Daily Archives: March 20, 2024

Following Mondays Supreme Court oral argument in the social media censorship case Murthy v. Missouri, outraged free-speech advocates rightfully excoriated Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson for worrying that the First Amendment will hamstring[] the government in significant ways in the most important time periods.

Given that hamstringing the federal government was precisely the purpose of the Bill of Rights, Justice Jacksons comment laid bare the fundamental disdain she and other politically liberal justices hold for the classically liberal freedoms our Constitution protects.

But even worse than Jacksons hamstring comment was something she said a half-dozen sentences later.

So can you help me? Because Im really Im really worried about that because youve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the governments perspective, Justice Jackson said to Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiaga. Why couldnt the government communicate with social media companies then? Jackson queried.

Aguiaga, on behalf of the respondents, the states of Louisiana and Missouri, and several individual plaintiffs who had been censored on social media, countered that the government could communicate with tech companies and share truthful information with them. But in doing so, the government must comply with the First Amendment, which means federal officials cannot ask Big Tech to censor third parties.

Lost in this exchange, however, was the horror of Justice Jacksons premise that the government outreaches would depend on federal officials perspective of threatening circumstances.

Five years ago, that proposition might not have seemed so shocking because Americans hadnt yet lived through the dual outrage of near-universal capitulation to the governments requests for censorship and the wrongheadedness of the federal governments perspective of threatening circumstances. Absent that lived experience, it might have been possible to imagine the government would only solicit Big Techs cooperation when truly faced with threatening circumstances, or that the social media companies would refuse to remove third parties posts, absent a sincere danger.

However, the 20,000-plus-page record in the Murthy v. Missouri case revealed that the governments perspective of threatening circumstances can be both dangerously wrong and politically motivated.

For instance, the federal government viewed anything prompting vaccine hesitancy as threatening public health. It also maintained that masking and school closures were necessary to protect Americans against Covid. These perspectives of threatening circumstances flowing from the pandemic led the government to demand that social media companies block users and posts discussing adverse effects of Covid shots or arguing against masking and school closures.

But the government was wrong about all of it, and those censored were right. Had the government not successfully silenced such speech, Americans would have been better armed with facts to make important health and public policy decisions.

Unlike the censorship of Covid-related information, the blocking of the New York Post and articles and posts about the Hunter Biden laptop story flowed not from the governments supposed perception of threatening circumstances although some federal officials likely also saw Trumps reelection as threatening but from political motives.

Once again, the banned speech was true, and Americans were prevented from learning vital information before the election due to the governments efforts to persuade Big Tech to block supposed hack or leak material. (Turns out, the Hunter Biden laptop was no such material.)

Its shocking that Justice Jackson could posit the governments perspective of threatening circumstances should matter, given that the facts underlying Murthy v. Missouri perfectly illustrate the dangers of censorship.

Sadly, she was not alone in suggesting the government could ask, encourage, and even persuade social media companies to silence third parties legal speech, so long as there was no coercion. The word coercion appears nowhere in the First Amendment, however, with the framers instead prohibiting the abridgment of free speech.

The Louisianna solicitor general reminded the Supreme Court of that reality several times during his Monday argument, which led to another horrifying exchange with Justice Jackson: After noting that the top-line question is whether the government set out to abridge the freedom of speech, Justice Jackson countered, But thats not the test for First Amendment violations.

This flows from the plain text of the First Amendment, Aguiaga stressed.

But we have a we have a test, Justice Jackson replied.

Therein we saw the fundamental problem with Mondays argument, as Jackson and several of her colleagues became too buried in First Amendment jurisprudence to bother returning to first principles and the actual text of the amendment. The abridgment language is controlling and, if applied, provides the plaintiffs with an easy win.

Whether a majority of the justices will apply that textually based standard, as opposed to one of the several judge-made tests, however, remains to be seen.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalists senior legal correspondent. Margots work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishmentsher dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Justice Jackson's 'Hamstringing' Comment Wasn't Her Worst - The Federalist

This text is written and Published as part of the Democracy Under Pressure Campaign of JEF Europe

2024 marks the 19th year that JEF Europe has continued raising awareness towards the challenges towards European democracy through the campaign Democracy Under Pressure. Despite being a shared threat, some countries have regrettably become focal points in the debates surrounding democracy and its obstacles. This has been the case in Hungary under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, which has witnessed a steady deterioration in democratic values. In 2022, the European Parliament has agreed, in a resolution backed by 81% of MEPs present to the vote, that Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy, but rather a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy, with a restricted media landscape, a concerning lack of pluralism, and hostile stances towards minorities. Despite being one of the first Eastern countries to decriminalise homosexuality in 1961, particularly prominent are the derogatory remarks against LGBTQIA+ individuals, and the creation of a political climate which promotes negative stigma, discrimination, and violence against LGBTQIA+ people, and therefore discourages democracy.

The establishment of democracy in Hungary follows an uneven path that continues to raise concerns for the future. Following the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989, Hungary adopted a new constitution which formally established the new democratic republic, and officially kick-started its democratic transition, with the desire to implement a new political order that could guarantee a better economy, the protection of human rights, and an improvement of Hungarys relations with Western countries. Under these conditions, Hungary took two major steps in its journey towards democracy, becoming a member of NATO in 1999, and becoming a member of the European Union in 2004, signalling its commitment to democratic values, human rights, and the rule of law. In this hectic political environment, Orbn began his political career in Fidesz, a liberal youth movement funded in 1988, gaining popularity for his anti-Communist stances and his calls for democratic reforms. A decade after entering the political arena, Orbn ran his first mandate as Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002, with a centre-right government that faced criticism for its clashes with journalists and corruption allegations. After the 2002 elections, Hungary underwent eight years of leadership under the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), during which discrimination based on sexual orientation was prohibited in 2002, and same-sex partnerships were recognized in 2007. Until his return to power in 2010, Orban continued its political activity within Fidesz. During this time, he opted for a more conservative and nationalist leadership, which he applied during his new mandate through several controversial policies undermining human rights and civil society organizations.

Fourteen years into Orbns mandate, the freedom and safety of the LGBTQIA+ community are still at risk, and the fear is that it will only get worse. As for 2023, Hungary did not register any progress, and the government has continued implementing and fortifying policies undermining LGBTQIA+ people. An example is the case of the Child Protection Act, issued in 2021 to limit childrens exposure to content considered to be portraying or promoting homosexuality and gender reassignment, raising concerns about the stigmatisation and discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community and the limitation of its freedom of expression. Despite being issued in 2021, the act was the centre of two major episodes in 2023, which fuelled the conversation around the legitimacy of the act. In July 2023, the book distribution company Lira was fined over 30,000 for displaying the bestselling LGBTQIA+ young adult graphic novel Heartstopper in the childrens section. According to the act, the novel should have been wrapped in plastic, to prevent its free consultation in the bookshop. Since then, several bookstore chains complied with the act and wrapped in plastic those products that may be considered dangerous by the act, actively performing self-censorship and contributing to the governments objective - to prevent a fine. However, in 2023, the Hungarian government experienced resistance to its censorship activity against the LGBTQIA+ community. On the occasion of the Budapest Pride parade, held in July 2023, the organization produced an advertisement to promote the event and sent it to RTL, Hungarys leading media company. After being subjected to the Media Council for preliminary classification, the advertisement was deemed unsuitable to air during daytime due to younger audiences and it was moved to the nighttime graveyard slot. The decision of the Media Council was not welcomed by Budapest Pride, which decided to contest the decision and initiate a juridical challenge to protect the LGBTQIA+s right to protest and freedom of speech. Nevertheless, the situation remains challenging.

Particularly concerning is the targeting of Transgender individuals. In 2023, the Hungarian government upheld a ruling issued in 2021 which halts new applications for legal gender recognition, limiting access to the legal process to individuals who submitted their request for legal gender recognition before 2021. The renewal of this decision generates concerns among the European community, as it does not hold up against European human rights obligations, and generates a potential threat towards Transgender individuals, who are ultimately exposed to harassment, discrimination, and violence. The Constitutional Court, responsible for issuing the rule, explained that the bill concerns issues linked to criminality and health care, and claimed that someones sex assigned at birth is critical to know in health care and legal settings. Such claims do not stand up, and contribute to the hostile environment built around the LGBTQIA+ community. Notwithstanding this, people who were allowed to access legal gender recognition and gain their right to self-identify, face continuous threats and limitations. In July 2023, Fidesz proposed a bill which would exclude Transgender women from the pension scheme which benefits women who have worked 40 years but have not yet reached retirement age, in a new blatant bill which discriminates against Transgender women and does not validate their existence, with concerning stances that, once again, put at risk Transgender individuals and categorize LGBTQIA+ individual as B class citizens.

While this is a somewhat limited assessment of democracy in Hungary, it still shows how the situation is quickly deteriorating. The Hungarian government has continued proposing and renewing bills which limit the freedom of the LGBTQIA+ community and undermine their safety in the country, while also enforcing media censorship. The hostility generated by Orbans government represents not only a threat to Hungary but also an intimidating remark on the spread of far-right ideals, and anti-LGBQTIA+ movements, which may affect other European countries and become a shared threat to democracy among the European Union. In this sense, it remains crucial for the EU to continue doing what it can to challenge the Hungarian governments anti-democratic policies. In the end, a threat against one is a threat against all, and we must do all that we can to ensure the consolidation and survival of Democracy in Europe, and beyond.

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Democracy Under Pressure in Hungary - The New Federalist - Le Taurillon

Its another day that ends in -y, which means House Speaker Mike Johnson is preparing to surrender on yet another federal spending fight that allows President Bidens border invasion to continue unabated.

On Tuesday, congressional leaders announced they struck a deal on a roughly $1 trillion package to fund the remainder of the federal government for the rest of the 2024 fiscal year. It includes funding for agencies such as the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security. The first package which contained zero conservative priorities and increased spending was passed by Congress and signed into law by Biden earlier this month.

Negotiated behind closed doors with the White House and Senate leadership, Johnson said in a Tuesday statement that House and Senate committees have begun drafting bill text to be prepared for release and consideration by the full House and Senate as soon as possible. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also confirmed this to be the case.

Biden and congressional leaders behind-the-scenes scheming to pass the measure by Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown has rightly evoked ire from conservative representatives and senators. On Wednesday morning, Utah Sen. Mike Lee said, The Firm has yet to show anyone the proposed package and described attempts to ram the bill through without proper input or debate as a sham legislative process.

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie echoed similar sentiments on Tuesday, writing on X: We are back in Ryan-Boehner swamp mode where the omnibus is written behind closed doors.

Members are told to take it or leave it, and although Republicans control the House, more Democrats vote for it than Republicans because it spends more money than when Pelosi was in charge, Massie wrote.

Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnells willingness to keep conservative congressional members out of the negotiating process is disgraceful. The bills reported contents, however, appear to be just as equally horrific.

According to Punchbowl News Jake Sherman, Johnson briefed the House GOP Conference on the measures key provisions Wednesday morning. Here is what the speaker purportedly claimed are wins included in the $1 trillion measure:

Meanwhile, heres what Democrats are reportedly claiming is in the bill:

As indicated in the latter tweet, the package contains provisions granting 12,000 new Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan nationals who assisted the U.S. in Afghanistan, according to sources who spoke with Sherman.

While the measures final text has yet to be released, the apparent consensus among Johnson and Democrat leadership is that there will be no significant change to U.S. immigration policy.

The alleged wins touted by Johnson pertain to border funding issues not border policy. Directing more resources towards the border is completely meaningless unless its accompanied by changes to existing asylum and border enforcement procedures, such as those included in House Republicans Secure the Border Act of 2023 (H.R. 2). Without a change in policy, Bidens border invasion will continue to metastasize.

Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Bidens handling of the invasion, meaning there are zero excuses for Johnson and Republicans to capitulate on the issue. If the speaker is as serious about stopping the border crisis and preventing more tragedies like the death of Laken Riley as he regularly claims, then its past time he grows a spine and uses the power of the purse to exact real concessions from Biden and Democrats that secure the border.

Anything less is an act of cowardice that accelerates Americas demise.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Mike Johnson Needs To Grow A Spine And Fight Biden's Border Invasion - The Federalist

You wouldnt know it from White House press releases, but Americans are paying roughly 45 percent more at the pump now than before President Joe Biden first took office.

Anyone looking to take a quick weekend getaway or spring break outing in the coming days will pay an average of $3.51 per gallon to gas up their vehicles. Roadtrippers and commuters in states such as California are the hardest hit, paying upwards of $4.93 per gallon. Even notoriously cheap states for gas such as Texas still have Americans shelling out far more than $3 per gallon.

Gas price inflation is back, CNN, one of the few corporate media publications mentioning the price surge, noted at the beginning of its latest article on fuel. The Daily Mail repeated the same phrase in a recent headline.

The truth is, gas price inflation never left. Prices at the pump are definitively higher now than they were one year ago.

One might think that Biden, who is already lagging in presidential polls for the upcoming election, would do everything in his power to fix the problem because his campaign team knows Americans vote with their pocketbooks. Yet the Biden administration has adopted rhetoric about a so-called dip in the cost of unleaded from 2022 records to claim that inflation isnt as bad or as Democrat-inflicted as it is.

This week, as the cost to fill a car climbs daily, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre went so far as to brag that the actions that [Biden] took led to lowering gas prices.

On Friday, she attributed the fall in record-high prices to President Joe Bidens unprecedented actions on oil.

We saw gas prices go down, she repeated.

The White House, with the help of corporate media, has long touted cooling prices to flood the airwaves with propaganda seeking to obscure the nations dire economic conditions. Yet, as with every other category of inflation, gas costs have never technically stopped climbing since Bidens entrance in 2021. Even when the price of unleaded varied slightly from the record high that plagued Bidens first few presidential years thanks to his unfriendly oil and gas policies, the cost of filling up a car has remained steadily high.

The White House will do its best to cover up its role in the inflation crisis wreaking havoc on the country, but will stop short of enacting a real solution. The administration wont lift any of its policies exacerbating high gas prices because jarring costs at the pump dont necessary conflict with the administrations goals.

The Biden administration openly desires to use chronically high gas prices to usher in electric vehicles and weather-dependent energy.

[Why Is Joe Biden Screwing Seniors To Subsidize Electric Vehicles?]

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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High Gas Prices Don't Bother Biden Because They Cut Car Use - The Federalist

More than half of states have passed laws banning or restricting the use of private money in elections, such as the hundreds of millions of dollars Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg funneled through groups like the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) in 2020 to infiltrate local election offices. But CTCL is still doing its best to influence elections through the local election offices that will still listen.

In a series of webinars posted publicly on its website, CTCL lectured election administrators about how to work with left-wing fact-checking outfits to target disfavored speech about elections. The series also instructed administrators on how to persuade elected officials to align with their policy preferences and on cultivating relationships with friendly journalists.

Policymaking has been deeply influenced by misinformation, and democratic norms are being threatened, said CTCL Training Associate Christian Franco. As a result, the list of every election officials responsibilities is growing.

CTCL presents itself as nonpartisan, but the organization is deeply tied to leftist groups. Its founders Tiana Epps-Johnson, Whitney May, and Donny Bridges came from the New Organizing Institute, which The Washington Post described as the Democratic Partys Hogwarts for Digital Wizardry, according to InfluenceWatch. CTCL board members Tammy Patrick and Cristina Sinclaire have strong ties to Democratic political operations, and the group took nearly $25 million from the left-leaning New Venture Fund in the lead-up to the 2020 election.

In 2021, after states started outlawing the use of private funds to conduct elections, CTCL launched an effort to get around those laws via its Election Infrastructure Initiative. The initiative is billed as bringing together election officials, nonprofits, counties, cities, and states to call for $20 billion in congressional funding for election offices over the next decade. The groups Advocacy Director Keara Mendez, formerly Keara Fenzel, said the initiatives goal is ambitious.

We know that this will still require additional advocacy at the state and local level for us to fill everyones budget gaps, Mendez added.

How convenient that CTCL has been lecturing election administrators on how to do just that kind of advocacy!

In one of the webinars, Franco said administrators should build influence with elected officials in their jurisdictions.

During this initial contact, you arent necessarily trying to persuade public officials to support or go against any specific legislation, Franco said. He recommended hosting election office tours to showcase bipartisan staff, the signature matching process, and security measures.Franco said administrators should also work to build connections with advocacy organizations and state associations.

Finding allied groups can help you design outreach strategies, hire lobbyists, build partnerships, raise funds, [and] conduct trainings, Franco said.

What kind of allied groups work with CTCL? The organizations partners include left-wing groups like the Democracy Fund and Rock the Vote. The National Vote at Home Institute, another left-wing ally that also has leadership ties to CTCL, even accessed Wisconsin absentee ballots and helped shift Michigan policy in the 2020 election.

Election administrators can educate elected officials by providing expertise, offering feedback on legislation, and asking questions, according to CTCL Senior Project Manager Josh Simon Goldman. But he also explained how election offices can persuade peoples elected representatives.

You can think of persuading as motivating public officials to support your stance, or move them towards even a neutral standpoint, limiting their opposition, Goldman said. Sometimes the facts arent enough.

Goldman said legislators are hearing misinformation from people who are not election experts.

Thats not good for you, your office, your voters, or our democracy, Goldman said. You should have a say and work with fellow election administrators to make an impact.

Despite CTCLs partisan ties and questionable involvement in elections, the group apparently feels it is qualified to lecture on malinformation. Kurt Sampsel, then-senior project manager for CTCL, spoke in another online course about who he thinks deserves blame for the spread of false information.

Trumps statements on voting by mail, voter fraud, and whether or not hell accept the results of the election have had the effect of undermining confidence in our democratic processes on just a bigger scale than weve ever seen before, Sampsel claimed.

He blamed the spread of false information on information operations, and explained the need to target not just misinformation and disinformation but true statements that are nonetheless dubbed malinformation.

Malinformation is actually accurate or truthful, but like disinformation, its distributed with the intent to cause harm, Sampsel said. An example of malinformation, he said, would be to highlight cases of voter fraud or election irregularities with the implication that this is a really common, widespread problem.

Sampsel claimed well-intended Americans are guilty of spreading false information.

It could also be a social media campaign that uses accurate information about an example of voter fraud or election fraud to intensify support for a candidate whom the target audience may already support, Samples continued.

Sampsel described malinformation as anything from hacking or cyber warfare to WikiLeaks or if a voter discourages participation on Election Day by simply tweeting a photo of a really long line at a polling place.

Emma Llans, director of the Free Expression Project for the Center for Democracy and Technology at the time, blamed Americans for what she called misinformation and disinformation influence operations.

Ordinary voters are guilty of circulating unverified rumors or myths about voting, she said. Many of the influence operations youll find on social media channels are created by domestic actors motivated by partisanship.

Roco Hernandez, a CTCL program manager, explained how to control the narrative on social media with fact checking groups.

With these fact checking organizations, you can tag them in social media posts that you see, report false content to them, and of course you can review their fact checks to verify or debunk questionable information, Hernandez said.

She also described ways administrators can influence media coverage, encouraging them to cultivate relationships with journalists.

In the event of a viral election myth circulating in your area, itll be great to have someone in your local press who you already know, Hernandez said.

Hernandez also recommended connecting with bilingual outlets, saying that can go a long way in terms of reaching more linguistically diverse audiences. Cities in Wisconsin used CTCL funds to target voters of color with an information campaign during the 2020 election.

Another presenter, Yangmee Lor from the Adams County, Colorado, clerks office, went even further, encouraging election offices to build inclusive, empowering connections with communities of foreign language.

And that also allows you to reflect on where your organization is in regards to diversity and inclusivity, she added.

Goldman emphasized that he thinks administrators should have more power.

The bottom line, you are an expert, Goldman said. You are an election official, community leader, source of truth, steward of democracy, a public official in your own right.

Logan Washburn is studying politics and journalism at Hillsdale College. He serves as associate editor for the school paper, The Collegian, served as editorial assistant for Christopher Rufo, and has bylines in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller.

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Zuckbucks Group Teaches Election Offices How To Target Speech - The Federalist

An attorney arguing in favor of government censorship at the Supreme Court Monday claimed federal emergencies excused First Amendment violations.

Justice Samuel Alito asked U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcherwhether the administration believed the print media regarded themselves as being on the same team as the federal government. The question came as Alito pressed Fletcher on the federal government treating online platforms as subordinates when officials demanded overt censorship.

Potentially in the context of an effort to get Americans vaccinated during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, Fletcher said.

It doesnt change the First Amendment principles, but its relevant to how they apply here. And I think its important to understand that at this time, this was a time when thousands of Americans were still dying every week, and there was a hope that getting everyone vaccinated could stop the pandemic, and there was a concern that Americans were getting their news about the vaccine from the platforms and the platforms were promoting, not just posting but promoting bad information.

Alito pointed out that Americans receive their news from print, broadcast, and cable media and that publishers and producers of these mediums do not face the same pressure campaigns from federal officials to manipulate their coverage as online platforms did to alter algorithms. It struck me as, wow, this is not what I understand the relationship to be.

Federalist Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland called the governments response horrible for three reasons. 1) because an emergency doesnt trump 1st amendment, Cleveland wrote on X, adding censorship also took place related to elections and Hunter Biden.

Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullmann reported last summer that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a federal agency, set up a private entity to ban and throttle election-related online speech Democrats dislike.

Much of the information choked by this algorithmic censorship operation is true, such as the legitimacy of Hunter Bidens laptop, Pullmann wrote.

The federal government also sought to suppress information during the 2020 election implicating the Democrats presidential nominee in his sons potentially criminal overseas business schemes. The D.C. censorship regime escalated with the election of President Joe Biden, whose administrations unprecedented control of the digital public square is at the center of the forthcoming Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court case.

Moments later in Mondays hearing, Biden-appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked if the government conceded whether platforms were coerced into speech censorship.

Im interested in your view that the context doesnt change the First Amendment principles, Brown said. I understood our First Amendment jurisprudence to require heightened scrutiny of government restrictions of speech but not necessarily a total prohibition when youre talking about a compelling interest of the government to ensure, for example, that the public has accurate information in the context of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor and frequent Fox News legal analyst, called the question on X chilling for free speech advocates.

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Gov't Says 'Once-In-A-Lifetime Pandemic' Excuses First Amendment Violations - The Federalist

Have you noticed the social contagion destroying our private lives? Consider these toxic but all-too-common scenarios:

A 19-year-old college student comes home and trashes her parents for their whiteness.

A 33-year-old son tells his mother, Youre dead to me, because she supports the U.S. Constitution with its guarantee of free speech.

A Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist tells readers of his New York Times editorial that they must prove their support by disowning any loved one who doesnt actively or financially support BLM.

Why would otherwise normal people act this way? I think such behavior can be traced to fear of being socially rejected by members of a reference group who signal what to say, how to act, whom to hate, and what to think. The fear is coupled with a strong need for acceptance by those peers.

But who informs those peers? The individuals in such groups arent really evil. Rather, theyve been conditioned and nudged along by massive propaganda narratives. Social contagion spreads as people are canceled for disagreeing with the narrative. Under such conditions, more people become misguided, ignorant, and manipulated by institutions overrun with elites who are convinced they know best.

The technical term for tyrants who seek to break bonds of kinship is predatory alienation. The attack on free speech through the censorship-industrial complex today speeds up that alienation, feeding an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation. It also serves our fear of social isolation, which causes a vicious cycle of mean-spirited interactions like the examples above. The only antidote to this toxic process is to talk to one another more, not less.

The human fear of social rejection is so hard-wired that it can be harnessed to direct our speech, our behavior, our relationships, and our thoughts. Exploiting that fear is easiest when people have little awareness of the disturbing process which I describe in my book The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer.

The need for talking to each other more is also why Ive launched a book club project. The idea is to promote casual discussion groups to help ordinary people build the inner strength to resist isolation. This endeavor is in the spirit of Vaclav Havels famous essay The Power of the Powerless. People need to gather in small friendly groups parallel polises to share ideas about our social isolation and build the strength to overcome it.

Lets face it. The corporate media certainly wont offer a solution. Neither will Big Tech or academia or any other corrupt institution. It must come from within each of us speaking one-on-one and face-to-face.

As renowned sociologist Jacques Ellul wrote: Propaganda ends where simple dialogue begins. To that purpose, I hope my website can help promote sincere discussion on the theme of weaponized loneliness and to build new bonds of friendship.

Every tyrant knows that isolation is the first key to controlling people. Political philosopher Hannah Arendt made that point when she wrote that all tyrannical governments seek first to isolate people to terrorize them into compliance.

The Covid mandates made Arendts view abundantly clear. In the wake of Covid, the World Economic Forum (WEF) declared misinformation and disinformation as the greatest short-term risk to progress. The WEF declaration looks like cover for more immediate punishment of free speech and top-down surveillance of our conversations, on a global scale.

Such criminalization of speech naturally cultivates the fear of speaking openly. Its demoralizing and causes more dependence upon those who seek to manipulate and control us. In such conditions of dependency, we tend to bond with our captors, as in Stockholm syndrome. Of course, thats the main idea behind political censorship: cut off open communication and thereby sow the distrust that cuts us off from one another.

Todays propaganda and censorship are so pervasive and hostile that the situation seems hopeless. Especially when we consider the cultivation of ignorance in our schools and the information overload of Big Tech and so much family brokenness all of which weaken us further.

But theres great hope for a breakthrough because the ripple effect of truth is vastly more powerful than all of that. The proof of this fact is that the thought police work constantly to shut up even the tiniest voice of dissent.

In the face of this seemingly overwhelming onslaught, we need first to protect and revitalize the private sphere of life. As Havel noted, its only from this hidden sphere of parallel polises that the power of our ideas can flow outward to others and make it possible once again to live within the truth.

Second, within that sphere, we can build a more clinical awareness of the tactics and techniques tyrants use to psychologically manipulate us into conformity and compliance. More people can learn how the demonization of a person as a white supremacist or other media smears are really meant to control whom we talk to, and thereby cut us off from potential friendships. As we discuss counterstrategies, we also gain the inner strength that emboldens us when we know we are not alone.

I see no other alternative. Without building sane spaces to talk through the weaponization of loneliness, we end up feeding the illusion that everyone is on board with gagging our speech. As more people self-silence, we become even more atomized and at the mercy of the very authorities who hope to punish our open conversations under the guise of eliminating misinformation.

My book club project is designed for ordinary people who want to break free from this vicious cycle. I envision discussion groups of maybe four to 10 people each. Theyd be friendly places where sincere and curious people could speak openly about how the fear of social rejection causes people to do things that seem unlikely and even cruel. Meetings like this would also strengthen bonds of social trust.

Ive done my best to provide on http://www.stellasbookclub.com what youd need to get started in this first step of liberation: a portal where you can initiate a book club on the theme of the weaponization of loneliness; a syllabus of sessions with summaries and study questions for each session; a select bibliography that includes classics such as Joost Meerloos The Rape of the Mind, Margaret Thaler Singers Cults in Our Midst, and Jacques Elluls Propaganda: The Formation of Mens Attitudes. There are also hard-hitting articles, video clips, documentaries, and movies. In one session I suggest readers view the loyalty dance scene from the 1987 film The Last Emperor, in which a mob of Mao Zedongs Red Guard youth justifies their brutal treatment of anyone they deem enemies of the revolution.

I hope this mission can offer interested folks an outlet to overcome the influence of such mobs. That will happen if more normal people are emboldened to speak more freely and build bonds of friendship in the process. In the end, defeating the weaponization of loneliness means working towards Havels goal of the rehabilitation of values like trust, openness, responsibility, solidarity, and love.

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Speaking Openly About Isolation Can Help Us Resist Tyranny - The Federalist

Gender ideology has a reality problem. Just look at the latest cover story for New York Magazine, in which the trans-identified writer Andrea Long Chu denounced reality itself, writing that the belief that we have a moral duty to accept reality just because it is real is, I think, a fine definition of nihilism.

Well, that is a novel philosophical assertion.

It is tempting to dismiss Chus denunciation of reality as an insane gambit by a flailing ideology, but declaring war against reality might just be crazy enough to work. This approach provides the collapsing gender ideology movement a way out of myriad difficulties instead of relying on shoddy science to support medical transition, including for children, gender ideologues can instead appeal to a supposed right to physical self-determination and modification, even for children. Liberals like the idea of liberating mankind from the limits of our humanity, and so even as Chu retreats from the usual arguments of gender ideology, he invites the left to join in this more radical vision.

This effort to find a better justification for gender ideology pushes Chu to argue that it was a mistake for the left to hang trans rights on the thin peg of gender identity. This approach won some victories, but it failed to form a coherent moral account of why someones gender identity should justify the actual biological interventions that make up gender-affirming care.

The radical bodily alterations of gender-affirming care have been justified by elevating gender identity to the status of a persons essence, deeper and more real than the body itself. But people are realizing that a gender identity is metaphysical conjecture, not medicine or biology. Thus, Chu sees reliance on gender identity as a trap for transgender advocates. It is superstitious to imagine that there is something like gendered souls that sometimes, somehow, get stuck in the wrong bodies.

He also sees that searching for reasons and explanations for transgenderism may prove deadly to the cause of gender ideology. By making the case for transition (again, especially for children) contingent on generating favorable evidence (medical, sociological, psychological) for it, the transgender movement has become more vulnerable as that evidence has failed to materialize. Furthermore, requiring reasons for transition tends to establish some form of gatekeeping, in which transition is doled out only to those determined to be truly transgender.

Chu fears that subjecting the transgender movement, and especially its medical wing, to rational, evidence-based scrutiny will restrict and ultimately destroy it. Instead, he wants transgender activists and their allies to:

[S]top relying on the increasingly metaphysical concept of gender identity to justify sex-changing care, as if such care were only permissible when ones biological sex does not match the serial number engraved on ones soul. [W]e must rid ourselves of the idea that any necessary relationship exists between sex and gender; this prepares us to claim that the freedom to bring sex and gender into whatever relation one chooses is a basic human right.

He thereby makes explicit what has always been the position of gender ideologues, which is that there should be medical transition on demand for everyone. He writes, We must be prepared to defend the idea that, in principle, everyone should have access to sex-changing medical care, regardless of age, gender identity, social environment, or psychiatric history. This is not about medical need, but about a subjective desire to flee from the reality of ones embodied self.

As the recent release of the WPATH files demonstrates, so-called gender-affirming care is not rigorous and evidence-based, but being made up on the fly and administered to children who cannot give informed consent to it. The medical case for transition is crumbling (and other nations are pulling back from it), but for those who are in too deep to back out, Chus articulation of a more radical alternative may be appealing. It is, after all, what the activists already believe.

Thus, they may now be drawn to Chus assertion that We will never be able to defend the rights of transgender kids until we understand them purely on their own terms: as full members of society who would like to change their sex.It does not matter where this desire comes from. Chus own so-called transition was sparked by the fetishes he developed from a porn addiction, so he has a personal reason to deny that there is any significance to why someone wants to transition.

Instead of justifying transition as medically necessary based on the supposed psychological distress of not transitioning, Chu insists upon a right to bodily modification for whatever reason and without regard for the results. He acknowledges that the biology of sex is real, but he just regards it as an enemy to be subdued and made subject to our whims. He writes that any comprehensive movement for trans rights must be able to make political demands at the level of biology itself.

Chu admits that this approach does not promise happiness. Nor should it. It is good and right for advocates to fight back against the liberal fixation on the health risks of sex-changing care or the looming possibility of detransition. But it is also true that where there is freedom, there will always be regret. He continues, insisting, If we are to recognize the rights of trans kids, we will also have to accept that, like us, they have a right to the hazards of their own free will.

That proclamation might sound reasonable to Chu and his editors, but it is madness to anyone who actually cares about children and their well-being. Good parenting requires a great deal of limiting childrens free will and the hazards it exposes them to.

Ominously, Chu is not the first to prominently insist that children should be transitioned without regard for the risks. Lydia Polgreen made a similar argument in The New York Times last December, arguing that children should be transitioned regardless of whether they might regret it later. This argument absolves gender ideologues of all responsibility, even toward children who are incapable of understanding the consequences of their decisions. According to Chu and Polgreens doctrine, there is no need to prove that transition helps mental health or to worry about the side effects, complications, and regrets it may produce. All there is to do is cheer while enabling troubled children to make war against their natural, healthy bodies.

In this, Chu is simply extending to children an argument he has made for years about adults. In a 2018 Times piece shortly before he got genital surgery, he wrote, This is what I want, but there is no guarantee it will make me happier. In fact, I dont expect it to. That shouldnt disqualify me from getting it. Chu claimed that the surgerys only prerequisite should be a simple demonstration of want and that no amount of pain, anticipated or continuing, justifies its withholding.

As Ryan T. Anderson observed at the time, Chu regards doctors as mere technicians, paid to deliver the services the customer demands, regardless of whether the procedures help the patient. This idea of medicine is unconcerned with health, happiness, or any idea of human well-being it doesnt even care if transition increases the risk of suicide. All that matters, in this view, is that someone wants to transition. This argument is toxic even if applied only to adults, but Chu is now explicitly arguing that it should extend to children, whose health, well-being, and lives he is willing to sacrifice to justify his choices and ideology.

He concludes that trans kids do not owe us an explanation. They are busy taking charge of their own creation. They may not change the world, but they will certainly changethemselves. This proclamation reveals the real heart of gender ideology, which is not medicine, but revolt. Gender ideology is rooted in a hatred for the givenness of our existence. It longs for the god-like but unattainable power of self-creation. Thus, it readily abdicates all responsibility toward children, for it sees guidance, instruction, and discipline as oppression.

This is an inhuman ideology. The sudden prominence of Chus radicalism may signal the imminent collapse of the gender ideology house of cards, especially regarding children. But this is not certain. Some people will embrace even the most radical and repulsive ideas if the alternative is admitting they were wrong. That Chus ideas are being published in influential places shows that elite liberals are at least considering them.

It is difficult to reason with a revolt against reality itself. What can be done is to demonstrate that it is immiserating. A way of life that rejects happiness, health, and well-being in pursuit of an impossible rebellion against existence itself is self-refuting. We might even call it nihilistic.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Trans Zealots Revolt Against Reality Rather Than Admit They're Wrong - The Federalist

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. But if it involves Donald Trump, the news media for various reasons insist its definitely a penis.

Were in the middle of another round of gravely serious media analysis about what Trump meant when he said something in public, this time that there would be a bloodbath if he didnt win the election. Anyone who saw the remarks at a campaign rally Saturday in Ohio knew Trump was talking about the economic fallout of a second Biden term. But Washington journalists and commentators, equal parts lazy and dishonest, have spent the days since attributing every other hysterical meaning they can dream up.

The unintentionally funniest was NBC Newss presidential historian Michael Beschloss, who with great originality drew a direct link between Trump and the Holocaust.

When he uses the word bloodbath, yes, it was in the context of an automobile industry speech, he said Monday on MSNBCs Morning. Joe. But he knew exactly what he was saying.

Beschloss went on to say that what Trump meant was the opposite of what he actually said: A major-party candidate is saying, You elect me, theres going to be dictatorship, bloodbath, violence, retribution against my political enemies that equals what we saw in Germany and Italy and other places.

So, by Trump saying, Now, if I dont get elected, its gonna be a bloodbath, what he really meant was that if he does get elected, there will be violence. Fascinating. (By fascinating, I do mean Beschloss is a deceitful dope.)

This is a plot corporate media have been pushing for nearly a decade: that everything Trump says comes with innuendo and its always, always, always nefarious.

The New York Times in December 2015 ran an article headlined, 95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Donald Trumps Tongue. Reporters Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman, with no discernible sense of embarrassment, declared they had analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over one week and found several powerful patterns, demonstrating how Mr. Trump has built one of the most surprising political movements in decades and, historians say, echoing the appeals of some demagogues of the past century.

To fully grasp the severity and magnitude of the matter at hand, the Times noted that among Trumps most frequently used words is guy.'

In 2019, CNNs bespectacled geek Daniel Dale similarly bragged that he had fact-checked every word Trump has uttered since his inauguration. (Ladies, calm down. Theres enough of Daniel to go around.) His stunning conclusion: I can tell you that if this president relays an anecdote in which he has someone referring to him as sir,' he wrote, then some major component of the anecdote is very likely to be wrong.

Democracy, saved.

Yes, were still doing this. Just on Sunday, Politico ran an exhausting article about people who find Trump funny. Naturally, it wasnt to acknowledge the former president as an engaging speaker, but, again, to describe him as an existential threat. Trump is not Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini, wrote Michael Kruse. But they share a rhetorical style, experts say.

Well, if theres one thing we know about experts, its that if they say it, who are we to say otherwise? Now close your eyes and do your part to flatten the curve. Its just 15 days. This will only hurt for a second

The media have been pseudo-analyzing Trump to impart dark meaning to his every word forever. But sometimes, a bloodbath is, sadly, just a tired metaphor.

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Trump's 'Bloodbath' Is The Fake Media's New 'Guy' And 'Sir' - The Federalist

Last week, Judge Scott McAfee issued his opinion on the potential disqualification of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her subordinate-slash-romantic partner Nathan Wade from Fulton Countys prosecution of Donald Trump and some 18 other Republicans relating to the 2020 election. McAfee found that there was no actual conflict of interest but did find that there was an appearance of impropriety, and held that Wade, but not Willis, had to resign from the prosecution.

The opinion was wrong on the facts and the law. But Trump and his co-defendants have strong grounds for appeal, and Fani Willis isnt out of the woods yet. Moreover, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr need to do their job, get over whatever animus they have toward Trump, and indict Willis and Wade on perjury charges.

There were two core factual issues Judge McAfee was charged with resolving. The first was whether Willis and Wades romantic relationship began before November 2021, when Willis hired Wade as a special prosecutor. The second was whether Willis had a conflict of interest resulting from Wade paying for vacations for the two of them while he was contracting with Willis office.

The first question should have been straightforwardly resolved against Willis and Wade. Willis former best friend and landlord, Robin Yeartie, reluctantly testified that the relationship did in fact begin back in 2019.

Judge McAfee dismissed Yearties testimony as lack[ing] context and detail. Perhaps Judge McAfee didnt bother to reread the transcript of the proceedings that happened in his own courtroom. Yeartie didnt merely testify to the fact that Willis and Wades relationship began in 2019; she testified that she had multiple conversations with Willis about the relationship prior to 2022, and that she observed Willis and Wade hugging and kissing prior to 2022. Its hard to understand what further detail McAfee expected Yeartie to provide.

Judge McAfee also completely brushed aside cell phone data showing that Wade often spent the night at Willis residence prior to November 2021, and that they exchanged thousands of phone calls and more than 10,000 text messages prior to when they claim their relationship began. Its clear he had no desire to affirmatively find that Willis perjured herself.

Judge McAfees factual findings, though bizarre and untethered to the evidence, are unlikely to be disturbed on appeal, as appellate courts must give a lot of deference to the factfinder. But there were also several suspect legal holdings in Judge McAfees opinion that are ripe for appeal.

Judge McAfee said that the evidence did not establish the District Attorneys receipt of a material financial benefit as a result of her decision to hire and engage in a romantic relationship with Wade and that the Defendants [did] not present[] sufficient evidence indicating that the expenses were not roughly divided evenly.

As Professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out, McAfee misapplied the law on this question. Defendants presented straightforward evidence that Willis benefited from hiring Wade: Wades credit card receipts showing that he paid for their joint vacations. Given the existence of these receipts, the burden should have been on Willis and Wade to prove that these expenses were reimbursed.

They could not do this, of course. Willis and Wade testified that the expenses were reimbursed in cash and provided no ATM receipts or bank deposit receipts to corroborate their clearly improvised story.

McAfee held that the burden was on the defense to prove that the expenses were not reimbursed. Thats improper as a matter of law, and as Dershowitz explained, its also grounds for reversal on appeal.

Further, Judge McAfee found that neither side was able to conclusively establish by a preponderance of the evidence when the [Willis/Wade] relationship evolved into a romantic one. This sentence is legally incoherent. If a prosecutor or the defense can conclusively prove a fact, that is equivalent to saying that they have proved that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. The point of a preponderance of the evidence standard is that the fact does not have to be conclusively proved by the evidence; rather, there just needs to be more evidence supporting one side than the other.

If Judge McAfee had applied the preponderance of the evidence standard properly, there is no way he could have found it for Willis. On the side of finding that the relationship began in 2019, we have the disinterested testimony of Robin Yeartie, the text messages of Terrence Bradley, and the cell phone tower evidence showing that Wade was regularly in the vicinity of Willis residence in the early morning hours. On the other side of the ledger, he has the self-serving testimony of Willis and Wade denying the existence of the relationship. This shouldnt have been a close question, but by subtly shifting the burden of proof and requiring the defendants to conclusively prove the existence of the relationship, McAfee avoided disqualifying Willis.

McAfee also held that an appearance of impropriety can warrant disqualification of individual prosecutors but not the whole prosecutors office, and further held that removing Wade would cure the appearance of impropriety.

This last legal holding is unlikely to survive appellate scrutiny. The appearance of impropriety implicates both Willis and Wade. As Jonathan Turley put it, its as though the police discovered two thieves in a bank vault and arrested only one. There are reasonable questions about whether Willis testified truthfully and about whether she financially gained from the prosecution. Those questions dont just go away because Wade withdrew.

Even though Judge McAfee bent over backward to avoid disqualifying Willis and her office, the opinion created a ton of problems for Willis going forward. Judge McAfee described how an odor of mendacity permeates the case and acknowledged that reasonable questions about whether [Willis and Wade] testified untruthfully further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety.

These factual findings provide fertile ground for a successful appeal by the defendants. Ashleigh Merchant, Steve Sadow, and the rest of the lawyers working for the defense are certainly going to ask Judge McAfee for a certificate of immediate appeal, so they can go straight to the court of appeals without waiting for the trial to conclude. That said, no one can force Judge McAfee to certify the issue for appeal, or the court of appeals to subsequently take the case. One hopes that both will exercise their discretion to remedy this injustice.

Moreover, Judge McAfee also found that Willis speech to a local Atlanta church, where she accused defendant Mike Roman and his lawyer Ashleigh Merchant of playing the race card, was, in McAfees words, legally improper. Hes right about that.

Georgia Rule of Professional Conduct 3.8(g) mandates that prosecutors refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused. McAfee declined to dismiss the indictment because of these comments, but Willis is still going to have issues with the Georgia Bar over what is a very straightforward violation of ethics rules.

Remember: Fani Willis is trying to put Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and others in jail for allegedly attempting to deceive Georgia courts three years ago. She cant credibly continue to prosecute this case when there are reasonable questions about whether she attempted to deceive a Georgia court three weeks ago.

The reasonable questions about DA Willis truthfulness are already the subject of complaints to the Georgia Bar about Willis and Wades conduct. They should also serve as the predicate for an investigation by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr into potential perjury charges against Willis and Wade. Carr, and his boss Brian Kemp, need to get off the sidelines. A partisan Democrat prosecutor has just lied under oath so that she can continue prosecuting Republicans for objecting to election results.

That cannot stand.

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It's Time For Georgia's AG To Indict Fani Willis For Perjury - The Federalist