BREAKING: MAGA declares civil war against MAGA after MAGA assassinates MAGA.
Tech guy with a JD and an GTAW welder trying to read all the scifi-fantasy in existence. All of it. Used to do molecular biology. Living in Minnesota by way of Boston, Moscow, London and Munich
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BREAKING: MAGA declares civil war against MAGA after MAGA assassinates MAGA.
Charlie Kirk repeatedly called for the release of the Epstein files. As his good friend, I think Donald Trump should honor his wishes. Don’t you?
"The man who shot Charlie Kirk was a conservative white man from Utah. But the fact that we assumed it was a transgender Mexican demonstrates how out of control Leftist rhetoric has gotten." Tomorrow in the Washington Post
Doubt it. Scroll back and you'll find a lot of weird Christian posts, posts supporting abortion, etc.
I have not seen one conservative fired for calling for violence against the left before the suspect was even identified
As long as we're firing people for social media posts, remember when Mike Lee thought the assassination of Melissa Hortman and attempted assassination of John Hoffman was hilarious?
man they really didn't give a shit about that guy. as soon as it was clear they couldn't use his death to launch a purge they started to treat it like a nothingburger
Merely "our algorithm promoted a bunch of content because it was detected as popular with users and we don't give a fuck whether any of it was actually true" would be protected speech.
In that case, you might be able to make a case out that the curated set of content was itself the work of Twitter and not the end users. This has been tried before, though. It wasn't successful. It would have to be really egregious and clearly intentional.
It would still be close to impossible to win. It might be doable if a social media company intentionally promoted a curated set of content targeting a specific individual. Like, if Musk woke up mad one morning and had engineering push out a lot of known lies about Taylor Swift.
Oh, and the main guy pushing to change those aspects of First Amendment protections for the media is named Clarence Thomas. He's been pushing to make it easier to sue the press for ages. He'd like to make it easier for conservatives to sue the press. There's no good answer here.
Those attempts fail in the USA. Until it's changed, 47 USC §230 grants close to total immunity for social media for content posted by its users. Even if we repealed it, it would still be an uphill battle to win in court based on the current state of the First Amendment.
A correction doesn't undo the lie either. Too many people will enjoy the lie more than the truth. They'll hold to it.
I glanced at X yesterday and randos were targeting at least 50 random trans women who bore a vague resemblance to those blurry photos. While social media itself would be immune from suit, some of those spreading the rumors might have crossed the line into legal defamation.
"Our father, we beseech thee to make the assassin Black. Or perhaps a Muslim. And a socialist. Or at least trans. Someone we, your children, can really hate they way we wish to hate. Should, in your wisdom, have sent us a white conservative dude, that's just a one-off thing. Unless he took an SSRI?"
Update: Civil War cancelled due to shooter being demographically uncooperative
He prayed for WHAT?
Tell me that photo doesn't scream "I just sat on a thumbtack".
Unfortunately, I think they did. That company doesn't make a 30-06. It seems likely that the original story was all about the headstamp on the casing, but there's a ton of fake stories with pictures grabbed off the internet. We'll have to wait for actual photos.
Anyone who wants to get blocked by Ken White should send this to him ASAP.
Maybe the NYT, the Globe, Jared Polis, Gavin Newsom, or (weirdly) the New York Yankees should publish some of the ideas that this guy they're lionizing pushed over the years. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Ezra Klein says this is Practicing Politics the Right Way.
I normally think of it as "sat on a thumbtack" face, but in this case he's standing up.
Last thought - I also don't like calls for regulating speech because it's a cop-out. People pretend it's like a magic spell to make the bad ideas go away. Sorry, life isn't that easy. You're going to have to put in some work to change minds.
The least-terrible version I can see is our current free speech approach, which is that the state can Make No Law at all. The Supreme Court has carved out a tiny number of content-neutral exceptions, and even those are abused at times, because people. We're still people.
If they state has the power to regulate that, we'll also end up with speech regulation based on a vibes referendum. What you can and can't say, meaning what the state will or will not target you for saying, will be dependent on the social media discourse of the day.
In the end, we live in a country with wildly divergent cultures, religions, and customs. There is no way we'll get everyone to agree on a mutual standard for speech. Furthermore, we're all in a meme world now. A stupid, superficial idea of what is or is not acceptable to say or think can go viral.
How would that turn out? What happens when the media/state decides that being antitrans resonates with the population? What happens if an administration thinks discussing abortion online in too much detail amounts to trafficking across state lines?
The people within the media and the state don't care about any of that. They care that he was "popular", and are happy to look the other way about what he stood for. These are the same people who would police and enforce speech regulation.
If you want a current example of how these laws would be pointless, look at the media rehabilitation of Charlie Kirk. He was polite, I'll give him that, but his actual words were corrosive and hateful and appealed largely to the young pseudo-intellectuals looking to justify their racism.
More importantly, who's going to enforce that law? Who sets the standards? It's going to be the government. For every hypothetical situation where a benevolent state used it in a way you like, there's an opposition government who would abuse it.
Focusing on the speech itself is mistaking a symptom for the cause. Forbidden talking about an idea doesn't make it go away. The people are still there. It's not like a perfectly innocent kid encounters a racist sign and suddenly becomes racist.
You should see their parades. No swastikas, but you otherwise know what it is. I stumbled across a protest in central Munich over a Muslim community center supposedly being built in the ancient town hall, and holy %*$#. I'll see if I can find the pictures. It was basically calling for explusion.
Over in Germany, we have AfD. They can't use certain words, so they do this sort of thing, and it's getting worse.
I have no idea if this guy is an actual racist or merely a huge idiot, but this is what happens when grant politicians the power to regulate speech and thought. They sometimes use it in good faith, but politicians are people. They will also abuse it.
Then, of course, we have weird shit like this. They literally prosecuted a guy for a hate crime for filming his dog doing a hitler salute. www.bbc.com/news/uk-scot...
How are the hate speech laws being used in practice? They're banning groups for pro-Palestine marches and protests. They aren't banning the violence itself, they're banning words, phrases, and slogans as hate speech.
I agree 100% with your take on the problem, I just don't see a good solution. Europe has all sorts of hate speech regulation. Look at how that's worked out. They STILL have MAGA-like movements like the BNP that morphed Reform and is getting uglier by the day.
When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
The assassination of Charlie Kirk makes we worry we can no longer have peaceful discussions of whether gays should be stoned to death or civil and collegial debates about whether black people are inherently inferior. Our culture will suffer. New York Times tomorrow
Charlie Kirk spent his life making people like me unsafe. His followers sent me death threats for years and threatened my employer if they didn’t terminate me. His work was NEVER about free speech. It was about hate and emboldening violent people. The dishonesty of the past 24hrs is disgusting.
That’s exactly what happened.
I'm worried that with this abrupt change in priorities, the FBI may have overlooked some Ryder trucks full of agents waiting to spring out in the parking lot of various Home Depots. They're pounding on the doors right now yelling "Hello? Anyone? Let us out!"
I saw Lindt-brand Dubai chocolate today, so I'm guessing Hershey's can't be too far behind. Maybe a special edition Reese's Cup too.
It's about harm reduction, and sometimes driving them underground makes them feel self-justified and it makes them more dangerous. It also helps ensure the REALLY stupid ones who are up to something genuinely illegal can be open, stupid, and probably get caught before anyone gets hurt.
Any time my European colleagues are horrified about some hateful thing that was said in the USA, I always respond the same way. We can't legislate away the racism, the sexism, or the antisemitism itself, so I'd rather let such people be open about it so we know who they are.
Comment from someone living in Munich for most of the past decade - the German hate speech laws ain't working as well as you'd think. AfD is unmistakably a Nazi party, they just have to use slightly different vocabulary. Most polls show them about tied for the lead now. Germany has a big problem.
Note the one-way logic: They are allowed to mock and joke when violence happens to Democrats, and their incitements to violence are defended as “free speech.” But now everyone must be reverential and offer praise, and be threatened with a loss of constitutional rights. Why?
Damn.
All the violent rhetoric & dog whistling is just political theater to them that they think deserves no accountability for the public’s mental health. They don’t care that people take them at their word instead of understanding that they are, at various levels, playing characters for profits
I'm increasingly thinking the media didn't even take the time to care about his beliefs at all. They just went to "hey, we're all the media, you're not allowed to do this sort of thing to the media. There's revenue at stake! Think of the cashflow projections!"
I'm waiting on some red states to pass Red Flag Laws that allow citizens to inform on one another, except it won't be about domestic violence. They'll be able to get the cops to confiscate guns from anyone suspected of being trans. Or maybe antifa? Depends on what happens in the next couple weeks.
President Trump has ordered American flags at half-staff after the deadly shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk—something he did not do when Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman was assassinated months ago. trib.al/VwZm4tn
It's different because of vastly differing amounts of revenue at stake.
The state didn't have to criminalize incitement to violence, but it did, and as long as that law and its application is within the limits allowed by the court, you can punish someone UNDER THAT LAW. You aren't getting punished under the Constitution itself.
1A says "Congress shall make no law". The default is you can say what you want and the state can't do anything about it UNLESS it falls into one of the exceptions that are arguably part of the social contract you've mentioned.
Let's get back to the earlier post. Incitement to violence is unprotected by the 1st Amendment, but no court has stated that incitement to violence itself violates anyone's Constitutional rights, 9th or otherwise. You don't really even have a right to free speech, per the text.
The 9th, 10th and 14th amendments arguably gave individual states the power to enforce social distancing during COVID in the interest of the public welfare. That doesn't mean individuals failing to comply violated those amendments.
In REALLY general principles, sure. I'd agree. However, the Constitution applies to government conduct. It's literally impossible for me as a private citizen to violate your 1st Amendment rights. The 9th Amendment has no jurisdiction over my actions at all.
As long as the talking heads feel safe then extreme and violent rhetoric is just free speech. When they themselves get uneasy it's time to cool things down.
It's like a variant of the GOP demanding that nobody politicize the school shooting of the day. They say "now is not the time to discuss this". In the current situation, they're all saying "hey, now IS the time to discuss this!"
That's actually the best explanation I've seen for this weird reaction. It's almost opportunist. They don't really care that someone was assassinated for his (abhorrent) political speech. They're flattering him as a way of saying "we're all in this together" and calling for deescalation of rhetoric.
the media rush to canonize charlie kirk is legitimately maybe one of the weirdest things of this nature i have ever seen in my life
On its face, that seems reasonable. On a practical level, it would turn defamation trials into circuses. You could delay forever, knowing that you can't be touched until you have an actual jury process that establishes the basic elements of defamation occurred.
In this case, he's looking for something like "In a case involving Free Speech, a default finding of liability is unconstitutional. The trier of fact must still identify an intentional false statement of fact occurred".
You don't want to load up too much into a Supreme Court decision. You need to zero in on a key concept or rule that you want the court to create or overturn.
When you publish a website that posts the names and photos of scholars who have written or said things you disagree with and encourage people to surveil and harass them, you are not, in fact, a “free speech” organization.
I'm going to try to add HomeKit to OpenHab so I can interface with the Ecobee thermostat because the vendor shut down the API portal.
A secondary issue about smart homes is how all the vendors want to sell you a ton of other stuff you don't necessarily want, on a subscription basis, with all data stored in the Cloud so they can try to monetize that as well. They don't actually care about the end user any longer.
If he asked, sure, but that's not in the petition. He's going for a full reversal based on the theory of "you can't issue a default judgment in a free speech case unless you fully prove all elements of a current 1A exception".
The only option for the court was to just assume the facts as alleged and proceed from there. I guess from a procedural standpoint the trial court could have been more clear about their reasoning, but it doesn't look like something SCOTUS will take up.
If Jones was correct that there was no prima facie case for defamation, then I guess I'd see his point. A default judgment shouldn't punish speech, but that's not what happened. They defaulted him because he was refusing to cooperate with a solid defamation case.
In Jones' theory, there was never even an allegation of real defamation and therefore a default sanction of liability for mere discovery violations is unconstitutional, especially when speech is involved. Except the original complaint did allege sufficient facts to make out a defamation case.
If the original complaint was that bad, I would have expected to the case to get dismissed right away. I've read the complaint. If accepted as true (which is how this would work after getting defaulted) it sure looks like plenty enough to be for a finding of defamation.
The overall argument then starts here, and this is key to how Jones is trying to reengineer history. Jones is trying to say that the original complaint was wholly defective, and even if he did obstruct discovery, he's still not liable *because* the original complaint was flawed.
And question 3, which looks like "can a court issue a default judgment in a case where a defendant is sued over speech" which seems a lot like the first question raised. I still don't think there's immunity from default judgment when speech is as issue.
Second question. If default judgment is issued, is the Supreme Court obligated to review the record to see if the facts were proven anyway. Okay, sure. I think that's settled law - the court is supposed to look at the record when 1A speech is involved.
First question posed below. He's basically asking the court to create a First Amendment based exception to default judgments. Really? As long as it's about speech, you can be as obstructive as you want and the court can't do anything about it?
He's reinventing what went down in the original complaint. www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...
Whoa, you're right. I assumed it was about the size of the judgment. He's going after the default judgment itself.
Oh really? One sec, gotta read something stupid…
My young daughter was ill and jet lagged in Vegas and we put on some Friends reruns in the hotel. I’d have to explain the vague pharma ads with all the rapid fire disclaimers, or how cash-for-gold works. There are even still psychic hotlines.
Our kids were raised in Germany through 2nd grade and we’ve only had a few streaming services here in the USA. It’s fun to watch them watch commercial TV when we travel. Sometimes it’s honestly educational.
The same underlying logic should apply, but SCOTUS is unlikely to want to get into the weeds about what would constitute just compensation under a state law. That would be a heavily fact-dependent question. The magnitude of punitive damages is more easily analyzed as a simpler question of law.
Don’t forget - BMW and State Farm were about punitive damages. The bulk of what Alex Jones owes was compensatory. Presumably to avoid running into the Due Process objections raised in BMW.
They’d never be able to reverse liability, but they could send it back to the judge to reconsider the award itself under BMW. I’d still faint if this gets cert, though. Even if there was an epidemic of excessive damages cases out there, this is not the case SCOTUS would choose.
Yup, that’s the same one I saw. I found some forums where people basically took the same chips used in detectors and attached them to a Pi.
Loads of cash for super scammy cash-for-gold, and my favorite was the apocalypse seed buckets. Everything you need to grow food to feed the family yourself if you’re not picked up in the rapture.
That’s why Limbaugh was there. He we entertainment for stupid people who wanted to feel smart about politics. The ads that would run during his show were something else. Anyone who bought any of those products should probably have been placed under conservatorship.
Speaking as someone who regularly listened to Limbaugh during commutes because I could only get a single AM station and I don’t handle silence well, I say to you all - you gotta listen to the ads.
Even if a station operator wanted to be 24/7 white supremacy, the most the FD would have done would be to prompt them to allow a 15 minute rebuttal they’d likely have run at 3AM on a Sunday.
BWM and State Farm arguably support him, but I doubt the court will bother. The outcome is still the same - he’s bankrupt even as a fraction of that award.
Oh, and interpreting the 9th Amendment as creating rights and obligations between citizens would be a new one for me. Is there another source out there making that claim? I can’t even think of a single case where 9A did anything whatsoever.
I’d also add that it’s the “imminent” requirement that is usually barrier for a valid incitement claim. “Incitement” means something is likely to kick off RIGHT NOW. Almost nothing is true incitement under US law.
Let me know if you find it, because I was looking for the same thing and gave up.
Which work? Calling for gay people to be stoned to death? Blaming airplane crashes on black pilots? Anti-vax bullshit? Election denialism? Pushing Great Replacement Theory? Kirk’s murder is awful and ominous for this country. But no, we don’t need to honor him or “continue his work.”
Trump evidently not familiar with the rhetoric of, well, Trump.
He’s honestly the leading contender for the GOP nomination for 2028.
COMMENTARY: Charlie Kirk was shot in Utah today. And so were schoolchildren in Colorado. Because of the sick delusion that violence solves problems. None of us is safe.
Bullshit. Trump and Trumpists and a disturbingly large slice of the modern Right are absolutely fine dehumanizing in far worse rhetoric an alarmingly long list of groups and individuals ideals. It’s their favorite thing to do. It gets them off. /1