Even Emil Bove, who is as deep down the Trumpian hole as it gets, liked Erik Siebert, apparently now former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Bondi and Blanche were good with him. Senators Kaine and Warner were good with him. The district judges were good with him. Even Trump was good with him when he nominated Siebert and the Senate confirmed him. Until he did the one thing Trump couldn’t tolerate.

Erik S. Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had recently told senior Justice Department officials that investigators found insufficient evidence to bring charges against Ms. James and had also raised concerns about a potential case against Mr. Comey, according to officials familiar with the situation.

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President Trump declared that he will issue yet another Executive Order, this time designating Antifa as a “terrorist organization.” There are a few problems with doing so, starting with the fact that antifa isn’t an organization at all, but rather an ideology seized upon by left wing radicals who cloaked themselves in the name when they engaged in violence.

Antifa is a label for a political subculture or protest style. The phenomenon does not have a leader, an initiation process, membership rolls, a headquarters, a bank account or a centralized structure.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, an American University professor who studies domestic extremism, said antifa was an idea that could mobilize people. She compared it to concepts or ideologies like “white supremacy” and “Islamist extremism,” as distinguished from specific groups like the Aryan Brotherhood or Al Qaeda.

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Disney owns the American Broadcasting Company, which aired a late night show hosted by comedian Jimmy Kimmel. Donald Trump did not like one of Kimmel’s jokes about Charlie Kirk’s killer’s political leanings. Brendan Carr, commissioner of the FCC, didn’t like it either, and told some fellow with a podcast named Benny that he was going to use his authority to punish ABC.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr: “There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters. It’s long past the time that…Comcast and Disney say ‘We’re not gonna run Kimmel anymore…because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibly of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC.'” pic.twitter.com/L2GK7w1p9J

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) September 17, 2025

ABC, fresh off its $15 million payoff to Trump to avoid retaliation for George Stephanopoulos’ questionable statement that Trump was found civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll, has already proven that it will cave at a moment’s notice upon threat of government abuse of power against it. And so it did again. Continue reading →

After being roundly criticized for her stunningly wrong (legally and politically, judging from Republican reactions) claim that “hate speech” isn’t protected under the First Amendment, Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to weasel her way out by arguing that “hate speech” that “crosses the line into threats of violence” are crimes under 18 USC § 875(e). That, too, was wrong, as explained by Aaron Terr and Angel Eduardo of FIRE.

Early this morning, Bondi published a post on X, attempting to clarify her comments after a wave of negative response. Unfortunately, she only introduced more confusion:

Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over…. Continue reading →

There is no exception to the First Amendment for hate speech. There wasn’t when the speech was racist slurs. There isn’t now. The difference this time is that it’s the attorney general of the United States openly asserting that the government will use its power to target and prosecute people for saying mean things.

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In a New York Times op-ed, New York Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City. It’s a tepid, generic endorsement, lacking in praise for anything he stands for and ignoring his positions as a Democratic Socialist to defund police, abolish prisons and globalize the Intifada. But it is an endorsement.

I am endorsing Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

In the past few months, I’ve had frank conversations with him. We’ve had our disagreements. But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family. I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support. Continue reading →

George Floyd was needlessly killed by a cop. He wasn’t the first black man to be murdered. He won’t be the last. But George Floyd was no saint, hero or martyr. He was just a troubled man with a troubled history who ended up dead on video at the moment in time when he caused a nation to explode. Before he died, very few knew or cared about George Floyd at all. Afterward, he was the center of the social justice universe.

Charlie Kirk was nothing like George Floyd. His assassination was nothing like George Floyd’s murder. But like George Floyd, his death is being seized upon as a justification for retribution against the “radical left,” as Trump called it, as an existential battle between the right and left. Continue reading →

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, just released its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings. The message is not good. In fact, it’s bad. But among the bad news is the terrible news that “a record 1 in 3 students now holds some level of acceptance – even if only ‘rarely’ — for resorting to violence to stop a campus speech.” For years, FIRE, and I, have tried to argue that violence is never an acceptable response to speech. It hasn’t gone well.

“More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “This finding cuts across partisan lines. It is not a liberal or conservative problem — it’s an American problem. Students see speech that they oppose as threatening, and their overblown response contributes to a volatile political climate.”

The day after FIRE released its ranking, Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. Continue reading →

For many, today will be consumed with the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. For me, I’ve not yet forgotten the day when two planes flew into the Twin Towers, but I cannot ignore the circumstances of the moment and see a connection between the radical jihadists who struck America and the Americans striking ourselves in acts of hatred and political violence.

The shooter remains at large, despite our FBI director twice saying he was in custody before knowing whether it was correct, and being compelled to twice back down from his impetuous claims. We don’t know for sure who committed the assassination or why. We can certainly make assumptions, but we don’t actually know. Not that the president let that slow his roll. Continue reading →

I remember well the telephone call Dr. SJ received from her mother, informing her that mom finally knew what her ailments were. Mom, whose maiden name should have been Munchausen, had, she stated with absolute confidence, irritable bowel syndrome and restless legs syndrome. How did she arrive at these diagnoses? Not because any physician said so. Oh no. She knew it because she saw it on a television commercial.

When Dr. SJ suggested that it wasn’t her bowels that were irritable, Mom was miffed. When Dr. SJ urged her to get off her butt and her legs wouldn’t be so restless, Mom was outraged. So what if few, if anyone, knew that these syndromes existed. The TV said there were cures and she was going to the doctors to demand the drugs she saw on the TV commercials. And eventually, her doctor agreed to prescribe the drugs for her just to stop her complaining. That was the affect of television advertising of direct-to-consumer drugs, mostly directed toward older Americans who were more inclined to be susceptible to its influence. Continue reading →