Chris Cillizza: Donald Trump's Attorney General Doesn't Understand How Free Speech Works

"Pam Bondi just made a big mistake when it comes to understanding free speech and the First Amendment. In a recent podcast interview, she claimed that “hate speech” isn’t protected under the Constitution. That’s just not true.

In this video, I break down:

What Bondi said — and why it’s wrong

The actual history of free speech and hate speech in America

Key Supreme Court cases that prove hate speech is protected

The real (and narrow) exceptions to the First Amendment, like incitement and threats

The First Amendment doesn’t exist to protect speech we all agree with. It exists to protect the speech we hate — and that’s a point Pam Bondi, as Attorney General, seems to have missed."

Source:Chris Cillizza making the case for free speech.

From Chris Cillizza

Here is Attorney General Pam Bondi's quote on free speech: 

"The Trump administration will be targeting hate speech... 

This will be part of a 3-part series on The New Democrat this week about free speech and how we define it. My post and then Rik Schneider will have something tomorrow and then Derik on Thursday. 

Anyone familiar with this blog knows that we're what liberal columnist Kirsten Powers call "free speech nuts". She doesn't call us that, but how that's how she describes her own support for free speech in America. And we feel the same way about free speech as well. We even have a section in this blog called Free Speech (of all things) where we write about... well, free speech. (The cat is finally out on the bag on that 1) 

Whether you like the humor here or not, it's very quick, pointed and even at times dark. We don't swear as much as you see from a lot of other blogs (even though we believe swearing is covered by the First Amendment) but the freedom to offend (to paraphrase George Carlin) is also covered by the First Amendment. And we take advantage of that right whenever we feel it's justified. 

When you write about politics and politicians for a living.... unless you want to be 1 yourself, (I guess no one is hiring Kamikaze pilots right now, just politicians) if you don't make fun of politicians, you don't have a sense of humor, because they're so corrupt as a profession and in many cases their voters are even worst. 

And if you care about how our tax dollars are spent, you'll go crazy by not releasing some of that frustration on the people who give us the government that we all pay for and you'll go crazy. So when you see my argument here for free speech, hopefully it doesn't sound foreign to you, at least based on what you've seen from this blog before. But hopefully it at least looks like English. 

Now, on to what I really want to say here. I have some recent personal experience here from last Thursday, where I posted something that actress/comedian Nancy Lee Grahn (for you General Hospital fans) said about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. She said on Threads: 

"The Presidential Medal of Honor is now equivalent to the Walmart Shopper of the Week." In response to President Trump announcing that Charlie Kirk will be rewarded with the President Medal of Honor. I reposted that on Threads and Facebook as well. 

Someone responded to my Facebook post with this in referring to the fact that Charlie Kirk will be rewarded with the PMH: 

Kimberly Eident Chytil: "She needs to be fired".

And I responded with: "For what?"

And then Kimberly Eident Chytil responded with: "For comments about Charlie Kirk".

And I responded with: "So you are saying she (meaning Nancy L. Grahn) should be fired for expressing an opinion about Charlie Kirk. 1 thing that Mr. Kirk claimed to be in favor of, was free speech". 

You can see that whole discussion (loose definition of discussion) on my Facebook page. 

I'm just getting to Chris Cillizza's point here that free speech is not just for people who agree with you or me, as well as ourselves. It protects everybody, including people and speech that we think are personally disgusting and hateful. 

And for the Attorney General of the United States (Pam Bomdi) to say that people who speak out against someone she supported (Charlie Kirk) is not covered by free speech... then we have an Attorney General who doesn't even understand the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Which is very dangerous, considering all the power that she has. 

1 thing for a MAGA member on social media to not know what free speech is... we can tolerate that in our liberal democracy. But when someone with the power to prosecute people and put them in prison... have them arrested, then it becomes dangerous.  

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