Explaining Citizens United v. FEC
Explaining Citizens United v. FEC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0FqGaRDkw
Tag: free speech
Trump vowed to ‘bring free speech back.’ Judges in 75 cases ruled that he has stifled it
“Reuters identified 75 federal-judge rulings finding Trump’s government infringed on First-Amendment rights including freedoms of speech, religion, and the press.
The unprecedented pushback on constitutional grounds has included repeated findings that the administration chilled or squelched the speech of citizens and groups opposing the Republican’s agenda.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-vowed-to-bring-free-speech-back-judges-in-75-cases-ruled-that-he-has-stifled-it-135031173.html
Why Texas Students Are Being Tackled and Tasered, and Trump’s Latest Target for Retribution
Texas put a lot of police in schools to combat mass shootings. As a result, police are enforcing routine student discipline, sometimes violently.
Trump is using the power of the government to attack the person who successfully sued Trump for sexually abusing her.
Scores of people were fired for making critical comments of Charlike Kirk or celebrating his murder. Conservatives said they wanted radical free-speech, and yet they hardly speak out about this like they did about rude protests on college campuses during speeches. The disingenuousness and hypocrisy is amazing.
One woman was fired for making a private Facebook post that said, “If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends”. I’m not a fan of that kind of attitude. But, it isn’t a reason to fire someone from their job. She was fired because people complained and demanded she be let go…her employer gave in to an anti-free speech mob. I thought only the woke left did this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzTT6deD9z0
China Is Sealing Itself Off—Here’s How Xi Is Doing It
China is cracking down on foreign chips and communication tools that could allow its citizens free access to the outside world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_cPgPusjvA
‘What we saw was extraordinary’: David French breaks down the significance of Vance’s Hungary trip
The Vice President of the United States is actively campaigning for the authoritarian-leaning president of Hungary. Rather than spreading democracy, the US is actively trying to spread authoritarianism.
Orban has given himself the ability to rule by decree, restricted the media, manipulated the electoral and district system, taken over and abused with police NGOs and universities, redistributed wealth to loyalists rather than based on sound policy, and supported Russia invading its neighbor. He has bent a former democracy toward authoritarianism. The European Parliament has declared that Hungary is no longer a full democracy in a 433 to 123 vote.
The death of the West will be the end of Western values like free speech, free association, free press, and free and fair elections. Vice President Vance supports Orban’s authoritarian actions in Hungary just like he supports Trump’s, often illegal, authoritarian actions at home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfuaa5sT30g
Inside the Government’s Crackdown on TV
The government ignored late night shows for a long time as far as the equal time rules. The rule could be applied to comedy and talk shows, but the Trump administration is unlikely to apply it fairly, rather than based on who bends their speech to Trump’s will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXvJkknt1do
Rand Paul Turns Against Section 230, Citing YouTube Video Accusing Him of Taking Money From Maduro
“Paul is understandably upset about a video about him that has been posted to YouTube.
The video “is a calculated lie, falsely accusing me of taking money from Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro,” wrote Paul in the Post. “It is, of course, a ludicrous accusation, but paid trolls are daily spreading this lie across the internet. This untruth is essentially an accusation of treason, which then leads the internet mob to call for my death.”
In short, it is “a provably false defamatory video,” according to Paul.
Defamation is a crime. And Paul is not without options for addressing it.
For one, he can use his own speech—as he is doing—to counter the false information. Paul has his own channels of communication, huge audiences on social media, and relatively easy access to mainstream media outlets, like the Post. He is not without options for correcting the record here.
He could also threaten to sue the creators(s) of the video. Sometimes, the threat of legal action is enough to get results—and in fact, that’s what happened here.
“The individual who posted the video finally took down the video under threat of legal penalty,” per Paul’s Post op-ed.
If the mere threat hadn’t worked, Paul could have actually sued the creator(s) of the video. If he successfully proved the video was defamatory, a court would order the creator to remove it.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/21/rand-paul-turns-against-section-230-citing-youtube-video-accusing-him-of-taking-money-from-maduro/
The FCC Wants To Police How Many Conservatives Appear on The View
“Carr threatens network daytime and late-night shows with reprisal if they don’t offer candidates equal time. But Fox News’ late-night show Gutfeld!, which draws more viewers than any of the networks, can have on any guests it wants, since the content of cable TV generally falls outside the FCC’s purview. The same goes for social media platforms like TikTok, where 1 in 5 Americans regularly gets their news. The idea that ABC, NBC, and CBS control the flow of information is quaint.
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“Streaming represented 44.8% of TV viewership in May 2025,” Nielsen found in June 2025, “while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) combined to represent 44.2% of TV.” In other words, 80 percent of all that we watch on TV is not even subject to the same level of FCC regulation, including the equal-time rule.
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Carr “sees correcting anti-Trump bias as an important part of his job,” Jacob Sullum wrote in the February/March issue of Reason, in a piece about the FCC’s history of policing speech. “In fact, Carr seems eager to embrace what he once derided as ‘a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the “public interest.”‘”
The equal-time rule is an antiquated regulation that becomes more obsolete with each passing year. It’s no longer the case that broadcast networks are Americans’ only—or even main—source of information. It shouldn’t be up to the FCC to decide if talk shows are the right amount of partisan. If viewers don’t want to watch, it’s easier than ever to just watch something else.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/23/the-fcc-wants-to-police-how-many-conservatives-appear-on-the-view/
Is 2026 Turning Into a Blue Wave? (w/ Bill Kristol) | The Bulwark Podcast
American Olympians were asked what they thought of Trump’s policies. They said they didn’t agree with a lot of what’s going on but they are still here to compete for their friends and family. Trump and some Republicans attacked them viciously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBn_sDc9dA
‘Unconstitutional conspiracy’: Judge slams Trump administration over targeted deportations
“A federal judge handling a lawsuit over the deportation of pro-Palestinian activists excoriated top administration officials, including President Donald Trump, for trampling on the First Amendment and for what the judge described as a fearful approach to freedom.
“There was no policy here,” said U.S. District Judge William Young, an 85-year-old Reagan appointee who has been on the federal bench in Boston for 40 years. “What happened here is an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people.”
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“I find it breathtaking that I have been compelled on the evidence to find the conduct of such high-level officers of our government — cabinet secretaries — conspired to infringe the First Amendment rights of people with such rights here in the United States,” Young said. “These cabinet secretaries have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”
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Young used extraordinarily stark language during the hearing, describing Trump as an “authoritarian” while insisting that he was choosing the term carefully, rather than simply using a “pejorative.”
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The judge found the president and his aides targeted the members of the group for their First Amendment-protected views and speech, guided by an anonymously run private website targeting Palestinian students in the United States.
“I’ve asked myself why — how did this happen? How could our own government, the highest officials in our government, seek to infringe the rights of people lawfully here in the United States? And I’ve come to believe that there’s a concept of freedom here that I don’t understand,” the judge continued. “The record in this case convinces me that these high officials, and I include the president of the United States, have a fearful view of freedom.”
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“These professionals were taken off anti-terrorist investigations. They were taken off human trafficking investigations all to look up … what dirt they could find on this group that some private agency, at the very highest levels of the DHS decided — that’s the best use of those people,” Young said. “If ever you want chapter and verse about how the government can be weaponized against a disfavored group, that’s the record of it.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/15/unconstitutional-conspiracy-judge-slams-trump-administration-over-targeted-deportations-00733070