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 →

Prefatory note: I’m currently gutted as I write this after the senseless assassination of Charlie Kirk. Apologies for moving back to the well of college football two weeks in a row but I need to take my mind off this shit. Hopefully this helps you too.—CLS

It’s time to see what the Vols can really do this season.

Beating Syracuse in week one at Atlanta was a great start. Week two’s record scoring win over East Tennessee State at Neyland Stadium was a nice preview of what the Volunteers can do when all cylinders are mostly clicking.

Now comes the big test as Georgia makes a season-early trip to Knoxville. 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 →

In yet another shadow docket ruling without rationale, the Supreme Court stayed the injunction from the LA District Court against ICE rounding up random Hispanics who are now presumed to be illegal immigrants until they can prove otherwise to the satisfaction of masked agents.

Concurring, Justice Brett Kavanaugh explains his joining the 6-3 majority, noting that ethnicity alone is not enough. But add in other benign factors that typically go hand in hand with ethnicity and its close enough for reasonable suspicion.

Here, those circumstances include: that there is an extremely high number and percentage of illegal immigrants in the Los Angeles area; that those individuals tend to gather in certain locations to seek daily work; that those individuals often work in certain kinds of jobs, such as day labor, landscaping, agriculture, and construction, that do not require paperwork and are therefore especially attractive to illegal immigrants; and that many of those illegally in the Los Angeles area come from Mexico or Central America and do not speak much English. Cf. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 884–885 (listing “[a]ny number of factors” that contribute to reasonable suspicion of illegal presence). To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a “relevant factor” when considered along with other salient factors.

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One of the many inexplicably bizarre acts of the Trump administration was the firing of Immigration Judges, given that his push to deport requires enough immigration judges to issue orders of removal. They’re administrative judges, working under the Department of Punishment Justice, which has little tolerance for judges who do their job and refuse to rubber stamp removals with either the speed or reliability demanded of them. And yet, they still need the warm bodies to do as they’re told and wield the stamp. What to do?

Why not deploy JAGs in their place?

Military lawyers,  JAGs for Judge Advocate General, are some of the finest lawyers around, both in terms of competence and integrity. Their mission is to administer the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a parallel legal system to address the conduct of members of the military. What they neither do nor know is immigration law. It isn’t their gig and they never signed up to be immigration lawyers or judges. But hey. they exist, they’re on the payroll and Trump needs someone to follow orders and sign off on removal orders. So why not? Continue reading →