Column By John Young
I know your first question:
“Will the speech police be masked?”
Why, of course.
This’ll scare the bejeebers out of the libs: yet another federal police force on the streets – each member in riot gear and wearing the military-issue likeness of JD Vance.
When they press you as to what you’ve been thinking — and if you spoke it — you will submit. The Supreme Court will nod.
You say there’s no such speech police force. Yes, but: This president cannot do what he wants — crush dissent across a continent — without an all-knowing, all-hearing army of interlopers. What say ye, Xi?
Taking the lead: Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr is targeting a TV comedian.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he threatened, knuckles cracking.
Do these public officials hear themselves?
Ted Cruz, of all people, blasted Carr’s act of intimidation.
“For government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air” is blatant government censorship. Republicans always say they oppose that.
“First they came for the late-night comedians,” reads a common meme, playing on Martin Niemoller’s famous ode about the Red Scare.
But the order in that claim is off here. First, they came for the teachers and librarians. Then they came for the public health officials. Then they came for the college administrators and professors. . .
In ruling Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” unconstitutional in its quest to ideologically sanitize classrooms, federal Judge Britt C. Grant wrote:
“Restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive” is “the Greatest First Amendment sin” as it “penalizes certain viewpoints.”
There’s a straw man around every corner in the MAGA culture wars, and teachers who “indoctrinate our children” are among them.
And now: Seizing on a scary moment of political violence, during which a wise leader would turn down the heat, our president has built a fantasy sound stage where mysterious underwriters sponsor left-wing political violence.
George Soros funding bloodshed? He and a Munchkin strike force. The head goon in the White House gives liberals too much credit.
If you want to know about well-funded political violence, read about the Jan. 6 riots, the pardoning of rioters (two separate acts of violence), and the $3 million raised to organize and advertise the “Stop the Steal” rally.
. . . And they came for the labor statisticians. And they came for the inspectors general. And they came for the climate scientists. . .
You say left-wingers are wreaking all the havoc? Kindly, then, disregard the results of a January 2024 Justice Department study. The Pam Bondi Justice Department just removed it from its website. First paragraph:
“The number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”
So let’s yank funding from colleges and universities, from public broadcasting on contrived claims. Sue, sue, sue everyone in sight.
The New York Times reported the administration is wielding “its full toolbox to bring media to heel.”
The Times should know. A judge just threw out an unconscionably frivolous — “too long and burdensome” — as well as dangerously overreaching $15 billion libel claim against the paper by the White House lawsuit factory.
Then there’s the suit against the Wall Street Journal. The suit asserts that a dirty birthday greeting from the future MAGA king to Jeffrey Epstein – an obscene image recently projected onto the Buckingham Palace tower – doesn’t exist.
The president behind these anti-speech actions — the suits, the threats, the firings — when returning to his all-powerful perch in 2024, made a vow in his inaugural address “to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.”
Good idea, Sir. Now order Jimmy Kimmel back on the air and fire your man at the FCC. That would be a good start at bringing back free speech to America, if that — and not political retribution — is what you really want.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
