We have been discussing the chilling crackdown on free speech that has been building for years in the United States. This effort has accelerated in the aftermath of the Capitol riot including the shutdown sites like Parler. Now former Texas congressman Ron Paul, 85, has been blocked from using his Facebook page for unspecified violations of “community standards.” Paul’s last posting was linked to an article on the “shocking” increase of censorship on social media. Facebook then proceeded to block him under the same undefined “community standards” policy.
Category: Media
Recently, millions of supporters of Twitter reportedly left that company due to its continued censoring of viewpoints and the permanent banning of President Donald Trump. Many went to the more open forum offered by Parler — making it the number one item on Apple’s App store. Apple, Google, and other companies then moved to cut off Parler, which has now been shutdown. In so doing, these companies eliminate any alternative to their own controlled platforms. It is a major threat to free speech. Yet, the silence of academic and many free speech advocates is striking and chilling. Continue reading “Parler Shutdown In Latest Attack on Free Speech On The Internet”
Below is my column in the Hill on the riot at Congress and its implications for our country. As shown by the unfounded rush for a “snap impeachment,” we are experiencing a crisis of faith in this country — not only in our Constitution but ourselves. Pushing for a snap vote (and snap judgment) on these issues will only exacerbate our divisions. This is a time for deliberative, not impulsive, action in Congress.
Here is the column:
This week, President-elect Joe Biden made a highly commendable decision to nominate Judge Merrick Garland as the next United States Attorney General. Like many, I praised Garland as an outstanding choice and a move that advanced Biden’s earlier pledge to seek unity. That is why I was so disappointed in Biden refusing to take a position on the effort to impeach Donald Trump next week. As with his equally inexplicable refusal to take a stand on court packing, Biden’s silence on this clearly unsupportable “snap impeachment” was a missed opportunity to show real leadership when it matters most. It is not popular to oppose this impeachment, but leadership often demands that presidents take unpopular but correct positions. Continue reading “Say It Ain’t So, Joe: The Failure of Biden To Denounce This Impeachment Is A Missed Presidential Opportunity”
One of the most unsettling aspects of the last four years is the intentional effort to rewrite history in the media to fit a narrative either by denying facts or echoing clearly false statements. The recent stories on the riot in Congress is a good example. Most of us denounced Trump’s speech (as it was being given) and, of course, the rioting itself. Some, however, have noted that there have been violent protests for years, including the protest in Lafayette Square. The fact that there have been violent protests by the left does not take away from the disgraceful attack on Congress. Yet, there seems a controlling narrative that must be maintained at all costs — portraying past protests by groups on the left as peaceful to magnify the criticism of the recent violence in Congress. Even a site ironically called Media Matters published a piece not only calling the Lafayette protest peaceful but repeating a long discredited claim about the controversial Trump photo op. I testified in Congress on the Lafayette Park operation and the revisionism surrounding the controversy is alarming.
Continue reading “The Lafayette Park Protests And The Revision Of History”
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin is calling for the expulsion of Republican members for challenging the electoral votes this week as “sedition.” From the outset, I opposed this challenge as unfounded. However, think about this demand (which has been raised by others). Rubin wants to expel members who joined challenges allowed under a federal law (on the very same grounds that Democrats have made in past elections). Indeed, she declares “Every Republican bears a responsibility for what happened on Wednesday, whether or not they participated in a seditious attempt to overthrow our democracy.” So Republicans who opposed the challenge and denounced the violence should still be punished or blamed?
In a profanity laced diatribe, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough demanded the arrest of President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump Jr. for insurrection. Scarborough declared “If Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump are not arrested today for insurrection and taken to jail and booked . . . then we are no longer a nation of laws and we only tell people they can do this again.” What he is suggesting would be the very antithesis for the rule of law.
For many legal analysts, President Donald Trump remains a type of criminal Midas figure: everything he says or does turns instantly into a crime. Over the last few years, the media has published a long line of unfounded criminal theories by experts claiming that a tweet or a meeting or a statement established a clear prosecutable case. It is a popular and profitable take with the media which has been feeding an insatiable appetite for such reassuring views. Law has become a recreation and legal analysts have become part of the legal entertainment. Continue reading “Trump’s Midas Touch: Legal Experts Line Up To Declare The Georgia Call As The Latest Crime By Trump”
Below is my column in the Hill on the rise of delusional politics in America — a problem captured vividly on New Year’s Eve as Mayor Bill de Blasio dancing with his wife to a virtually empty Times Square. This is not Chicago where Sinatra sang about seeing a “guy dancing with his wife.” It is New York and the only one dancing seemed to be de Blasio.
We are watching as both parties seem blissfully and utterly detached from reality.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “De Blasio’s Dance and The Delusional Politics Of 2021”
Napoleon once said “treason is a matter of dates.” The Democrats seem to have taken Napoleon’s words to heart in declaring Republicans traitors or anti-Democratic in their planned challenge the certification of electoral votes next week. Both the media and Democratic members have advanced this narrative despite Democratic members repeatedly raising such challenges in the past. In the few acknowledgments of that history, Democrats seem to be advancing a simple and familiar defense: Trump. Once again, open hypocrisy is negated by Trumpunity. After all, they cannot be anti-Democratic because they are Democrats. That conclusory position was evident in the spin this week on CNN by former California Sen. Barbara Boxer who led such a challenge to the 2004 election results. Continue reading ““Treason Is A Matter Of Dates”: Democrats Denounce Republicans For The Same Challenge They Previously Made To Republican Presidents”
We have previously discussed attorneys arrested in attacks with Molotov cocktails during protests. One of the individuals charged in the firebombing of police cars during Black Lives Matter protests in Arkansas turns out to be a former public radio reporter, Renea Goddard, 22. She is one of four charged in the slashing of police car tires and burning them with Molotov cocktails.
President Donald Trump has been criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike for his recent spate of pardons, including corrupt ex-congressmen and the father of Jared Kushner. I was one of those who immediately criticized those pardons as manifestly unjustified and inimical to our legal system. However, none of that makes the comments of senior U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt of the Southern District of Iowa any less troubling. Judge Pratt gave an interview slamming the pardons in a departure from judicial ethics rules barring jurists from engaging in such political commentary.
The New York Times is under fire for its coverage of how an incoming Tennessee cheerleader was dumped from the team after the release of a three-second video in which she used a racial epithet. Times reporter Dan Levin gave a strikingly positive account of how Jimmy Galligan waited for years to release the video to do the most harm to Mimi Groves. The article “A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning,” is being cited as the ultimate celebration of the cancel culture in its tenor and lack of balance. Everyone agrees that the use of the n-word was a terrible thing. However, the same standard does not seem to apply to professors who use racist and insensitive comments. It would seem that, even if students are not accorded the same protections for faculty, universities should offer them the same opportunity for redemptive change. After all, college is meant as place for personal growth for students.
Michael Cohen is now a prisoner rights advocate. As someone who has run a prisoner project for decades, it came as something of a surprise to me but Cohen is now a reformer . . . just ask Tony Meatballs. The reference came up in an interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber in which Cohen explained that he only filed for early release under the First Step Act (Trump’s much touted criminal justice reform bill) because he promised “my buddies Tony Meatballs and Big Minty, that I wasn’t going to stop once I got out” in seeking to reform our prisons. You see, it is really not for Mike Cohen. It is for Tony Meatballs.
Below is my column in the Hill on claims by former Deputy Special Counsel Andrew Weissmann that the recent pardons by President Donald Trump reinforce a possible obstruction of justice case against him. We have previously discussed how Weissmann has proven critics correct in their description of his animosity and bias toward Trump. For my part, his book and recent statements reinforce the view of an abusive prosecutor, particularly in his untethered view of obstruction. Indeed, Weissmann seems intent on making the best case for Trump to grant himself a self-pardon. He is calling for prosecutors to use grand juries to pursue Trump and others in an unrelenting campaign based on unfounded legal theories.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “Law’s Ahab: Weissmann Makes The Case For A Trump Self-Pardon”