Adam Lynch

The New York Times accused Trump of wielding some ugly free speech to bury the First Amendment rights of others.

“Trump and his aides tell … a false [story]. They claim that political violence comes mostly from the left. … In fact, multiple data sources show that neither side has a monopoly on political violence, but it is more likely to come from the right,” the Times reported Friday.

“Between 2015 and 2024, 54 percent of ideologically connected killings were committed by people on the far right, according to the Anti-Defamation League. By comparison, 8 percent came from the political left.”

“We are horrified by the killing of [MAGA influencer Charlie] Kirk, and we mourn his death,” the Times reports. However, as stated by former vice president Mike Pence: “there was one person responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”

That doesn’t appear to stop Trump from using Kirk’s death to crackdown on “hateful” free speech with which he disagrees, while his speech remains free and thoroughly hateful, the Times wrote.

“After the attack at [former Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s home, which included a brutal assault of her husband, Paul, Mr. Trump himself and other prominent Republicans mocked the victim and spread absurd conspiracies that the episode was staged. After the shooting of two Democratic legislators and their spouses in Minnesota, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, bizarrely blamed 'Marxists,' while Laura Loomer, an influential Trump confidante, falsely blamed 'goons' working for Gov. Tim Walz, the Minnesota Democrat.”

These are terrible things to say, but they are not crimes, said the Times, “and they are certainly not grounds for a government crackdown against conservative groups." The editorial urged Trump and his aides “to remember the free-speech criticisms that they and other conservatives have often made of progressives over the past decade.”

“In his Inaugural Address in January, Mr. Trump promised to ‘bring back free speech to America.’ [Vice President JD] Vance, while speaking in Munich in February, excoriated European countries for restricting speech and promised, ‘Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,’” the Times recalled.

But instead of living up to these principles, the Trump administration and its allies are attempting to restrict speech in ways that are more extreme than anything Democrats have done.

If Trump refuses to stand up for “the basic American right to disagree without fear of oppression, others still can,” said the Times, and it urged the Supreme Court to jettison Trump’s upcoming executive order targeting left-leaning organizations as “clearly unconstitutional.”

“The ability to disagree with other people on raw, difficult issues, without fear of repression, is the essence of American freedom.”

Read the New York Times report at this link.

Former GOP Rep. Joe Walsh said the creators of ‘South Park’ and Fed Chair Jerome Powell both showed America how to “punch a bully” this week.

While some critics blame ‘South Park’ for being a part of the culture that created a president like Trump, the first episode of the latest ‘South Park’ season put a target on the president’s back. Creators depicted a pointedly un-endowed Trump suing South Park residents for trying to remove the church from the town’s public school. As part of the settlement, Trump demands the town produce a public service announcement in support of the White House.

That PSA ends up depicting a realistic deepfake of the nude president staggering through a scorching desert.

Walsh, speaking on the Saturday edition of MSNBC’s ‘Velshi’, called Trump a bully and said the only way to respond to a bully is to punch back, South Park style.

“He lies every time he opens his mouth, and we've normalized his lying. We've normalized what a bully he is,” said Walsh. “ … That South Park episode making fun of Trump? Remember a lot of Trump's base are not Republicans. They're just men. They're guys who typically don't belong to a party. They don't vote all the time. They watch ‘South Park,’ and they just watched an episode this week where Trump looked really silly and stupid—a big fat man with a teeny tiny p————. I think that kind of thing really dings Trump.”

A day after the episode aired, the White House released a press statement calling ‘South Park’ “A fourth-rate show.”

Walsh also cheered the behavior of Powell, who insisted on correcting Trump’s false information before reporters this week regarding renovations costs.

“In real time, Jerome Powell showed every damn American how you deal with a bully. You don't back down. You don't turn the other way. You punch a bully in the face and you confront the bully. And when the bully lies, you call the bully out on his lie,” said Walsh. “Every member of the media should look at what Jerome Powell did, … because bullies are cowards.