Two days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, Rep. Roger Williams issued an ultimatum to the Trump administration’s critics in Minnesota and beyond.
“People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil,” the Texas Republican told NewsNation. “And until we do that, I guess we’re going to have it this way. And the people that are staying in their homes or doing the right thing need to be protected.”
That’s a pretty clear encapsulation of MAGA-world’s views on dissent these days. You aren’t supposed to protest. You aren’t supposed to “yell at” or “challenge” the militarized federal agents occupying your city. And anyone who wants to be “protected” should probably just stay “in their homes.” Williams isn’t some fringe backbencher; he’s a seven-term congressman who chairs the House Small Business Committee. He is announcing de facto government policy.
For nearly a year, President Donald Trump and his allies have been engaged in an escalating assault on the First Amendment. The administration has systematically targeted or threatened many of Trump’s most prominent critics: massive law firms, Jimmy Kimmel, even, at one point, Elon Musk. But it’s worth keeping in mind that some of the earliest victims of the president’s second-term war on speech were far less powerful.
Get fucked Roger.
If money is speech then bricks can be petitions.
“Well, you see, the first amendment prevents congress from passing laws, but under the unitary executive principle, the president doesn’t need authority via congress to suppress free speech” — Stephen Miller, probably.
Or else, what?
And I’m sure they will argue that since it says ‘shall’ and not ‘must’ then it’s just a suggestion.
In government parlance, “will”, “shall”, and “must” are all mandatory actions. In other words, Congress is explicitly forbidden from making a law that limits freedom of speech.
However, it doesn’t seem this administration puts much stock in following the law.
Or else the law is challenged and the supreme court strikes it down. Except we all know how that will go
We could exercise our 2nd amendment right and start killing Nazis again.
Sugar in a gas tank is very effective at neutralizing a vehicle. They can’t get there if they can’t drive, because they are fat and out of shape.
It’s actually not that effective. A car can drive for dozens if not hundreds of miles with sugar in the tank. Most of the sugar would get picked up by the fuel filter, and the small amount that gets through would probably not be enough to brick an engine. It’d drive like shit after a while, and they’d have to swap out the fuel filter, but the car would still drive.
Yeah. Better to use Portland cement.
Might need to organize a little to make that anywhere near effective, instead of simply lighting any one of the powder kegs these fucknuts’re endlessly sandbagging everywhere they can… 🤌🏼🤷🏼♂️
Eh, he didn’t make a law. Just a loud complaint. Totally free speech. I agree that he should get fucked though.
I really wish some court would rule that “political statements from office carry outsized consequences for the electorate by way of latitude within their authority, and so carry a similar weight as law thereby violating the 1st”. I really want this legal equivalence because this kind of grandstanding has got to stop. But with the SCOTUS we have right now, I may as well be petitioning from the surface of Mars. One day, perhaps.