Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
‘Social media like Twitter/X isn’t free speech. It’s ultra-processed speech. It’s speech like how Doritos is food. It is toxic and designed as such.’
‘Conspiracy believers are not just asking questions. They question the narrative but not the counter narrative. Their questioning isn’t the problem, but their certainty.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44uC12g9ZVk
“This is a textbook example of “jawboning”—when the government tries to accomplish some censorship by threatening improper government action. It is exactly the sort of thing that conservatives rightly hated about the previous administration: President Joe Biden, his senior advisers, and various federal employees browbeat social media companies into taking down content that the feds deemed wrong, hateful, or dangerous. They didn’t just say that they disagreed with major platform moderation policies: They raised the possibility of punitive legislation against Facebook, Google, and Twitter unless they complied.
Leavitt is free to complain about Moran’s comment, as Vance did. But her insinuation that she would be speaking with Moran’s manager reads like a threat, and thus like an attempt at censorship. As Jenin Younes, a civil liberties attorney, noted in a reply to Leavitt, the Trump administration issued an executive order to prevent the kind of jawboning that took place under the previous White House. To turn around and do the same thing is obviously hypocritical.
“Journalists and everyone else can say what they want about members of the Administration (and anything else) without having to fear reprisal from the government,” wrote Younes. “You should delete this tweet and apologize for your attempted act of tyranny and also failure to understand basic constitutional concepts.”
As for Moran’s post: It probably was unwise for a straight news reporter to share his spicy speculations about Miller’s motivations. Mainstream media organizations have different rules for news reporters and opinion commentators, and it’s possible that Moran violated his company’s social media policy. He has a First Amendment right vis a vis the U.S. government, not with respect to ABC.”
https://reason.com/2025/06/08/terry-moran-insulted-stephen-miller-thats-none-of-the-governments-business/
“After President Donald Trump began penalizing major law firms that had offended him in one way or another last February, nine of them chose to surrender rather than fight. They agreed to humiliating concessions that included pro bono work, totaling nearly $1 billion, for causes favored by the president. But several firms stood their ground, arguing that Trump’s executive orders targeting them violated the First Amendment and undermined the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/28/a-federal-judge-lists-8-ways-that-trump-violated-the-constitution-by-punishing-a-disfavored-law-firm/
Harvard Is Trying to Resist Trump. It Might Not Be Working.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVL-77zmWA
German Censorship Highlights Europe’s Eroding Free Speech Protections
https://reason.com/2025/05/12/german-censorship-highlights-europes-eroding-free-speech-protections/
“The arrest of Mohsen Mahdawi was a test of just how far President Donald Trump’s power over immigrants could go. Mahdawi, a ten-year legal U.S. resident and a student at Columbia University, was at his interview to become a U.S. citizen earlier this month. But because he wasn’t a citizen yet, the Trump administration argued that it could deport Mahdawi for his protest activity, and had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pick him up at the immigration center.
On Wednesday, however, a federal judge ordered ICE to free Mahdawi, who was born in a refugee camp in the Palestinian territories, while his case proceeded. “The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said at the hearing, according to ABC News. “Mr. Mahdawi, I will order you released.””
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“”Noncitizen residents like Mr. Mahdawi enjoy First Amendment rights in this country to the same extent as United States Citizens,” he emphasized. “If the Government detained Mr. Mahdawi as punishment for his speech, that purpose is not legitimate, regardless of any alleged First Amendment violation. Immigration detention cannot be motivated by a punitive purpose. Nor can it be motivated by the desire to deter others from speaking.””
https://reason.com/2025/04/30/court-frees-palestinian-student-arrested-by-ice-at-his-u-s-citizenship-hearing/
“The Declaration of Independence referred to “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The First Amendment strictly specifies that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Both are rooted in the understanding that rights don’t come from government but are inherent in individuals. The government must respect our rights whether or not it agrees with how we exercise them so long as we, in turn, respect others’ equal rights.
In February, Eugene Volokh of the Hoover Institution and the UCLA School of Law wrote that “when it comes to aliens and immigration law, the First Amendment questions aren’t settled” in a discussion about the constitutionality of deporting noncitizens for their speech. That may still be true, but cases like American Association of University Professors v. Rubio show at least some federal judges viewing First Amendment protections as universally applicable, which squares with American history.
Campus radicals have the same free speech rights as we all possess, even if they’re just visiting.”
https://reason.com/2025/05/02/immigrants-and-radicals-have-the-same-free-speech-rights-as-everyone-else/
“In defending its actions, the Trump administration is citing a 2005 amendment to a 73-year-old law giving the secretary of State the power to deport anyone whose continued presence in the United States would have potentially “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Whatever adverse consequences Ozturk may have on American foreign policy, the consequences of her being targeted for deportation based on nothing more than her words are far worse. Now, every immigrant and visa holder, no matter their status, must be especially vigilant when discussing American politics, international affairs — conceivably any subject — in a way that upsets the government.
This is obviously bad for immigrants, many of whom fled societies where expressing an unpopular viewpoint can land one in prison, or worse. But it’s also bad for American citizens, living in a country where the government feels ever more emboldened to clamp down on free expression.
While the arrest and deportation of legal immigrants for expressing opinions has clear First Amendment implications, the exclusion of foreigners on the basis of their statements and beliefs does not. Rather than deporting people who come to this country legally only to espouse extremist views and endorse violence, the U.S. government should do a better job preventing their entry in the first place.”
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“if a disproportionate number of the people prevented from coming to Europe and the United States as a result of ideologically exclusive immigration policies are Muslim, then that signifies the oppressive orthodoxies of the Islamic world, not Western intolerance. These are societies in which the predominant attitudes regarding Jews, the rights of women, the equality of sexual minorities, liberal democracy and secularism are decades if not centuries behind those of the West.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/03/deportations-visas-exclusion-first-amendment-00322119
Is Google bending to the will of the Chinese Communist Party in censoring videos in the U.S.!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owAeZONXXsg
“Ten-year legal U.S. resident and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi showed up at an immigration center in Vermont on Monday for what he thought was his naturalization appointment. Instead, ICE agents swooped in and “refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him,” according to a statement by Vermont lawmakers.”
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“Mahdawi co-founded the Palestinian student union at Columbia, and Mahdawi was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association for two years, according to the court filings. While Khalil is soft-spoken in public, Mahdawi comes off as the hothead of the duo. He has been frank about his struggles between feelings of vengeance and forgiveness.
“Radicalism is not Justice, and will not make Justice,” he wrote on Instagram in November 2024. “Justice is balanced, Justice is compassionate, Justice is empathetic, and Justice is transformative.”
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“Mahdawi hasn’t been accused of any crime, according to a habeas corpus petition filed by his lawyers. Vermont District Court Judge William Sessions issued a temporary restraining order preventing ICE from removing Mahdawi from Vermont.”
https://reason.com/2025/04/15/ice-arrests-palestinian-immigrant-at-his-citizenship-test/