake of the assassination of MAGA and Christian-nationalist icon Charlie Kirk, the president, the vice-president, the top White House policy adviser, and the attorney general have all suggested that any strongly worded criticism of the administration might be treated as illegal incitement to violence or “terrorism.”

    Looking at all these phenomena, it should be clear that we are witnessing not just a rhetorical escalation of MAGA attacks on Trump enemies now that a supine Republican Party controls the federal government. The battleground is widening dramatically even as Trump wins more and more turf. Perhaps the president’s threats to lay waste to his own executive branch reflect a hitherto-unknown fidelity to old-school small-government conservatism of the sort that Vought and his friends in the House Freedom Caucus have fused with MAGA culture-war preoccupations into a radical ideology of maximum destruction. But more likely he understands that he has just three years left to consummate his lifelong war against those who opposed or underestimated him, and wants to leave as high a body count as possible. The “enemy within” could grow to encompass half the nation.


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    Ed Kilgore

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  • Can the Democrats Take Free Speech Back from the Right?

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    This is my first column since going on book leave in May. (Thank you to Jon Allsop for filling in admirably and expanding the mission of Fault Lines while he was at it.) Every restart comes with a bit of looking back, and, this week, I want to revisit a series of columns from the past few years which concern the First Amendment. I am a free-speech absolutist—an admittedly mostly useless and conditional term that tends to fall apart at the gentlest touch. What it means, in my case, is that I believe that all forms of nonviolent speech should be protected; that the government should not have any power to regulate media outlets, individual speakers, or online platforms; and that, on a broader, nonlegal, and even spiritual level, people should regard any type of censorship, even when done by private actors operating within their rights, with skepticism and worry. I’m convinced that most Americans agree with this view, at least in theory, and one of the arguments that I’ve made during the past few years is that the Democratic Party and people on the left should return to their historical position as the defenders of the First Amendment, not only because it’s the right thing to do—and utterly essential in a moment when the Trump Administration seems to be gearing up for a crackdown on dissent in the government, the media, and the academy—but also because it’s one of those things, like football and underdog stories, that fill Americans with warm, familiar feelings.

    Needless to say, this writing campaign has been almost entirely in vain. The liberal side of American politics has, in the past few decades, essentially ceded the cause of free speech to the right. Pick any losing battle you want: the debate about trigger warnings and safe spaces, which became popular on college campuses and elsewhere in the early twenty-tens; or the fights over deplatforming allegedly harmful speakers about ten years ago; or the shutting down of “disinformation” on social media during the early Biden Administration. These little acts of censorship had the net effect of helping people on the right make the case that they were and are having their speech suppressed. The rise of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, for example, depended on his correct assessment that there were conservative students on every campus who felt like they couldn’t speak their minds in class without facing social consequences. He also understood that the emotional unrest among these kids could be harnessed with just a little prodding and organizing.

    Can liberals do something similar now? Free speech, for obvious reasons, has always been an opposition-party issue—it’s a lot harder to claim that the government is suppressing you when your preferred party is in power. Two weeks ago, Democratic Representative Jason Crow, of Colorado, talked about the No Political Enemies Act, which, in its own words, reaffirms “the constitutionally protected right to free speech and establishes clear and enforceable protections to deter abuse, empower individuals and organizations to defend themselves, and create meaningful accountability.” The bill is known by the rather unfortunate acronym NOPE. In practice, NOPE would “prohibit the use of federal funds for any investigations or regulatory action that would suppress protected speech” and provide “tools” for people who find themselves on the wrong side of censors. A companion measure was introduced in the Senate, by Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, with support from the Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer. The chances that the Republican-controlled House or the Republican-controlled Senate bring the bill to the floor are basically zero. Still, NOPE allowed Democrats, in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension from the air, to do a little First Amendment sabre-rattling and to show that they, too, care about free speech.

    Will it work? If you believe that politics obeys a kind of thermodynamics, it would stand to reason that the Democrats, now expressing growing concerns over censorship—especially with this past week’s unveiling of National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which would effectively classify many speech acts as domestic terrorism—would be able to seize the mantle of free speech and build up a degree of activist energy, particularly at colleges and universities, where cuts to federal funding and threats from the Trump Administration have led to the dissolution of entire fields of study.

    But I don’t think this will happen. For one thing, the cultural shift that led to safe spaces and trigger warnings was more powerful than some of us may want to admit. It’s true that we are in the waning days of the concept that speech is violence—due in part to a marked algorithmic shift in social media, from peak woke to peak reactionary, as well as the plummeting faith the public has in the academy, the crucible for this idea. But people who had adopted that position and supported what was broadly labelled “cancel culture” still occupy roles in the infrastructure of the Democratic Party, of major nonprofits, and of academia. It’s hard to imagine that the individuals who mostly rolled their eyes at free-speech claims just a few years ago will suddenly transform into Mario Savio-style culture warriors, urging their audiences to throw themselves onto the gears of government. These same people, for better or worse, are the gears. Crow, Van Hollen, and Murphy should be applauded for introducing NOPE and at least trying to reclaim free speech, but I suspect even they know that their party currently has little standing on the issue.

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    Jay Caspian Kang

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  • Reagan-appointed judge slams Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian students

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    President Donald Trump often channels former President Ronald Reagan, down to his signature slogan, “make America great again.” But Judge William Young, who was appointed by Reagan himself, cited Reagan’s legacy as a total rebuke to Trump’s ruling philosophy. “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction,” Young wrote in a ruling filed on Tuesday, quoting a speech by Reagan.

    “I’ve come to believe that President Trump truly understands and appreciates the full import of President Reagan’s inspiring message—yet I fear he has drawn from it a darker, more cynical message,” Young warned. “I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.”

    Young’s ruling came in response to one of the Trump administration’s signature policies, its attempts to shut down Palestinian solidarity protests by deporting Palestinian students and their supporters. The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association sued a few days after the arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, arguing that the policy violates freedom of speech, both by intimidating foreign academics in America and preventing American academics “from hearing from, and associating with, their noncitizen students and colleagues.”

    Ruling that administration officials indeed “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target non-citizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech,” Young promised to hold a hearing on the specific measures he will order. He wrote that “it will not do simply to order the Public Officials to cease and desist in the future,” given the current political environment.

    What seems to have set off Young was a postcard from a hater: “Trump has pardons and tanks…What do you have?” Young attached a photocopy of the postcard to the top of his ruling, and dedicated the ruling to disproving the writer. “Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States—you and me—have our magnificent Constitution. Here’s how that works out in a specific case,” he wrote, inviting the letter writer to visit his courthouse at the end of the ruling.

    The ruling itself meticulously outlined how several different activists—Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Yunseo Chung, and Badar Khan Suri—were targeted for deportation and how the administration justified it, both internally and publicly. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly claimed in the media that the deportations were meant to target “riots” on campus, Young shows that the students were often targeted based on their opinions alone, with vague chains of association linking them to violent protests.

    For example, the Department of Homeland Security noted in an intelligence analysis that “Hamas flyers” were handed out during a March 2025 protest that Khalil and Chung attended. But as Young pointed out, there was “neither an allegation nor evidence” that either Khalil or Chung themselves were involved in distributing the flyers.

    In another case, Öztürk was a member of Graduate Students for Palestine. Because that group cosigned a call for boycotting Israel with Students for Justice in Palestine, a group that was banned from Tufts University for allegedly using violent imagery, the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence analysts tried to tie Öztürk to Students for Justice in Palestine, which she was not a member of. Young, exasperated, called the logic “hard to follow.”

    He wrote that “there is no evidence that Öztürk did anything but co-author an op-ed that criticized the University’s position on investments with Israel, that she criticized Israel, and that the organization of which she was member joined in that criticism with an organization that was banned on Tufts campus, with which she was not affiliated.”

    Particularly striking was the way that the administration used anonymous online blacklists as a basis for investigation. In March 2025, the Department of Homeland Security ordered its intelligence office to review all 5,000 names on Canary Mission, a controversial website that lists allegedly antisemitic students, Assistant Director Peter Hatch testified. The office also relied on names provided by Betar, an Israeli nationalist organization that has bragged about getting its opponents deported, Hatch testified.

    “Those names that were passed up the chain of command by the investigating subordinates were almost universally approved for adverse action, and, again, the reasons for being passed up the chain of command included any form of online suggestion that one was ‘pro-Hamas,’ including Canary Mission’s own anonymous articles,” Young wrote.

    The judge directly addressed Rubio’s claim that, because a visa or green card is a privilege, the government has unlimited power to remove non-citizens.

    “This Court in part must agree: non-citizens are, indeed, in a sense our guests. How we treat our guests is a question of constitutional scope, because who we are as a people and as a nation is an important part of how we must interpret the fundamental laws that constrain us. We are not, and we must not become, a nation that imprisons and deports people because we are afraid of what they have to tell us,” he wrote.

    And, Young argued, the decision to go after students for activism they did before Trump took office made the policy especially “arbitrary” and “capricious.” Students across America “have all been made to understand that there are certain things that it may be gravely dangerous for them to say or do, but have not been told precisely what those things are,” he wrote, noting that many of the arrests were designed to be as intimidating as possible.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents snatched Öztürk off the street while wearing masks. “ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence,” Young wrote, calling ICE officials “disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable” for trying to argue otherwise. “In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it,” he added, citing Abraham Lincoln.

    Young moved from a discussion of the case into a broadside against the way immigration enforcement is used in America.

    “ICE has nothing whatever to do with criminal law enforcement and seeks to avoid the actual criminal courts at all costs. It is carrying a civil law mandate passed by our Congress and pressed to its furthest reach by the President. Even so, it drapes itself in the public’s understanding of the criminal law though its ‘warrants’ are but unreviewed orders from an ICE superior and its ‘immigration courts’ are not true courts at all but hearings before officers who cannot challenge the legal interpretations they are given,” he wrote.

    The Department of Homeland Security responded publicly to Young’s ruling—ironically, by accusing him of dangerous speech. “It’s disheartening that even after the terrorist attack and recent arrests of rioters with guns outside of ICE facilities, this judge decides to stoke the embers of hatred,” department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, accusing Young of “smearing and demonizing federal law enforcement.”

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    Matthew Petti

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  • A Disturbing Trend Has Taken Hold In Red States: ‘The Result Is Unprecedented’

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    Thousands of books have been banned from schools over the last year, according to a new report, and just three red states account for the vast majority of the bans.

    Schools across the country banned 6,870 books between July 2024 and June 2025, says the report from PEN America, a nonprofit organization that advocates for free expression. The 2023-24 academic year saw a 200% increase in school book bans, bringing the total instances of book bans since 2021 to nearly 23,000.

    “Never before in the life of any living American have so many books been systematically removed from school libraries across the country,” Kasey Meehan, the director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said in a press release. “A disturbing ‘everyday banning’ and normalization of censorship has worsened and spread over the last four years. The result is unprecedented.”

    PEN America found that 3,752 unique titles have been banned in 87 different school districts across the country. The books the group identified as banned include those that have been prohibited entirely and those that have been removed during a review period, as well as those that have been restricted — for example, if they can only be accessed with parental permission or if they’ve been restricted to students in certain grades.

    Florida, which has been at the forefront of the effort to remove books from school libraries, led the nation in book bans, with 2,304 instances recorded last school year. Texas came in second place with 1,781 removals, followed by Tennessee, which had 1,622 bans.

    Like in years past, many of the banned books have LGBTQ+ themes, including “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” by Malinda Lo, which is about a teenage girl discovering her sexuality. The award-winning novel was one of the top five most-banned books last year. The most banned book last school year was “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, a satirical novel about a dystopian future.

    Conservative groups have baselessly claimed many of the affected works contain “sexually explicit” material, therefore making them inappropriate for students. It’s all a part of right-wing culture warriors’ efforts to dismantle and remake the nation’s public schools into a place where far-right ideology can thrive.

    Since the aftermath of the 2020 racial justice protests, far-right groups like Moms for Liberty, which was founded in Florida, have spearheaded a movement to install conservative school board members, censor teachers and remove books that contain LGBTQ+ or racial justice themes.

    Under Donald Trump, the movement has also reached the federal government. The Department of Defense removed nearly 600 books from schools on military bases, including those detailing the experience of transgender troops.

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  • Federal Court Rules Speech-Based Deportations of Non-Citizen Students and Academics Violate the First Amendment

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    Today, in AAUP v. Rubio, federal district Judge William G. Young (appointed by Ronald Reagan) ruled that speech-based deportations of foreign students and academics violate the First Amendment. Here is his summary of his long and detailed ruling (which runs to 161 pages in all):

    This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court –- squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.” “No law” means “no law.” The First Amendment does not draw President Trump’s invidious distinction [between citizens and non-citizens] and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence… No one’s freedom of speech is unlimited, of course, but these limits are the same for both citizens and non-citizens alike.

    With this constitution ruling firmly undergirding its approach, the Court here held a full hearing and a nine-day bench trial on the issue of whether the rights of these
    plaintiffs to constitutional freedom of speech have been unconstitutionally chilled by the deliberate conduct of any or all of these Public Official defendants. The Court heard 15 witnesses and admitted 250 exhibits consisting of documents, photographs, and video clips.

    Having carefully considered the entirety of the record, this Court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with the subordinate officials and agents of each of them, deliberately and with purposeful aforethought, did so concert their actions and those of their two departments intentionally to chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble of the non-citizen plaintiff members of the plaintiff associations. What remains after issuing this opinion is to consider what, if anything, may be done to remedy these constitutional violations.

    Much of the opinion is a long detailed recitation of the extensive evidence showing that the administration does indeed have a policy of targeting non-citizen students and university employees for deportation based on their anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian speech. One can quibble with some of the details here. But the combined weight of evidence is overwhelming, in so far as high officials from the president on down have openly said that is what they are doing. In several cases, such as that of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, they have indeed tried to deport people whose only offense was to engage in speech disapproved of by the administration. Thus, Judge Young is right to conclude there is a basis for a lawsuit by the AAUP and the Middle East Studies Association, both of which have members vulnerable to deportation under the policy.

    The latter part of the opinion (beginning at pg. 116) has a solid explanation of why the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech applies to non-citizens present in the US, and why Supreme Court precedent supports that position, or at least does not preclude it. Here is one key point:

    Lastly,…. this Court observes that, on its face, the First Amendment does not
    distinguish between citizens and noncitizens; rather, it states simply, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech[.]” U.S. Const. amend. I. As the Supreme Court’s now  frequently cited statement in Bridges v. Wixon confirmed, this text at least arguably implies that “[f]reedom of speech . . . is accorded aliens residing in this country.” 326 U.S. 135, 148 (1945). It also suggests something a little less obvious, but still worth saying, which is that its chief concern is with the character and quality of the “speech” that occurs on American soil, in what Justice Holmes called “free trade in ideas,” which is “the best test of truth,” Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919), and ensuring that Congress may not twist that speech in the federal government’s preferred direction….

    As I have pointed out previously, the First Amendment, like most constitutional rights is phrased as a generalized limitation on government power, not a privilege limited to a specific group, such as citizens. A few rights, are explicitly confined to citizens (such as the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment) or to “the people” (such as the Second Amendment right to bear arms), which may be a euphemism for citizens. But that makes it all the more clear that rights not explicitly limited to citizens apply to everyone, without exception.

    I have defended applying the First Amendment to non-citizens in greater detail elsewhere (e.g. here and here), including responding to the view that speech-based deportations are permissible because non-citizens have no inherent legal right to be in the US:

    The text of the First Amendment is worded as a general limitation on government power, not a form of special protection for a particular group of people, such as US citizens or permanent residents. The Supreme Court held as much in a 1945 case, where they ruled that “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.”

    A standard response to this view is the idea that, even if non-citizens have a right to free speech, they don’t have a constitutional right to stay in the US. Thus, deporting them for their speech doesn’t violate the Constitution. But, in virtually every other context, it is clear that depriving people of a right as punishment for their speech violates the First Amendment, even if the right they lose does not itself have constitutional status. For example, there is no constitutional right to get Social Security benefits. But a law that barred critics of the President from getting those benefits would obviously violate the First Amendment. The same logic applies in the immigration context.

    While Judge Young’s ruling – following Supreme Court precedent – applies a distinction between speech-based initial exclusions and speech-based deportations (allowing greater scope for the former), I would argue both are equally unconstitutional.

    As Judge Young notes, today’s ruling follows a number of previous court decisions reaching similar conclusions about  Trump’s speech-based deportations. But his analysis is particularly thorough and compelling.

    Judge Young’s opinion includes a number of rhetorical flourishes that some might consider inappropriate for a judicial ruling. For example, the beginning and end are framed as a response to an anonymous postcard sent to the court:

     

    If I were in the judge’s place, I probably would not have done this. While I share Judge Young’s dismay at the administration’s illegal actions, these remarks are unlikely to persuade readers who aren’t otherwise inclined to agree with his reasoning. And the predictable controversy they engender could divert attention from the substantive reasoning underlying the court’s ruling. They might also provide critics with an excuse to dismiss that reasoning without seriously engaging with it, by claiming that the judge was acting inappropriately.

    That said, the debate over the appropriateness of some of the rhetoric in the opinion should not detract from the substance of Judge Young’s reasoning, which is strong, and a good model for future court decisions on this issue.

    In addition to the factual record and the constitutional questions, the ruling also covers claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, and a number of procedural questions (e.g. – associational standing for the plaintiffs), which I will not attempt to assess here.

    The legal battle over speech-based deportations will continue. I hope higher courts will follow Judge Young’s and other district courts’ lead, and hold there is no immigration exception to the First Amendment.

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    Ilya Somin

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  • What the Right Really Means When It Says ‘Free Speech’

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    Charlie Kirk and his intellectual godfather, William F. Buckley Jr.
    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty

    When Jimmy Kimmel returned to television on Tuesday evening, the late-night host had sharp words for the conservatives who’d briefly forced him off the air. President Donald Trump had put Disney, which owns ABC and made the call to suspend Kimmel, at risk by making “it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs,” the comedian said. “Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”

    Kimmel had attracted Trump’s ire by suggesting Kirk’s murderer was one of the “MAGA gang,” but previously he was not the most obvious target of the anti-speech right. Once known for co-hosting The Man Show, his late-night persona has always been a bit sedate. As he’s since discovered, the Kirk murder has become a useful pretext for political repression. Kimmel might be the right’s most famous target, but he isn’t alone: Public universities and school districts have fired educators for criticizing Kirk and his work. At least eight servicemembers have been disciplined for comments about the late influencer, and conservative social-media users have targeted “dozens” more across most branches of the military, Task & Purpose reported. Apple TV has postponed The Savant, which stars Jessica Chastain as an undercover researcher focused on right-wing extremism. The Washington Post fired columnist Karen Attiah for Bluesky posts arguing, in part, against “the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.” Last week, a conservative influencer claimed a Starbucks barista refused to write Kirk’s name on her drink, citing company policy. Amid backlash, Starbucks announced that customers could force workers to write political “names,” but not slogans, on cups.

    By punishing Kimmel and others for speech, the right has opened itself up to the accusation of hypocrisy. Conservatives often say they are victims of progressive intolerance, and Trump fashioned himself into their champion. Not long after he returned to power in January, he signed an executive order to restore “freedom of speech” and end “federal censorship,” loosely defined. FCC chair Brendan Carr said he would defend the First Amendment or, as he tweeted in 2024, “We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.” Kimmel must not count. Last week, Carr kicked off the Kimmel suspension by telling the far-right podcaster Benny Johnson that media companies should “change conduct to take action on Kimmel” or “there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Yet Carr is not a hypocrite, and neither is Trump. They aren’t inconsistent; they simply do not share a basic commitment to free speech with their liberal critics. Instead, they operate within a much older and more restrictive tradition on the right. To a subset of prominent conservative writers and thinkers, free speech has always been a limited concept. There is good speech, which must be privileged, and bad speech, which must be punished.

    Conservatives who favor the asymmetric right to free speech do so because it serves a deeper political project. That essential dynamic has played out on the American campus for decades, but it is not limited to the Ivy League; it has censored journalists, ended acting careers, and deported immigrants. If dissent no longer exists, neither does a meaningful opposition. An anonymous Kimmel writer got it right. “Even if Jimmy was willing to publicly apologize and donate money to whatever ghoulish conservative group that is demanding it … MAGA people will never be happy,” they told journalist Rick Ellis. “It will never be enough.”

    A few years before William F. Buckley Jr. founded the National Review, he picked a fight with his alma mater. In his mind, Yale University had nurtured atheism and a certain anti-Americanism under the guise of academic freedom. “Individualism is dying at Yale, and without a fight,” he wrote in 1951’s God and Man at Yale, his first book. Buckley’s evidence was thin. Outspoken Marxists and communists were rare on campus, as the writer McGeorge Bundy pointed out at the time, and that forced Buckley to rely on the more nebulous charge of “collectivism.” Buckley attacked a selection of assigned economic texts for “unsound” collectivist principles and complained, “Not one of them so much as pays lip-service to the highly respectable doctrine that it is anti-democratic to take from someone what the people in the first instance decide to give him.” Yale had also drifted too far from its Christian origins, Buckley charged, and cited the chair of the Religion Department, who was an ordained minister but “does not seek to persuade his students to believe in Christ, largely because he has not, as I understand it, been completely able to persuade himself.” The young Buckley wanted to change the way Yale operated so it would promote good speech, not bad speech, as he set the terms. He wrote that Yale’s charter bestowed the “responsibility to govern” on the institution’s alumni, who were more Christian and individualistic than its current leaders, so they should take charge. “Freedom is in no way violated by an educational overseer’s insistence that the teacher he employs hold a given set of values,” he argued.

    God and Man at Yale enthralled conservatives as the Second Red Scare dawned. Even a facetious charge of Bolshevism could ruin a person’s career or life; to Buckley, this was less a problem than an opportunity. With his friend and brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell Jr., he published McCarthy and His Enemies in 1954. The best-selling book was not wholly uncritical of Joseph McCarthy but defended his tactics and goals from detractors. As one contemporary review in the Times put it, Buckley and Bozell believed that “while damage to a reputation may result from McCarthy’s practice of this method, the result would not appear to be part of the method” itself. McCarthy, they added, deserves praise for promoting a “conformity” of thought. As Buckley rose, McCarthyism racked up casualties. In 1952, Queens College fired Vera Shlakman, an economics professor, because she refused to tell Senate investigators whether she had ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. A New York Times obituary published at her death in 2017 observed that she “neither taught economics again nor wrote a sequel” to her seminal work, Economic History of a Factory Town.

    The MAGA world has many influences, of which Buckley is merely one, but it’s not all that difficult to detect his McCarthyism, campus obsessions, and flair for spectacle in the conservatives who have followed. Roger Kimball published Tenured Radicals in 1990. Before Dinesh D’Souza started selling fake Christmas trees, the Dartmouth graduate published Illiberal Education in 1998. The genre is still potent, as Jacob Heilbrunn recently noted at Washington Monthly: Christopher Rufo, another campus crusader, published America’s Cultural Revolution in 2023. Buckley was “certainly a pioneer of politics as entertainment,” writer Sam Adler-Bell argued in a review of Sam Tanenhaus’s new biography of the man. Despite his intellectual affect and patrician accent, Buckley’s true heirs are “MAGA celebrities” like the late Kirk, in form as well as substance, Adler-Bell wrote. Buckley once defended the Jim Crow regime in an editorial for the National Review because white Southerners are “for the time being, the advanced race,” and the central problem the South faced was “not how to get the vote” for Black Americans, “but how to equip” them along with “many whites to cast an enlightened and responsible vote.” Decades later Buckley said he’d erred by thinking America would “evolve” out of Jim Crow without intervention, but he was hardly a champion of civil rights, and his prejudices are still potent. Kirk once accused “prowling Blacks” of targeting white city dwellers and said that prominent Black women such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”

    The object of that shared project is domination. A thriving network of Christian colleges and universities existed well before 1951, when he wrote his first book, but that wasn’t good enough. He wanted the Ivy League, too. If he could force Yale to teach the right ideas — to say the right words in the right order — future elites would have the right values and the right politics. The campus has been a conservative object of desire ever since. In 2023, Rufo helped take control of the New College of Florida at the behest of Governor Ron DeSantis and conducted an ideological purge. In one example, Rufo said the public university would not renew a visiting professor’s contract on account of his left-wing speech. “It is a privilege, not a right, to be employed by a taxpayer-funded university,” he tweeted.

    When Trump regained power earlier this year, he trained the full might of the federal government on immigrant scholars with inconvenient ideas. Masked ICE agents arrested Rümeysa Öztürk on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, because she had co-authored a pro-Palestinian editorial. The Trump administration is still trying to deport Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestinian activism — an act of repression that Kirk, the supposed defender of free speech, supported. What’s more, the right wing’s war for the campus was never limited to higher education at all. Kimmel is back on air now, but the era of the Hollywood blacklist does not feel so distant.

    When institutions capitulate, individual liberties soon follow, and courage can have life-altering consequences. After Queens College fired Vera Shlakman, it moved on to her former student, economist Mark Blaug, then a tutor. “For a day or two, I contemplated a magnificent protest,” Blaug wrote in 2000, “a statement that would ring down the ages as a clarion bell to individual freedom, that would be read and cited for years to come by American high school students — and then I quietly sent in my letter of resignation.” Conformity is popular because it feels safe, and that is as true now as it has been during each iteration of the Red Scare. Disney sacrificed Kimmel at the slightest pressure from the White House, and although they brought him back, their cowardice bodes ill. By the end of July, nine elite law firms “capitulated” to White House pressure by “pledging nearly $1 billion in free work” to the administration, Reuters reported. The University of California at Berkeley recently shared 160 names of students and faculty with White House officials in response to a purported antisemitism probe.

    Still, some liberals are pondering accommodation. In the New York Times, the president of Barnard College condemned “groupthink” and wrote, “The purpose of higher education is not to advance one viewpoint over another, but to provide our students with the tools and training they need to examine and challenge all beliefs, including their own.” The writer Jerusalem Demsas offered a more radical solution in a piece for The Argument. Universities should prioritize the hiring of conservative faculty even if they are “less qualified” than their liberal peers. “A university made up of only the left-leaning sons and daughters of the wealthy will reproduce an unrepresentative elite and an unrepresentative body of work, thus precipitating its own undoing,” she argued, but that misunderstands the problem. Elite schools are skewed to the wealthy, certainly, and we should make them more egalitarian. But if conservatives are sorting themselves into less-selective institutions, as she says, we should also entertain the possibility that they seek the conformity of Buckley and Bozell. My alma mater, Cedarville University, promises students “exceptional academics with a biblical worldview.” The goal is to create a bubble.

    Worse: As the right-wing embraces the fringe, it will produce writers and thinkers who are more likely to espouse nonsense. It doesn’t make much sense for Yale to hire a creationist who studied geology at Cedarville in the name of disagreement on campus. Reality is not a viewpoint, but it can look like one to those who deny it. Any college that teaches factual science or history or medicine will face accusations of groupthink, if it has not already. Trickier still, some ideologies are more evidence-based than others. Conspiracy theorists have the right to believe what they want, but that doesn’t mean they should get a megaphone whenever they ask for one. Conservatives including Vice-President J.D. Vance have defended the Kimmel suspension because liberals hurt free speech first; they’re still angry that the Biden administration urged social-media platforms to curb COVID misinformation. But the acts are not equivalent to each other. When people spread lies about a deadly pandemic, it’s not obviously a virtue to let them continue.

    If we’re to defend free speech from its enemies, we can’t be content with platitudes. We will have to think more critically about conservative politics and what they signify for the future of our democracy. By this, I do not mean that we should strip conservatives of their First Amendment rights. Instead I favor a certain bitter honesty. At this point in the MAGA era, there is no reason to assume that the right wing and its critics speak the same language, share foundational values, or live in the same reality. There are exceptions, and I think we should always strive to persuade, but we must be realistic about the intellectual and political challenges we face. They aren’t exactly new. As the socialist critic Irving Howe wrote in 1954, “No easy certainties and no easy acceptance of uncertainty.” We do not have to accept the terms the foes of democracy would impose on us. To Howe, “the banner of critical independence, ragged and torn though it may be, is still the best we have.” Now is not the moment to set that banner down.

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    Sarah Jones

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  • Nexstar and Sinclair are bringing back Kimmel, but many viewers may have found alternatives while he was blacked out | Fortune

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    Nexstar joined Sinclair on Friday in calling off its Jimmy Kimmel boycott just days after ABC returned the comedian to late-night television. 

    Beginning Friday night, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to air on the ABC affiliates, which had preempted the show last week over remarks he made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

    “As a local broadcaster, Nexstar remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased and, above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve,” a Nexstar statement said.  “We stand apart from cable television, monolithic streaming services, and national networks in our commitment–and obligation–to be stewards of the public airwaves.”

    Similarly, Sinclair issued a statement earlier on Friday reversing its decision to keep the comedian off its airwaves.

    It cited “feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives.”

    Sinclair had previously vowed not to put Kimmel back on air unless meetings were held with ABC to discuss the network’s “commitmentment to professionalism and accountability.”

    Those discussions are still ongoing, though ABC and Disney have not yet accepted any measures proposed by Sinclair, which included a network-wide independent ombudsman, per the company’s Friday release.

    The stand-down comes days after Kimmel’s first episode back on air had the highest ratings for a regularly scheduled episode in over a decade. His monologue at the top of the show ranged from the First Amendment and the Trump administration to Erica Kirk’s speech at her late husband’s memorial, garnering over 21 million views on YouTube in just a couple days—the most for a monologue in his show’s history.

    Kimmel’s comeback on Tuesday drew 6.3 million TV viewers, about four times the show’s average, despite nearly a quarter of ABC’s national reach blacking out his return episode. Sixty-six local stations owned by the ABC affiliates did not broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but this cost them a natural influx of viewership, and possibly some of their market, according to media experts.

    “Blackouts like this often highlight the strength of digital platforms,” Natalie Andreas, a communications professor at the University of Texas, told Fortune. 

    Instead of limiting reach, blackouts push viewers toward spaces like YouTube where content spreads faster, lingers longer, and attracts new audiences who may not have tuned in live, she said.

    Susan Keith, a professor in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, told Fortune the blackouts can push viewers to seek—and easily find—Kimmel on their digital cable packages or YouTube if local stations didn’t air the show.

    “There’s this idea of public interest, necessity and convenience that over-the-air broadcast media were supposed to fulfill,” she said. “So if we all move to streaming services for content because (of) incidents like this one,” it trains viewers to seek media this way.

    Earlier this year, streaming overtook cable and broadcast as America’s most-watched form of TV, according to Nielsen data. 

    The FCC does not license TV or radio networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox, but rather individual stations that may air programming from these networks. But the shift to streaming has raised questions about what its continued role might be as viewers lean away from individual broadcast stations. 

    “I think this is an open question,” Keith said. “I think we don’t really know what to think about the ultimate usefulness of the FCC.”

    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

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    Nino Paoli

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  • Democrats to Trump: Stop Jawboning, That’s Our Job!

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    In last week’s newsletter, I focused on the Trump administration’s obvious jawboning hypocrisy when it comes to Jimmy Kimmel: Trump folks railed against the Biden administration for pressuring social media companies to censor conservatives, yet are now engaged in a variation of the exact same thing.

    There’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around, however. Indeed, in their responses to this whole kerfuffle, Democrats have revealed that their solution is not a solution at all, but a threat to up the ante the second they regain power.

    To recap, Kimmel’s removal from the airwaves has alarmed many defenders of free speech—not because Kimmel has the right to a stage, a show, and an audience, but because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) involved itself in a decision that should be made by private entities. By threatening to take regulatory action against media companies that platform Kimmel, FCC chair Brendan Carr earned a rare rebuke from several members of his own party, including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Dave McCormick (Pa.).

    When a government actor tries to extort a private actor into taking some action, it’s called jawboning. In this case, the desired action was the silencing of Kimmel, who used his show’s opening monologue last week to imply that the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, Tyler Robinson, was part of the “MAGA gang,” i.e., that the shooter was identified with the right. This was neither funny nor true. Kimmel can and should suffer the market consequences of his claims: His viewers can desert him, his bosses can punish him, and companies that broadcast him can find something else to air in the 11 p.m. hour. The government shouldn’t force him off television, however, and the FCC shouldn’t imply that it will makes things very difficult for his corporate masters unless they muzzle him.

    Like I said last week, there’s absolutely nothing unprecedented about what’s going on here. Carr’s directly threatening language—address the Kimmel situation “the easy way or the hard way”—was perhaps a less subtle example of jawboning, but it’s well in keeping with the previous administration’s actions on disfavored speech. Biden White House Digital Strategy Director Rob Flaherty, for instance, repeatedly pressed social media companies to take down content that was contrary to Biden’s interest.

    So perhaps it should come as no surprise that Democrats are not responding to the Kimmel situation by demanding some new limit on the FCC’s ability to regulate speech. They are not vowing that a future Democratic administration would respect the sacrosanct First Amendment rights of private speech. On the contrary, they are promising to punish the victims of the jawboning—the private companies.

    Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Conn.) made this explicit during a recent interview on MSNBC.

    Murphy said that if the Democrats regained control of the presidency and Congress, they would move swiftly to regulate and break up large media companies—and presumably, Big Tech companies—that kowtowed to Trump. If you think about it, what he’s basically saying is kowtow to us, not the GOP, or else!

    One can’t help but feel a little sympathetic to the owners of the companies, who really just want to be left alone, make profit-maximizing decisions, and avoid punitive regulation. But they’re damned if they do—MAGA will hurt them—and damned if they don’t—Democrats will hurt them.

    As long as Democrats remain the party that is more inclined to favor sweeping regulatory action aimed at breaking up the largest and most successful tech and media companies in the U.S.—in other words, the party of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders—the Republican Party might seem like the more welcoming team, even if Trump is as bad a jawboner (heh) as anyone else.

     

    YouTube has announced that everyone kicked off the platform for violating pandemic-era content rules is now welcome back, following an investigation by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R–Ohio) into the Biden administration’s jawboning of parent company Alphabet. Reason‘s Elizabeth Nolan Brown had an excellent write-up of this decision in her own newsletter, so I won’t dwell on it in too much detail.

    I am particularly satisfied by this outcome, however, since my show, Rising, was unjustly suppressed by YouTube in 2022. The platform suspended us for a week, ostensibly because we violated an election integrity policy: denying the validity of the 2020 election. But of course, no one on the show made any such claim—rather, we played a news clip of Trump making the claim. In any case, it’s always nice to get some recognition that the moderation policies of that era were heavy-handed and motivated by government malfeasance.

    Here was my commentary on Thursday’s episode of Rising, discussing YouTube’s change of heart.

     

    I’m joined by Amber Duke to discuss Kamala Harris’s revenge tour, and much else. Also, I’m currently recording an episode with Andrew Heaton, which will debut later this week!

     

    I just finished two things I’ve been working on: The second season of Netflix’s Wednesday, and the Cormac McCarthy novel Blood Meridian. One is a timeless meditation on man’s inherent capacity for violence and the savage roots of the American experiment, and the other is about cowboys.

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    Robby Soave

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  • Ohioans Protest Sinclair Broadcast Group Not Airing Jimmy Kimmel’s Show on Their ABC Affiliates – Cleveland Scene

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    More than 100 central Ohioans protested in front of the Columbus ABC affiliate WSYX ABC 6 in response to Sinclair Broadcast Group choosing not to air Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after Disney reinstated it. 

    Indivisible Central Ohio hosted a free speech protest Tuesday, in response to the Disney Company originally deciding to suspend Kimmel’s late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened ABC on a podcast. The threats came after Kimmel made comments about the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk on the show.

    “The MAGA gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said during his show last week.  

    Disney announced Monday it was bringing Kimmel’s show back starting Tuesday night. 

    “I am incredibly grateful that Jimmy Kimmel is going to be on television again,” Common Cause Ohio Executive Director Catherine Turcer said at the protest. “But I am scared of how quickly Disney and ABC essentially said, ‘Oh, they’re coming after us. Oh, they’re things that we need from the government. We can’t push back. We can’t actually protect free speech.’ And that decision was really, really painful.”

    The canceling of Kimmel’s show led to major backlash, with some people calling it limiting free speech and a violation of the First Amendment. 

    “It was scary because this is not what democracy should look like,” Turcer said. “This is not what a functioning republic should look like. … If (President Donald Trump is) willing to go after talk show hosts, do you think they really want us speaking? No … We deserve free speech, and we need to protect it.” 

    However, not every ABC station is airing Kimmel’s late-night show. 

    Sinclair — which owns the Dayton and Columbus ABC affiliate stations — is not broadcasting Kimmel’s show. Instead, those ABC affiliates are preempting the show and airing news programming during the time slot, according to The New York Times. Nexstar said it is pre-empting Kimmel’s show indefinitely. 

    “Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were inappropriate and deeply insensitive at a critical moment for our country,” Sinclair Vice Chairman Jason Smith said last week in a statement. “We believe broadcasters have a responsibility to educate and elevate respectful, constructive dialogue in our communities.”

    Sinclair is calling on Kimmel to issue an apology to the Kirk family and make a “meaningful personal donation” to the Kirk family and Turning Point USA. 

    “We can all see something that’s funny, hear something that’s funny, and it makes us think more deeply,” Turcer said. “This was an attack on our ability to actually think and work through things, and an opportunity, not just for Jimmy Kimmel to have a voice, but for all of us to have a voice now.”

    This is bigger than Kimmel, ABC, and Sinclair, said Gary Daniels, ACLU of Ohio’s legislative director. 

    “Free speech does not protect itself,” he said at the protest. “People protect free speech. You protect free speech.”

    Originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal. Republished here with permission.

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    Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal

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  • College Professor Who Called Charlie Kirk a ‘Nazi’ Handed…

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    A tenured college professor at the University of South Dakota was handed a temporary legal win on Wednesday after a judge halted his impending firing for remarks made immediately after the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    Newsweek reached out to the school via email for comment.

    Why It Matters

    The case involving the professor who called Kirk a “hate spreading Nazi” online, according to a court document, is at the center of a larger national debate over the limits of free speech for educators, public employment and political discourse.

    The recent federal court ruling that the university cannot terminate the professor for his social media post exemplifies the ongoing tension between academic freedom and public accountability, with broad implications for First Amendment rights in educational settings.

    Kirk, 31, was a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and a face of the MAGA movement for younger generations. He utilized social media platforms to engage with younger people about culture war topics, foreign policy, religion and other notable conservative values.

    What To Know

    Professor Phillip Michael Hook’s win follows his lawsuit against the university for “unconstitutional retaliation in violation of the First Amendment,” the court document says.

    U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier, nominee of former President Bill Clinton, noted in her ruling in part: “The public has a compelling interest in protecting its First Amendment rights.”

    Hook, in the late afternoon of September 10—the day Kirk was fatally shot during a question and answer session at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah—posted remarks about the Turning Point USA CEO on his private Facebook account, the court document shows.

    “Okay. I don’t give a flying f*** about this Kirk person. Apparently he was a hate spreading Nazi. I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the idiotic right fringe to even know who he was,” Hook’s post said, per the document. “I’m sorry for his family that he was a hate spreading Nazi and got killed. I’m sure they deserved better. Maybe good people could now enter their lives. But geez, where was all this concern when the politicians in Minnesota were shot? And the school shootings? And Capitol Police? I have no thoughts or prayers for this hate spreading Nazi. A shrug, maybe.”

    In a follow-up post hours later, Hook said, according to the court document: “Apparently my frustration with the sudden onslaught of coverage concerning a guy shot today led to a post I mow [sic] regret posting. I’m sure many folks fully understood my premise but the simple fact that some were offended, led me to remove the post. I extend this public apology to those who were offended. Om Shanti.” (“Om Shanti” is a call for peace, often found in Buddhist and Hindu writings and prayers.)

    Hook was then made aware of the university’s intent to fire him, days after the post, the ruling outlines. The letter, sent to Hook by the university’s dean of the College of Fine Arts, Bruce Kelley, said Hook violated policy.

    Schreier ultimately sided with the professor, ordering: “Hook’s motion for temporary restraining order (Docket 3) is granted. Defendants are required to temporarily set aside their determination to place Hook on administrative leave. Defendants shall reinstate Hook’s position as a Professor of Art at the University of South Dakota, retroactive to September 12, 2025, to remain effective until the preliminary injunction hearing on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. in Sioux Falls Courtroom 2.”

    What People Are Saying

    Republican South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden, on X earlier this month: “When I read this post, I was shaking mad. The Board of Regents intends to FIRE this University of South Dakota professor, and I’m glad. This individual stands in front of South Dakota students to educate them. We must not send the message to our kids that this is acceptable public discourse. We need more Charlie Kirks on campus and less hatred like this.”

    What Happens Next

    Petitions to reinstate Hook and other educators continue to gain support online, reflecting the national reach of these disputes.

    The temporary restraining order remains in place until October 8, when a preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled.

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  • India court rejects X’s ‘free speech’ argument, backs government takedown powers | TechCrunch

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    An Indian court has dismissed an attempt by Elon Musk’s X to challenge the Indian government’s content takedown orders, ruling that the social media platform, as a foreign company, does not have a constitutional right to free speech under Indian law.

    The Karnataka High Court ruled Wednesday in favor of the Indian government’s use of a centralized online portal to issue content takedown orders, determining that foreign platforms cannot invoke free speech protections under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. The court said this constitutional of free expression applies only to Indian citizens. The decision marks a significant moment in India’s increasingly assertive approach to regulating global tech companies.

    X filed the case in March, challenging a series of Indian government orders directing the platform to block certain accounts and posts, including content critical of official policies. At the heart of the dispute was the use of “Sahyog” — a government portal launched in October that allows authorities to directly order social media companies to remove content. Sahyog means “assistance” in Hindi. X called it a “censorship portal” and argued the process lacked transparency and violated principles of free expression.

    “Article 19 of the Constitution of India, noble in its spirit and luminous in its promise, remains, nevertheless, a Charter of Rights conferred upon citizens only. The petitioner who seeks sanctuary under its canopy must be a citizen of the nation, failing which the protective embrace of Article 19 cannot be invoked,” senior judge M Nagaprasanna said in his ruling, which was also livestreamed, as the court rejected X’s petition.

    The ruling comes as Musk expands his footprint in India beyond X, having recently launched Tesla operations and secured final regulatory approval for his satellite internet service Starlink. The South Asian nation is a strategic bet for the billionaire, boasting the world’s second-largest internet user base after China and a government committed to achieving 30% electric vehicle adoption by 2030.

    X did not respond to a request for comments. A legal representative for X in India was not immediately available to comment on the ruling.

    Kazim Rizvi, founding director of The Dialogue, a New Delhi-based think tank, said the ruling may improve coordination between the government and platforms but cautioned that “due diligence” should not become a blanket obligation to comply — especially when takedowns occur via a portal, rather than through the structured safeguards of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. (Section 69A is India’s main law governing how the government can order content blocking, and it includes procedural protections.)

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    “To avoid unintended legal effects, the portal should operate strictly as a coordination and collection layer — a secure intake and routing point for requests, and any binding action should originate from a competent authority under the IT Act/Rules,” he told TechCrunch.

    Content takedown orders have increased in India over the past few years as more people come online. Several instances of content removal across platforms — including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram — occurred during the nationwide farmers’ protests in 2020–2021. These protests saw widespread social media activity that the government sought to control.

    The federal government introduced the Sahyog portal last year to expedite the removal of unlawful content from social media, arguing that it would streamline enforcement. Companies, including Microsoft, Google, Meta, ShareChat, and LinkedIn, have already integrated the portal to remove content after receiving notices through an automated process triggered by the federal government or its agencies.

    In February 2024, X stated that, although it disagreed with the orders, it withheld certain accounts in response to executive directives from the Indian government. Noncompliance, the company noted, could have exposed it to “potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment.”

    A legal expert, who works closely with tech companies and the Indian government on policy matters and requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of their work, told TechCrunch that Wednesday’s ruling was significant. The decision shows that courts are increasingly viewing internet regulation and tech policy through a policy lens — not just a legal one, they said.

    Musk, who has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” has not commented on the lawsuit and ruling, though he previously raised concerns about Indian content regulation laws.

    “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country,” Musk said in a 2023 interview with the BBC.

    X can still appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. However, some legal experts argue that it is unclear whether the company would receive favorable treatment, as the top court is likely to follow the same line of reasoning as the Karnataka High Court.

    “The ruling didn’t address whether the government should even have the power to use a portal for ordering content takedowns,” said a tech policy expert, who requested not to be named due to their close ties with the Indian government and major tech firms.

    The court will release the order’s copy on Thursday, the judge said.

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    Jagmeet Singh

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  • Trump’s attacks on Kimmel and ABC put him at odds with high-profile conservatives

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    The return of Jimmy Kimmel to ABC’s airwaves flipped the political script, for a time aligning the late-night comedian with several conservative figures who staunchly disagree with federal regulators trying to shut him down over free speech — even as President Trump continued to threaten the network.

    “I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” Kimmel told viewers during his opening monologue Tuesday night.

    Trump in recent days has ramped up efforts to stifle his political opposition and what he perceives to be liberal bias in media coverage through lawsuits and regulatory actions, a move that has increasingly concerned the president’s supporters and influential conservative personalities.

    The firestorm over free speech came in the wake of comments Kimmel made about how the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points from Charlie Kirk’s slaying. On a conservative podcast, Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist who heads the Federal Communications Commission, accused Kimmel of “the sickest conduct” and suggested there could be regulatory consequences for local television stations whose programming did not serve the public interest.

    After Disney took “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air at ABC last week, some high-profile Trump allies worried the threat of regulating speech was taking it too far — and that conservatives could be next if the federal government were to follow through.

    “If we embrace the FCC stripping licenses from anyone who says something you disagree with, the next Democrat president who gets in the White House will do this and will come after everyone right of center,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a critic of Kimmel’s, said Wednesday on his podcast, “Verdict With Ted Cruz,” reaffirming previous comments in which he likened Carr’s threats to mafia-like maneuvers. “That is a slippery slope to oblivion.”

    Trump, however, was dismayed by Kimmel’s return and threatened legal action, following a pattern in which he has sued major media outlets over negative coverage of him.

    “I think we are going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” Trump wrote late Tuesday on his social media platform, suggesting a lawsuit against the network could potentially lead to a “lucrative” settlement. “A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

    Combined, Trump’s legal threats and Carr’s comments have fueled a sharp debate about free speech, and whether Trump and Carr are trying to level the playing field for conservative voices or launching a coordinated and illegal attack to silence liberal ones. As a result, Carr — the author of an FCC chapter in the right-wing Project 2025 playbook — has landed in a glaring media spotlight and as the target of a congressional inquiry.

    Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and eight other Democratic senators wrote a letter to Carr on Wednesday expressing “grave concern” over the FCC’s apparent role in Kimmel’s suspension, and demanded answers about the role the agency played in it and its justification.

    “The FCC’s regulatory authority over broadcast licenses was never intended to serve as a weapon to silence criticism or punish satirical commentary,” the senators wrote. “Your agency’s mission is to serve the public interest, not to act as an enforcement arm for political retribution against media outlets that displease those in power.”

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has also written to Carr, accusing the Trump administration of “waging a dangerous attack on those who dare to speak out against it” and calling on Carr to recommit to defending free speech, including by disavowing his previous remarks about Kimmel.

    In the days after Kimmel was sidelined, Cruz and other influential conservatives, who have long trashed the longtime late-night host, voiced opposition to his situation based on concerns that the FCC may be trying to regulate speech on the airwaves.

    “You don’t have to like what somebody says on TV to agree that the government shouldn’t be getting involved here,” former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on a social media post Monday.

    Podcast host Joe Rogan said he did not “think the government should be involved, ever, in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue” — and told conservatives they are “crazy” if they don’t think such tactics could be “used” against them. Candance Owens, a far-right influencer, said Kimmel’s suspension was an attack on free speech, and said she does not agree with the government controlling what can be said.

    Ben Shapiro raised concerns about potential government overreach.

    “I don’t want the FCC in the business of telling local affiliated that their licenses will be removed if they broadcast material that the FCC deems to be informationally false,” Shapiro said, warning that “one day the shoe will be on the other foot.”

    Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson said last week he does not want to see “bad actors” use Kirk’s killing as a means to restrict free speech, which he said is a cornerstone of Kirk’s legacy.

    “You hope a year from now, the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of his murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,” Carlson said.

    In his opening monologue, Kimmel touched on the same theme. He said Carr’s tactics were “un-American” and likened them to what happens in authoritarian countries such as Russia.

    “This show is not important,” he said. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

    On the podcast last week, Carr called Kimmel’s remarks about Kirk’s alleged shooter “some of the sickest conduct possible.” He then said: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. There are ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    On Monday, Carr denied claims that he threatened to pull television stations’ licenses and that he played a role in Kimmel’s suspension, saying “that didn’t happen in any way, shape or form.”

    “They’re completely misrepresenting the work of the FCC and what we’ve been doing,” he said during a conference in New York, accusing Democrats of engaging in a “campaign of projection and distortion.”

    Carr said the FCC wants to empower local television station owners to “push back on national programmers, even when they think there’s some content that they don’t think in their judgment — not my judgment, but their judgment — makes sense for the local communities.”

    What happened with Kimmel, Carr said, is that local television stations “for the first time in a long time stood up and said, ‘We don’t want to run that program, at least right now.’” He said Disney, a national programmer, then made its own business decision not to air Kimmel for a few days.

    After Disney brought back the show, station owners Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group said they would not be running it on their ABC affiliates, hinting to future conflicts that could play out in the media landscape.

    Carr opened his Project 2025 chapter on the FCC by writing that the agency should “promote freedom of speech,” but has also sided with Trump in criticizing broadcasters for allegedly showing bias against conservatives and said that he would use the agency’s power to ensure that they better serve the “public interest.”

    Bob Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said the political brawl over Kimmel has been interesting to watch — in part because of the bipartisan backlash to the suspension and the administration’s apparent influence on it.

    “I’m encouraged by the fact that it’s not just Democrats who complained about this, it’s Republicans like Ted Cruz,” Shrum said. “That at least begins to set a deterrent for the federal government going too far on this.”

    While Trump was angered by Kimmel’s return, Shrum found it notable that his social media post ended with the line: “Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.” It showed the limits the president sees on his power to wipe Kimmel from the airwaves, he said.

    “That’s not the kind of last line that says, ‘We’re coming after you,’” Shrum said.

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    Ana Ceballos, Kevin Rector

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  • Justice Department questions retired FBI agent’s role in $1.4 billion Sandy Hook lawsuit

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    A senior U.S. Justice Department official sent a letter to a lawyer for relatives of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, asking pointed questions about a retired FBI agent’s involvement in a defamation lawsuit that led to a $1.4 billion judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.Ed Martin Jr., who leads the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group,” asked in the letter whether retired agent William Aldenberg received any financial benefits from helping to organize the lawsuit, in which he was a plaintiff along with victims’ family members.Aldenberg, like the parents and other relatives of the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, has been the subject of false conspiracy theories spread by Jones on his “Infowars” broadcasts.Aldenberg was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the school and found the dead children. That then led to years of abuse from people who believed the shooting was a hoax, he has said. His share of the judgment totaled around $120 million.Martin sends lawyer letter asking about retired agentIn a Sept. 15 letter to Christopher Mattei, a lawyer who represents Sandy Hook families, Martin suggested he was scrutinizing Aldenberg’s role in the lawsuit.“As you may know, there are criminal laws protecting the citizens from actions by government employees who may be acting for personal benefit,” Martin wrote.Mattei responded to the letter in a text message to The Associated Press.“Thanks to the courage of the Sandy Hook families, Infowars will soon be finished,” he said, referring to the families’ efforts in court to liquidate Jones’ assets to help pay the judgment. “In his last gasps, Jones is once again harassing them, only now with the corrupt complicity of at least one DOJ official. It’s as disgusting as it is pathetic, and we will not stand for it.”The Justice Department said it had no immediate comment Tuesday.Martin, who has been examining President Donald Trump’s claims of anti-conservative bias inside the Justice Department, has sent letters to a host of targets in other, unrelated matters, seeking information or making appeals, but it’s unclear whether such requests have amounted to anything.Jones posted a copy of the letter on his X account Tuesday, saying “Breaking! The DOJ’s Task Force On Government Weaponization Against The American People Has Launched An Investigation Into The Democrat Party / FBI Directing Illegal Law-fare Against Alex Jones And Infowars.”Retired agent testified at the trialAldenberg joined the relatives of eight Sandy Hook victims in suing Jones, alleging defamation and infliction of emotional distress.Aldenberg was one of the first witnesses to testify at the trial in 2022. He broke down on the witness stand as he described entering the two classrooms where children and educators were shot.He also testified about how he and others in the community and law enforcement were targeted with threats and conspiracy theories, including one that claimed he was an actor who also pretended to be the father of a victim.Messages were left at a phone listing and email addresses listed for Aldenberg in public records.Relatives of the shooting victims testified that they were subjected to violent threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media because of Jones.Martin has been serving as head of the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group” since his nomination for top federal prosecutor in Washington was pulled amid bipartisan concerns about his modest legal experience and his advocacy for Jan. 6 rioters.Attorney General Pam Bondi created the group to scrutinize matters in which conservatives have claimed they were unfairly targeted or treated.Martin was also recently named a special prosecutor to help conduct the separate mortgage fraud investigations into Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.In his letter to Mattei, he asked for several pieces of information and requested that the lawyer respond by Sept. 29.In the letter, Martin asks Mattei to keep the correspondence confidential because “I do not wish to litigate this in the media.” On Sept. 14, Jones posted a photo on his X account of him and Martin together, saying the two met in Washington, D.C.Jones recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal of the $1.4 billion judgment. He also is appealing a $49 million judgment in a similar lawsuit in Texas filed by two other parents of children killed in Newtown. He has cited free speech rights, but he has acknowledged that the shooting was “100% real.”Jones claims Democrats have been targeting him for his speech.He filed for bankruptcy in late 2022. The Sandy Hook plaintiffs are now trying to liquidate Infowars’ assets in state court proceedings in Texas.

    A senior U.S. Justice Department official sent a letter to a lawyer for relatives of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, asking pointed questions about a retired FBI agent’s involvement in a defamation lawsuit that led to a $1.4 billion judgment against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

    Ed Martin Jr., who leads the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group,” asked in the letter whether retired agent William Aldenberg received any financial benefits from helping to organize the lawsuit, in which he was a plaintiff along with victims’ family members.

    Aldenberg, like the parents and other relatives of the 20 children and six educators killed in the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, has been the subject of false conspiracy theories spread by Jones on his “Infowars” broadcasts.

    Aldenberg was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the school and found the dead children. That then led to years of abuse from people who believed the shooting was a hoax, he has said. His share of the judgment totaled around $120 million.

    Martin sends lawyer letter asking about retired agent

    In a Sept. 15 letter to Christopher Mattei, a lawyer who represents Sandy Hook families, Martin suggested he was scrutinizing Aldenberg’s role in the lawsuit.

    “As you may know, there are criminal laws protecting the citizens from actions by government employees who may be acting for personal benefit,” Martin wrote.

    Mattei responded to the letter in a text message to The Associated Press.

    “Thanks to the courage of the Sandy Hook families, Infowars will soon be finished,” he said, referring to the families’ efforts in court to liquidate Jones’ assets to help pay the judgment. “In his last gasps, Jones is once again harassing them, only now with the corrupt complicity of at least one DOJ official. It’s as disgusting as it is pathetic, and we will not stand for it.”

    The Justice Department said it had no immediate comment Tuesday.

    Martin, who has been examining President Donald Trump’s claims of anti-conservative bias inside the Justice Department, has sent letters to a host of targets in other, unrelated matters, seeking information or making appeals, but it’s unclear whether such requests have amounted to anything.

    Jones posted a copy of the letter on his X account Tuesday, saying “Breaking! The DOJ’s Task Force On Government Weaponization Against The American People Has Launched An Investigation Into The Democrat Party / FBI Directing Illegal Law-fare Against Alex Jones And Infowars.”

    Retired agent testified at the trial

    Aldenberg joined the relatives of eight Sandy Hook victims in suing Jones, alleging defamation and infliction of emotional distress.

    Aldenberg was one of the first witnesses to testify at the trial in 2022. He broke down on the witness stand as he described entering the two classrooms where children and educators were shot.

    He also testified about how he and others in the community and law enforcement were targeted with threats and conspiracy theories, including one that claimed he was an actor who also pretended to be the father of a victim.

    Messages were left at a phone listing and email addresses listed for Aldenberg in public records.

    Relatives of the shooting victims testified that they were subjected to violent threats, in-person harassment and abusive comments on social media because of Jones.

    Martin has been serving as head of the Justice Department’s “weaponization working group” since his nomination for top federal prosecutor in Washington was pulled amid bipartisan concerns about his modest legal experience and his advocacy for Jan. 6 rioters.

    Attorney General Pam Bondi created the group to scrutinize matters in which conservatives have claimed they were unfairly targeted or treated.

    Martin was also recently named a special prosecutor to help conduct the separate mortgage fraud investigations into Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff.

    In his letter to Mattei, he asked for several pieces of information and requested that the lawyer respond by Sept. 29.

    In the letter, Martin asks Mattei to keep the correspondence confidential because “I do not wish to litigate this in the media.” On Sept. 14, Jones posted a photo on his X account of him and Martin together, saying the two met in Washington, D.C.

    Jones recently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal of the $1.4 billion judgment. He also is appealing a $49 million judgment in a similar lawsuit in Texas filed by two other parents of children killed in Newtown. He has cited free speech rights, but he has acknowledged that the shooting was “100% real.”

    Jones claims Democrats have been targeting him for his speech.

    He filed for bankruptcy in late 2022. The Sandy Hook plaintiffs are now trying to liquidate Infowars’ assets in state court proceedings in Texas.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Makes STRONG Late-Night Return With Messages Of Freedom & Unity – WATCH! – Perez Hilton

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    Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air!

    The late-night TV host marked Tuesday night as his return to the airwaves after that abrupt suspension last week following comments he made about the death of conservative political pundit Charlie Kirk.

    Fans have been waiting to see what would happen upon the return of Jimmy Kimmel Live! to ABC. And even though Tuesday’s comeback wasn’t aired on all ABC affiliates across the country, the episode still marked a momentous occasion for Jimmy, his staff, and his viewers — oh, and social media users, too, of course.

    Related: John Oliver BLASTS ‘Cowards’ At ABC & Disney Over Kimmel Suspension!

    Tuesday night’s guests were actor Glen Powell and musical guest Sarah McLachlan. And look, no shade intended towards them, but… nobody was there to see them do their thing. Nahhhh, everybody tuned in to see what Kimmel would say about getting pulled off air!

    So, without further ado, here we go…

    Kimmel entered the studio to ROARING applause, with the audience giving him a standing ovation, chanting “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” and more. See for yourself:

    He thanked them for their support, then started his comeback monologue by joking:

    “If you’re just joining us, we are preempting a regularly scheduled encore episode of Celebrity Family Feud to bring you this special report.

    The 57-year-old comedian then referenced RFK Jr.’s “autism announcement” that was dropped on Monday, quipping:

    “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours, me or the CEO of Tylenol.”

    By the way, experts have largely refuted the MAHA claim that the only doctor-approved painkiller for pregnant women is a cause for autism, but we digress…

    He continued:

    “It’s been overwhelming. I’ve heard from a lot of people over the last six days. I’ve heard from all the people all over the world, over the last reached out 10 or 11 times, weird characters from my past, or the guy who fired me from my first radio job in Seattle, not airing tonight by the way.”

    He also thanked right wing voices like Ted Cruz‘s that warned against such retaliation and what it means for the first amendment.

    “It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration. They did and they deserve credit for it.”

    Kimmel then made it extremely clear his intention was to never make light of Kirk’s death, saying:

    “I have no illusions about changing anyone’s mind, but I do want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.”

    Remember, he never actually made a joke about the death of Kirk. In fact, he strongly condemned the assassination the day it happened and sent his sincere condolences to the family. No, he was pulled over his comments about the gunman and the right wing reaction to it all.

    Regardless, he still knows it was wrong and unAmerican for ABC affiliates to respond the way they did, calling out Donald Trump‘s FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for publicly saying the network would get pressure regarding Kimmel’s comments when Carr said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    Overall the entire monologue was a poignant message of unity for all Americans and our first amendment rights. It was also one for healing. He ended on a note about Erika Kirk‘s speech from the podcaster’s memorial service on Sunday, specifically her public forgiveness for the gunman. Kimmel said that’s what the teachings of Jesus Christ are all about it — forgiveness. Through tears he admitted it touched him deeply, saying “if there is anything we should take from this tragedy, it’s that.”

    Watch it all for yourself (below):

    BTW, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will welcome Ethan Hawke, Lisa Ann Walter, and musical guest Yungblud on Wednesday. Then, on Thursday, Peyton Manning, Oscar Nuñez, and musical guest Alex G will show out.

    Reactions, y’all?? Drop ’em (below)!

    [Image via Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube]

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    Perez Hilton

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