Today I was addressing federal and state judges in Ohio on the Supreme Court, including the threatening environment faced by the justices. In the middle of the speech, the media reported that an Alaska man was arrested for threatening to assassinate six members of the Supreme Court and harm two family members. While the government has not confirmed the identities of the justices, some media outlets are reporting, that Panos Anastasiou, 76, threatened the six conservative justices.
The vile threats targeted Thomas (who is apparently Supreme Court Justice 1) using racist language and lynching threats, including one reading “Hopefully N—– [Supreme Court Justice 1] and his white trailer trash n—– loving wife insurrectionist wife are visiting.”
A California man was arrested in June 2022 in an attempt to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He pleaded not guilty.
Politicians and pundits have continued to fuel the rage in our society, including attacks on the justices. In one infamous occasion, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stood in front of the Court and declared “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price!” Schumer warned. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
We have continued to follow the attacks and arrests of Antifa followers across the country. Some Democrats have played a dangerous game in supporting or excusing the work of Antifa, one of the most violent anti-free speech groups in the world. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany.
On a nightly basis, pundits accuse the justices of “killing democracy” or support a coup — hyperbolic language that is taken as true by many in society. That audience includes many who believe that the rage gives them license to save the Republic by killing such threats.
I have previously stated that his reckless rhetoric has increased the threat against justices, including some who have had to wear bullet-proof vests to simply go out into the public.
Today I discussed how violent rhetoric against the Court is on the rise. In addition, people are normalizing violence amid polarizing political claims. Some 52% of Biden supporters say Republicans are now a threat to American life while 47% of Trump supporters say the same about Democrats.
At the same time, 26 million Americans now reportedly view violence as justified.
Even law professors and other academics are embracing more aggressive stances toward the justices.
Georgetown Law Professor Josh Chafetz and others are interested in taking a more active approach to making continuation on the Court as unpleasant as possible — at least for conservatives. Chafetz previously declared that the “mob is right” in targeting and harassing justices, and he told a law school panel in 2022 that “I want to suggest that courts are the enemy, and always have been.” He suggested that Congress should retaliate against conservative justices by considering the withdrawal of funding for law clerks or even “cutting off the Supreme Court’s air conditioning budget.”
When the audience laughed at that absurd suggestion, it reportedly triggered fellow panelist and Harvard law profe
Other academics have engaged in or simply brush off objections to violence.
It is now common to hear inflammatory language from professors advocating “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements.
At the University of Rhode Island, professor Erik Loomis defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence.
At the University of California Santa Barbara, professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young, who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. Despite pleading guilty to criminal assault, she was not fired and received overwhelming support from the students and faculty. She was later honored as a model for women advocates.
Anastasiou faces nine counts of making threats against a federal judge and 13 counts of making threats in interstate commerce.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
Jonathan: It’s getting tiresome. Another crazy in Alaska threatens SC justices and you instantly conflate that with false claims that it is the Dems who “fuel the rage in our society”. Not so. Chuck Schumer’s comments, you almost always cite, were in response to the SC’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe. He expressed the view of millions of Americans who think the right-wing majority on the Court went too far. The “whirlwind” Schumer predicted has come true. There are now 9 states in which the right to abortion will be on the ballot in November to restore the right to abortion. Using the initiative process is not a call for violence!
There is only one person who uses incendiary violent rhetoric. It’s DJT who tried to violently overturn the 2020 election. He has called for former Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley to be “executed”. He falsely calls immigrants “criminals” and “drug dealers” who he would forcefully remove from the country. He now says he will go to Springfield, Ohio. Will he go there to “tone down the rhetoric” as JD Vance has called for? Nope. DJT will go to Springfield for one purpose, to further stoke rage and violence against the Haitian immigrants in Springfield.
Pres. Biden and Kamala Harris have both condemned political violence. It is only DJT and his MAGA supporters who think violence is justified to further their goals!
From the river to the sea,
He who doesn’t take a knee
Is still Hitler to MSNBC.
Today Trump, tomorrow you,
Before or after they kill the Jews,
They’ll slay the Supreme Court, too!
Swing voters, if you want to vote for real communists, this is your chance. Think about what that reeeeeally means before some idiot at a coffee table tries to convince you that voting for Harris is defending democracy.
Loomis must’ve embarrassed Turley badly in legal circles at some point in order for him to develop such a grudge.
Obliquely related (from Just the News):
Congressman says Homeland whistleblower claims five assassin teams hunting Trump
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/dhs-knew-5-assassination-teams-after-trump-2nd-attempt-gaetz
“Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said Thursday that a senior Homeland Security Department official approached him as a whistleblower shortly before the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life and alleged U.S. officials are aware that five different “assassination teams” are pursuing the former president.”
If there is a successful attempt on Donald Trump’s life, and there is ANY plausible suggestion that the success resulted from deliberate negligence on the part of US security agencies, all bets are off in regard to a non-violent resolution, or even impasse, to the deep divisions among the citizens of this country. You may plug your ears with your fingers and chant “LA LA LA L A LA” interminably at the top of your lungs, but if that event occurs under those circumstances, I predict that the Great Experiment will fall apart, sooner, rather than later.
Hey, “anonymous”, what we don’t need are fanning the flames of conspiracy theory in regards to the 2 attempts.
If an assassination were to take place, wouldn’t you want the nation to calibrate its response based on facts?
The worst thing would be to react in a manner later regretted based on speculations that are later shown to be false.
It would be pure manipulation to get people to start believing “in advance” of such a tragic event who they think is responsible, so that they then close their minds to searching out the real facts.
It’s manipulative infowarfare. And I’d be saying the exact same thing no matter if the other party’s candidate had been shot at. There’s no room for getting it wrong, as that could unnecessarily turn the country against itself.
You addressed nothing of substance in regard to the linked article or to my speculation on ramifications of a successful Trump assassination if that happens because the government failed to protect him adequately (or appeared to). I’ll give you more of what you don’t like. Shortly after I posted that, the following unwelcome and disturbing thought occurred to me:
Suppose that Deep State interests (in collusion with the Soros-class foreign actors) are ready and willing to completely subvert the Constitution to retain their hold on the behind the scenes power in this country, if they get an opportunity that leads them to think they can get away with it (personally, I think that is a fairly reasonable assumption). Suppose “they” conclude that Harris is going to lose to Trump, even after all of the vote cheating that the Democrats will undoubtedly attempt, and that Trump could well pull a Republican majority in both legislative branches along with him this time, enabling him to set the national agenda at will, and completely undermine their interests, possibly for quite a long time. Suppose they green-light the assassination of Trump (prior to November 5th) and are successful, using one or more of their assets. Suppose the wide-spread civil unrest that I previously speculated about does takes place, continues, and escalates over several months (with the damaged economy, and other background causes of great dissatisfaction exacerbating the unrest). That would seem to provide the perfect opportunity to justify a nationwide lock-down, (or let’s call a spade a spade – the imposition of martial law), only temporary, of course, pending the restoration of “civil order”. Of course, under those hypothetical circumstances, civil order restoration might just conveniently prove to be an extremely elusive outcome. Did something occur recently, say, around 2020 and 2021, that might provide a nearly perfect blueprint for this? COVID? Except this time, normalcy isn’t intended to return.
I very much hope that the above, along with my original speculation about what the results could be from a successful Trump assassination, are nothing but somewhat paranoid fantasy. I wish my confidence was as strong as my hopes in that respect.
I’m glad your speculations are just that.
As far as the deep state goes, why would they carry out an assassination when they have tools of deceitful infowarfare that are already proven to work (Hunter’s laptop cover-up for 3 critical weeks leading up to 2020 election is a classic CIA PsyOps operation — it worked to pull Biden over the top by 80,000 votes).
Moreover, those deep-state operatives have Jonathan Turley and many conservatives right where they want them:
1) arguing for them publicly that political speech doesn’t need to be authentic and honest to be covered by the 1st Amendment (thus legitimizing deceptive PsyOps on the part of the deep-state and their media allies)
2) keeping the focus of public ire on 20th century repressive tools of censorship (blocking content), while
more powerful “alternate reality” tools for opinion-shaping are flourishing in infowarfare offices
These deep state actors are not going to overplay their hand by doing an assassination.
What the have already done, and will continue to do is deceptively mold public-opinion at a level sub-threshold-of-detection. How do we citizens finally challenge their back-room infowarfare shops? Answer:
Public Frauds lawsuits, where ordinary citizens and patriot journalists (e.g. Michael Shallenberger, Matt Taibbi) can file a suit, and use the tools of subpoena and deposition to strip away the veil of secrecy behind which these shops operate….to have juries (not govt. bureaucrats, not TV pundits) deciding fact from fiction.
The thing these deep state actors fear the most is the public learning all about the toolset of modern PsyOps, and adapting defamation law and courts to reign in its practitioners. As far as duping the public,
these operatives are correct that presently what they are doing is perfectly legal if caught and exposed.
What they fear is making it illegal using civil torts, exposing themselves to compelled deposition under oath.
This battle for citizen control over govt. will be won or lost in courtrooms, not on the street with firearms.
That’s why it’s crucial that conservatives take up a moral and legal stance against manipulative infowarfare, and not succumb to the cynical “they’re doing it, so we will too”.
@Pbinca: “These deep state actors are not going to overplay their hand by doing an assassination.”
One doesn’t need a deep state assassination to assassinate a rival. All one has to do is create multi-levels of indifference and let the assassination happen. Trump is already a target, and it was reported by a whistleblower that five different groups were trying to assassinate Trump.
“As far as the deep state goes, why would they carry out an assassination when they have tools of deceitful infowarfare that are already proven to work ”
Because whatever tools they have have yet to work.
“This battle for citizen control over govt. will be won or lost in courtrooms, not on the street with firearms.”
Marxists are violent. If you think not, review what Antifa has done: the people killed, the cities burned and taken over.
The root cause of this progressive stupidity is progressive are stupid. They can articulate cogent arguments against ideas they disagree with, so they call people they disagree with Nazis, white supremacists, threats to democracy,…
If progressives were intelligent they could engage with political opponents without name calling.
You can fix ignorance but you can’t fix stupidity.
Just face it folks… and quit hemming and hawing about the subject. The Dim Left are nothing more than violent , murderous anarcho fascists. The evidence is clearly there for anybody that has two brain cells to rub together.
Today’s topic is “uncategorized”. I’m guessing that’s because it’s about a form of “speech” that has clear political motives (threatening and intimidating a perceived political opponent from behind a veil of anonymity), and which is not only prosecutable, but Turley is quietly endorsing DOJ going for convictions. JT is not thinking these threats to sitting Judges are not a “free speech” issue?
What makes this kind of “speech” illegal and prosecutable? What makes this law different from John Adam’s Sedition Act of 1798?
Perhaps “free speech” is a bit more complicated and nuanced than JT wishes to admit.
Who thinks anonymous intimidation is covered by the 1st Amendment? Any takers? Depends on who is intimidating who?
This isn’t today’s topic, it is yesterday’s and you know it. Your pretense ‘original” subject matter was already brought up and discusses by Upstate and Lin and others “stochastic terrorism.” So try talking about THIS topic of a SPECIFIC THREAT made against judges.
I don’t believe intimidating speech is illegal or prohibited as long as it’s not a viable threat to cause harm. Parents use intimidation to their children, teachers use intimidating speech to their students. School Boards and the DOJ use intimidating speech against the citizenry, free speech is free speech until it trips the thresholds of causing a direct harm, fire in a crowded theater that results in injuries or death. Slippery slope!
OK, let’s say something you post publicly is traced to you, and a group of antagonists decides to retaliate by pressuring your employer to fire you — let’s say they’re successful. You’d agree that’s caused harm, right?
The use of “tortious interference” lawsuits is very encouraging in this regard. It’s too early to tell how much impact these will have on deterring militant tactics like doxxing and career-cancelling. You’re correct that intimidating speech occupies a range of social control whereby it’s used in interpersonal relationships (parent child, teacher-student, supervisor-employee).
The point of departure is the use of intimidation from behind a veil of anonymity, completely outside personal relationships. You should be able to ID and sue such intimidation, especially when the motive is to silence you from participation in the exchange of constructive ideas. If you accept that this type of political intimidation is “protected free speech”, when its intent and impact is to inhibit your free speech, or steer your freedom of legal action, then that’s a blaring contradiction. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense that such militant tactics are protected from legal challenge.
The question is what type of legal challenge. In this case, this Alaskan faces felony prosecution for threatening federal judges — I think most would agree our judicial referees deserve that level of security. I think most agree that militant zealots cannot be allowed to bully other citizens anonymously — that is a replay of Germany in the 1930s — and it ends up in a very dangerous place.
“The point of departure is the use of intimidation from behind a veil of anonymity, completely outside personal relationships.”
Pbinca, does that force you to conclude that Hamilton, Madison and Jay should be charged with some crime and that the Federalist Papers should have been removed from public access?
Is Walz a Chinese asset? Did he pass nuclear secrets to China?
https://alphanews.org/exclusive-walzs-former-national-guard-colleague-alleges-classified-nuclear-manual-went-missing-in-nebraska-during-his-tenure/
Undoubtedly plus his wife is bat chit crazy, turn the page…
She even has the crazy eyes!
These people should NEVER be near public office.
not-so-old: I place this on a bet that we won’t see this story about Walz on MSM today–NOT on this opening day of some primary voting around the country!
–And not like, on the eve of primaries, last night and this morning’s national MSM news suddenly reporting a story about the Black Republican running for North Carolina Governor–some new about him from 2008? (15 years ago) that he is denying. MSM cautions its calculatingly-timely broadcast by noting that the news “has not been independently verified” by the networks,
–but do you think that MSM will tell this Chinese story regarding Walz–and simply qualify it as “not yet independently verified….?”
“national MSM news suddenly reporting a story about the Black Republican running for North Carolina Governor–some new about him from 2008? (15 years ago)”
Among the other things allegedly posted under his (Robinson’s) name was advocacy for the return of slavery. Now, c’mon, Robinson is black. I have never in my life seen any evidence or even halfway credible allegations that a black politician, no matter how far on the extreme right of the political spectrum he might be, had advocated for the return of slavery. More than likely, if any of those comments did appear on social media on 2008 associated with a profile that bore Robinson’s name, one of three things happened:
1] there was another user with a profile under the same name (“Robinson” isn’t exactly a rare surname, I have a common one myself, and I am constantly amazed at how many other named alike people I find, even in my immediate vicinity)
2] Someone who was out to cause trouble for Robinson created a profile under his name from scratch, and made those posts maliciously
3] Someone was able to discover his credentials for the site, and exploited that by taking over an existing profile that Robinson had created, again making the posts with malicious intent
That last event still happens to people with whom I am friended on Facebook to this day, and such a thing was far, far easier in 2008.
You may be right, I dunno. All I know is that politics is such a game now, as in, who can outsmart, out-tactic the other.
Ready to strategically launch back pocket rumors/bombshell stories, ready to go off any minute like the pagers/walkie-talkies. For those who are less savvy in political stuntmanship, they end up voting on physical appearance, friendly smile, speciously-sincere platitudes. For those following the daily “revelations,” they are forced to sieve through all the garbage.
Hey libs, why is it that the Iranians are supporting Harris and why is it that you are not as upset about it as you pretend to be about the Russians?
To everyone that supports Israel and everyone that understands what it takes to have peace in the ME please know that Obama/Biden/Harris support Iran.
Please note that Obama/Biden/Harris hate Netanyahu more than they hate the Mullahs that chant death to America, supply the Houthis that are destroying TRADING ON THE OPEN SEAS, Hezbollah and Hamas, the Russians and the North Koreans. But to Blinken (I know he is Jewish, but so is Bernie and he hates Israel too), Harris and the little girls and boys that work for them all hate Israel and have no issue with Iran.
* There are six (6) conservative justices? List them.
“List them”
Not sure what you are after, other than for someone to take your bait, but:
-Roberts
-Alito
-Kavanaugh
-Gorsuch
-Barrett
-Thomas
are widely considered to be conservative justices, and I’m certain those are the justices to whom Turley was referring.
* Thank you. Alito and Thomas are conservative. The others middle ground. Ok, they are seen as conservatives.
OT: polls show Harris increasing her lead in battleground states. Meanwhile, Trump finds himself rambling incoherent thoughts at his rallies, whining about the debate, and making excuses for his poor performance. It seems Harris is gaining the attention of undecided voters with her policy discussions.
In the words of John McEnroe, you can’t be serious. In any case, the same polls showed Hillary ahead by much more in 2016.
Yeah, Mary, and Hillary WON the popular vote. What the pollsters didn’t know, and couldn’t know, was the behind-the-scenes collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russian hackers who were spreading lies about her in key districts in swing states–to garmer enough the Electoral College votes to get the election, even though most Americans didn’t want Trump. Trump’s campaign provided insider polling information to the hackers in places in swing states where support for Hillary was soft enough to sway them with their lies. Trump has lied and cheated to get what he wants his entire pathetic life, just like he’s doing now–trying to drum up racism against Haitian migrants who are here legally, calling them “illegals” and lying about them stealing and eating people’s pets. No matter how many times City officials in Springfield, OH and Gov. Mike DeWine refute these lies, Trump and Vance keep on spreading them–they can’t back down–they can’t be wrong. But they are.
You won.
Great!
What the —- are you doing campaigning here?
Stop repeating yourself.
Polls show Trump’s favorability rising while Harris is dropping.
But Judge Joe Brown says Harris’ skirt is rising.
It seems that whenever someone posts something substantial or insightful on the topic, “anonymous” responds with a barrage of insults and put-downs rather than offering anything of value. It appears that “anonymous” has difficulty with reading comprehension and understanding context and compensates for this by projecting his insecurities onto others.
It’s unfortunate that this type of content diminishes the quality of this blog, bringing it down to the level of platforms like 4chan or Parler, where discussions are often mired in ignorance and unfounded fear.
I agree with George, but point out that “anonymous” is not a single individual — it is many who confuse the reader using scrubbed identity. I suspect that there are foreign trolls among these folks. In the traditional public square, all speakers were identifiable, and were therefore saddled with a sense of propriety and responsibility for what they said. Yes, there were anonymous handbills, but you had to get a printer to agree to print them — a gatekeeper role.
The boy-men of Silicon Valley and their naive “social experiments” have destroyed much that was good in the world before they came along. For instance, in the 1990s, they wanted to allow anonymous “play acting” on the internet, as a form of youthful protest against adults imposing rules. They also saw little point in building legal jurisdictions into the design of the internet, a middle-finger to law and order. Look where it has led to.
I believe connected computer licensing will become the foundation for a new, SecureNet in my lifetime. It will be a quasi-open system based on Trusted Actor Architecture (TAA), which is essentially what our grandparents generation did about reckless driving in the 1910s by adopting driver licensing and vehicle tags.
We’re living in that pre-regulated era of internet “reckless driving” with no accountability system.
I respectfully disagree. The technology to discover and track “anonymous” identities on the Internet is happening already/now. It is only evident/apparent when there has been red-flag suspicious or illegal activity. The tension exists,-not with technology capability, but rather with competing interests of discovery vs. privacy rights.
Driver licensing and vehicle tags were only good… until “drivers” switched or stole plates, and early driver’s licenses/passports/ID could be duplicated and photo-copied on state-of-the-art copier printers, then conveniently laminated at your local vending machine store. Maybe not good enuf to pass authorities’ inspections, but good enuf to take off with your car or empty your savings account.
The genetic survival instinct keeps humans hopping to find a new way to beat the odds…
Like the old comedian’s joke, “every time I tune in the station, someone moves the radio.”
‘I’m a black NAZI!’: NC GOP nominee for governor made dozens of disturbing comments on porn forum
– CNN (link not provided because I refuse to give them any web traffic)
Suddenly the Left is offended by porn and Nazis? Hysterical. Or maybe the Left are racists and Nazis themselves?!
If only CNN and their ilk had generated as much interest in Louis Farrakhan & Barack Obama.
Suppressed photo of Obama, Farrakhan might have derailed 2008 campaign
A 2005 photograph of then-Sen. Barack Obama and Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan recently surfaced after 13 years. The photographer, Askia Muhammad, said he kept the photo under wraps out of concern about Obama’s bid for the White House.
https://www.ajc.com/news/local/suppressed-photo-obama-farrakhan-might-have-derailed-2008-campaign/Jnrh8LRoW3DY6lYXZLIDSN/
The Left is determined to either kill people they do not like (e.g. Catholic SCOTUS Justices, President Donald Trump) and/or “shame” them because of being Nazis. Meanwhile Democrats support Pro-Hamas Nazis in exterminating Jews in America.
How do you know it’s not a fake photo?
Anyway…