“There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” —Tim Walz
Tim Walz confirmed last night that he is an enemy of American’s free speech rights. Walz had said this before last night (The Liar Who Wants the Government To Censor You). Vance got Walz to admit before tens of millions of Americans that he still believes that the free speech right does not include protection for utterances and writings the government deems “disinformation” or “hate speech.” But it does. Indeed, that’s the point of the free speech right: to say and write things that contradict government pronouncements and actions. Walz told Vance that the Supreme Court test for suppressing speech is “yelling fire in a crowded theater.” Walz is wrong. That’s not the test for government suppression of speech.
Walz is making a reference to Schenck v United States, a 1919 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the conviction of two socialists who had distributed anti-draft leaflets during World War I. The case arose when Charles Schenck, a member of the Socialist Party of Philadelphia, distributed leaflets (in Yiddish) urging men to resist the draft, arguing that it violated the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition of involuntary servitude. The government charged Schenck with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which made it a crime to interfere with military recruitment or operations during wartime.
Schenck argued that his conviction violated his First Amendment right to free speech. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., upheld Schenck’s conviction. Holmes argued that in times of war, certain expressions that pose a “clear and present danger” to the nation’s security could be restricted. This gave rise to the famous analogy of falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater as an example of speech that could incite panic and harm. Holmes, known for other authoritarian decisions (e.g., upholding forced sterilization of persons deemed unfit to reproduce by the state by expanding the power of government to force citizens to take vaccines), said, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
But the two socialists in the Schenck case weren’t yelling fire in a crowded theater. They were yelling fire because there was literally a fire burning across Europe—a conflagration called WWI. They were telling men to resist fighting in a war thousands of miles overseas that had nothing to do with national security (if you disagree, the First Amendment protects your right to do so). To repurpose the analogy, what these socialists were actually doing was yelling “fire” in a burning theater.
JD Vance and Tim Walz in the Vice-Presidential Debate
Over time, the standard for limiting speech evolved, with the “imminent lawless action” test established in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) replacing the “clear and present danger” test. Walz, a dyed in the wool progressive of the most extreme sort, is referencing a ghost to justify the instinct that inspires his decades-long fascination with the totalitarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
This is the spirit of today’s Democratic Party (Harris-Walz and the Corporate State). Progressives want to restrict—and have restricted—the First Amendment to prevent opponents of lockdowns, mandatory vaccination, forced mask wearing, and social distancing from criticizing government action (Walz lies about this last night). They also want the police American’s free speech right around matters go gender, race, and religion. As I wrote two days ago in my essay The Fate of Free Speech is In Our Hands, lovers of liberty have to vote against this ticket. The nation is in real trouble of Harris-Walz get their hands fully on Executive Branch power.
House Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas received a letter from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) US Immigration and Customs Enforcement division (ICE) detailing the number of noncitizens on ICE’s docket either convicted or with pending charges. According to the letter: “As of July 1, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket. Of those, 435,719 are convicted criminals, and 226,847 have pending criminal charges.” Breaking these down by selected serious crimes, either convicted or with pending charges, with the number released into the general population cited, we find the following very troubling reality:
Of the seven million illegal immigrants being processed by ICE, 9.5 percent of them have significant criminal histories. The seven million number does not include got-aways. There are millions more immigrants who illegally entered the country thanks to the twice-impeached Alejandro Mayorkas’ open borders policy. Lack of information means that the criminal histories of the seven million is likely drastically unstated—and we know even less about the criminal histories of the millions of got-aways. Shockingly, between 96-98 percent of those who have been convicted or who have charges pending in the crime types cited above have been released into society, the vast majority of these convicted criminals.
The Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policy rightly raises serious concerns about public safety under Democrats (a concern reinforced by the staggering amount of crime in the cities Democrats control) and the integrity of the immigration system. Their actions undermine the rule of law, allowing individuals who pose a significant threat to communities to remain in the country rather than being deported or detained. The release of serious offenders exacerbates the problems surrounding border security and immigration enforcement, revealing that the current administration is prioritizing politics over the safety and well-being of American citizens. The character of these politics warrants serious examination. What are Democrats trying to accomplish?
“The university’s purpose is not political action or social justice. It is to create an environment in which learning thrives.”—Jonathan Levin, New Stanford President
Dr. Allan Josephson, a leading child psychiatrist, recently won a significant legal victory after being abruptly dismissed from his role at the University of Louisville for comments he made about gender dysphoria. Josephson, who had headed the university’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for over two decades, expressed caution about gender treatments for children during a 2017 panel at the Heritage Foundation. His remarks ultimately led to his termination in 2019.
Dr. Allan Josephson, University of Louisville
Following his dismissal, Josephson filed a federal lawsuit, claiming his First Amendment rights had been violated. The university defended its decision, arguing that his public comments, given his leadership role at the medical school, blurred the line between personal views and professional responsibilities. One presumes this was his professional opinion given his role as a leading child psychiatrist. Attorneys for the university recognized this, too, bizarrely arguing that his personal comments related to his professional role at the medical school and thus overcame his First Amendment claim.
Josephson’s concerns regarding gender treatments for children are indeed rooted in his professional expertise. In his speech to the Heritage Foundation, he argued that gender dysphoria is primarily a socio-cultural and psychological phenomenon, and questioned whether medical interventions were the appropriate solution. The real issue lies deeper, he argued, urging society to focus on the developmental needs of children, which he feels are being neglected.
Courts ruled in Josephson’s favor, affirming his right to free speech. Reflecting on the case an op-ed for the Daily Signal, Josephson noted the court’s recognition that his speech at the Heritage Foundation panel was protected under the First Amendment. The ruling confirmed that the university’s actions constituted retaliation, violating his constitutional rights.
“Just weeks after I spoke at The Heritage Foundation, I was demoted from my role as division chief,” Josephson writes in his op-ed. “After that, I was ostracized, stripped of my teaching duties, and subjected to other forms of hostility. And about a year later, the university refused to renew my contract—in effect, firing me. That was after 14 successful years rebuilding and leading the division, three years with perfect reviews, no disruptions in the division’s work, and no problems recruiting new faculty. I wasn’t fired for poor management, teaching, or unprofessional conduct. The university ended my career because I elected not to surf the current wave of social activism, because I expressed views—supported by scientific literature and clinical experience—that the university found politically incorrect, and because, in my case, activism trumped academic thought, the search for the truth, and the well-being of patients.”
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The Josephson case had a good outcome. Will the same be true for the cases of Amy Wax, the University of Pennsylvania law professor officially sanctioned for violating the institution’s behavioral standards, following a decision made by a university committee? Wax, known for questioning the academic ability of black students, hosting white nationalist Jared Taylor in her classroom, and advocating for reduced Asian immigration, will face a one-year suspension at half pay. Additionally, she will lose her named chair, summer pay, and be required to clarify in public appearances that she is not representing the university. Wax will retain her tenure and will not be fired.
Dr. Amy Wax, Pennsylvania State University
The sanctions follow years of controversy surrounding Wax’s statements and conduct, which the university determined created an unequal educational environment for her students. Penn’s statement emphasized that Wax had engaged in “flagrantly unprofessional conduct” both inside and outside the classroom, breaching her responsibilities as a teacher to provide equal learning opportunities for all students. Despite her appeal, the US Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility confirmed that the proper procedures were followed, allowing the university’s sanctions to move forward.
The decision to suspend Wax marks a rare disciplinary action against a tenured professor, which the opponents of free speech say underscores the gravity of her behavior—that is, her words. Provost John L. Jackson Jr. emphasized that while academic freedom allows for a broad range of opinions, professors must conduct themselves in a manner that is fair and professional, avoiding behavior that undermines the impartial treatment of students. Some have criticized the university for not going farther, with student advocates calling for the revocation of Wax’s tenure.
Why do some desire to revoke Wax’s tenure? In 2017, Wax coauthored an op-ed in which she said, “All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy.” In 2019, she drew ire from the woke crowd for a comment during a conference about immigration. In 2021, during a podcast with Brown University economist Glenn Loury, she said immigration policies should be geared toward “cultural compatibility.” For these rather innocuous remarks she has been branded a racist, an application of a term that telegraphs a fundamentally misunderstanding of what racism is. (See my essay Smearing Amy Wax and The Fallacy of Cultural Racism. I have an essay pending that will revisit the question.)
Others, including the author of this essay, view the punishment as an infringement on academic freedom. “Simply calling a faculty member unprofessional, absent serious misconduct like sexual misconduct and research fraud, it’s not enough” to warrant this punishment, said Zach Greenberg, a First Amendment attorney at Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He said academic freedom is meant to protect controversial speech and viewpoints even when they may offend others. “If there is evidence that her grading is based on race or other improper factors,” Greenberg said there there may be something actionable. However, “Penn has not shown that.” Penn’s decision sets a dangerous precedent for faculty members who express controversial opinions. Of course, given the current censorious environment on college campuses and elsewhere, it was expected that the woke scolds would come after Wax.
Update (September 30): The Non-Disparagement Clause
I was sent a September 25 article from The Washington Free Beacon, “How Penn Tried To Buy Amy Wax’s Silence.” Check it out: “The school offered to water down the sanctions against her if she agreed to stop discussing—and criticizing—her treatment at the hands of the university. She refused.”
“The quid pro quo was outlined in a draft settlement agreement presented to Wax in August and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. That agreement—the product of months of negotiations between Penn and its embattled gadfly—would have let Wax keep her base salary during the course of her suspension and thrown in a one-time payment of $50,000, partially offsetting the loss in summer pay.
“In return, Wax would agree ‘not to disparage the University’ over the two-year-long process to which it subjected her. She would also waive her right to sue Penn or disclose the evidence she had presented in internal hearings to clear her name, including testimony from former students who called into question the charges against her.”
There’s a lot more. And it’s really good. Aaron Sibarium is on fire. Check it out.
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University of Wisconsin has fired Joe Gow, the former chancellor who made pornography with his wife, Carmen Wilson. Gow had wanted to stay on as a professor after stepping down as chancellor, but the university said no. Zach Greenberg of FIRE, called the regents’ decision “a major blow to academic freedom and free speech rights.” “FIRE has said time and time again: public universities cannot sacrifice the First Amendment to protect their reputations,” Greenberg said. “We’re disappointed UW caved to donors and politicians by throwing a tenured professor under the bus.”
Joe Gow, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
The university of Louisville goes after Allan Josephson because he criticizes medical experiments on children. Penn State goes after Amy Wax because not all cultures are equal. Now the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse boots out Joe Gow for having sex on camera and writing books about it. Isn’t pornography legal? Has La Crosse converted to a Christian organization that polices the morals of its employees?
The decision of the Board of Regents was unanimous. I know you know what unanimous means, but just to wrap our minds around this, let us reflect on the fact that not a single regent—of seventeen—voted to defend Gow’s first amendment right. Why? Apparently it’s a case of placating the Republicans in the legislature. AP News writes, “Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman has been working since he took the job in 2022 to navigate thorny relationships with Republican legislators who view the system as a liberal incubator.”
Well, clearly the system is not a liberal incubator or it wouldn’t violate the free speech rights of its faculty. Rothman wanted to show Republicans that his administration and the Board of Regents were prepared to trash the First Amendment because they think Republicans don’t like free speech. If we move from the premise that words have meaning, I think what Republicans object to is to liberalism but progressivism and all the DEI hustling, as they should—albeit not at the expense of free speech. So Gow is a martyr in the struggle for a free and open society.
To be sure, although Republicans are far more liberal on these matters than progressives, Republicans could be better on this issue. But progressives are a disaster for free speech, as we can see from the foregoing (and in the next section of this essay). Gow’s charge of hypocrisy directed at the Board of Regents is on the nose; this is a big piece of the essence of progressivism, namely the double standard that permits all manner of obscene materials under labels the woke promote and the destruction of those who move under other labels. Gow is to be punished because he and his wife made pornography that emphasized loving and transactional intercourse while leaving out bondage and humiliation and other paraphilic behaviors.
The chair of the UW-La Crosse communications department, Linda Dickmeyer, opposed Gow’s return to the classroom but because Gow has not taught for twenty years. When Gow was in the communication studies program at Alfred University in New York state in the 1990s, he earned the school’s Excellence in Teaching Award three times. I am sure he would have no problem transitioning back to the classroom. They don’t want him in the classroom because he and his wife made pornographic videos, which is protected by the First Amendment.
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In words echoing the Trilateral Commission’s 1975 report The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission, John Kerry, former Secretary of State and Presidential Candidate recently told an audience at the World Economic Forum (WEF), “I think the dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing and growing. It’s part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It’s really hard to govern today.”
John Kerry, former Secretary of State and Presidential Candidate
“The referees we used to have to determine what’s a fact and what isn’t a fact, they’ve been eviscerated to a certain degree. People go and then people self-select where they go for their news or for their information, and then you just get into a vicious cycle. It’s really, really hard, much harder to build consensus today,” Kerry continues. “There’s a lot of discussion now about how you curb those entities in order to guarantee that you’re going to have some accountability on facts, etcetera.”
This is hardly subtle. Kerry is telling his elite audience that he wants to curb your right to receive information that interferes with the Party’s agenda. He complains that “if people go to only one source, and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda, and they’re putting out this information, our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer it out of existence.” That’s right. The First Amendment exists precisely for that reason.
"Our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence. What we need is to win…the right to govern by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change."
But Kerry has a plan to fix that problem: “So what you need, what we need, is to win the ground, win the right to govern by, hopefully, winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” This is the way progressives think. It’s the way they govern. It’s soft fascism. The referees he misses is the commissar. He wants the commissar to determine what’s a fact and what not a fact. He wants mind control.
Kerry’s not the only one. Here is Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz arguing that there is no First Amendment right to hate speech or disinformation:
Kamala's "folksy" VP pick Tim Walz says you have no right to free speech if you say things the government deems "misinformation."
— Young Americans for Liberty (@YALiberty) August 7, 2024
And here’s Hillary Clinton calling for the prosecution of Americans exercising their free speech right:
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While writing this essay, I was reminded of Mike Adams, the former University of North Carolina Wilmington professor who killed himself after being pushed into early retirement for offensive tweets. Adams was accused of making remarks that were perceived as dismissive of racial justice movements, particularly the Black Lives Matter movement. He described women’s studies as a nonessential major, which some saw as degrading toward women. He referred to North Carolina as a “slave state” in criticizing the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. Adams was also known for his opposition to the LGBTQ+ movement, with posts that were viewed as “transphobic.”
Mike Adams, criminology professor who committed suicide after being pushed into early retirement for offensive tweets
These comments sparked widespread outrage, particularly among faculty and students, who saw his remarks as inconsistent with the values of inclusion and respect that universities are meant to foster. Amid growing public pressure, Adams and the university reached a settlement in which he agreed to retire early. Tragically, before his retirement became official, Adams was found dead in his home in July 2020 with a gunshot wound to his head. His death was ruled as a suicide. He was only 55 years old. Adams left no note, but the combination of public outrage and professional consequences may have affected his mental state leading up to his death. We may never know why he killed himself.
For most public employees, the prevailing legal standard, established by the Supreme Court in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), holds that the First Amendment does not shield public employees from disciplinary actions related to speech made in the course of performing their official duties. In other words, if an employee’s speech is part of their job responsibilities, it’s not protected under the First Amendment, and the employer may regulate or discipline such speech without violating the employee’s constitutional rights. However, the issue becomes more complex in the context of academic institutions, where the principle of academic freedom has long been viewed as essential to the pursuit of knowledge and the exchange of ideas. In Adams v. University of North Carolina-Wilmington (2011), the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal appellate court to recognize that academic freedom, a key interest protected by the First Amendment, can override the general rule established in Garcetti.
Adams claimed that he was denied a promotion due to his public commentary on controversial issues, which he argued was protected by the First Amendment. In its decision, the court held that the speech of university professors on matters of public concern, even when related to their academic expertise or job duties, must be afforded greater protection than the speech of other public employees. The court reasoned that academic freedom is a “special concern of the First Amendment” and is vital to the mission of public universities as institutions that foster free inquiry and debate. As a result, Adams carved out an exception to the Garcetti rule in the academic context, affirming that public university professors retain First Amendment protections for their speech related to their scholarship and teaching, even when such speech is closely tied to their official duties.
Adams may play a key role in the fate of Amy Wax. So also may Josephson v. Bendapudi, the case involving Allan Josephson in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky (the lawsuit was brought against Neeli Bendapudi, who was the President of the University of Louisville at the time, along with other university officials.) Although Adams v. University of North Carolina-Wilmington was not explicitly cited in Josephson’s legal case, the principles it laid out—namely, that university professors’ speech on matters of public concern tied to their academic work can be protected—were certainly relevant. Josephson’s case, like Adams’, revolved around the question of how far academic freedom and free speech protections extend when professors express controversial or unpopular views, particularly on sensitive social issues. Ultimately, Adams, and now Josephson, established important precedent for the protection of academic speech in certain circumstances.
On September 25, Vice-President Kamala Harris appeared with Stephanie Ruhle for a sit-down interview on the MSNBC. Ruhle had fawned over Harris on a recent Bill Maher show, saying that Harris’ reluctance to answer any questions with substance is okay because we know her opponent (Donald Trump) and that knowledge alone is sufficient for deciding who to vote for, which of course is Harris. That Ruhle isn’t interested in substance excited the Harris campaign, so they sought out Ruhle for a “positive conversation.” During the sit-down Harris repeated her tactic of not answering questions (calling it a “tactic” puts the matter generously). This was fine by Ruhle, she later told colleague Nicolle Wallace, repeating that non-answers are “okay,” because these aren’t “clear and direct issues,” which I presume is code for “Orange Man.”
“What I didn’t hear from her was divisive language,” Ruhle told Wallace, before hallucinating a conversation with Trump. “Imagine if I was sitting against Donald Trump, imagine the language he would be using, please!” Would Ruhle repeat the same lies Harris repeated during the ABC News debate, which moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis never fact checked, while doing her best to follow in Muir and Davis’ footsteps of relentlessly fact checking of the President? If so, then I, too, can imagine the language Trump would be using.
I confess: I do not find Ruhle to be an impressive person. Ruhle’s appearance on Maher and her comments to Wallace indicates that she is hardly less vapid than Harris. Consider the following remark: “And just the fact that we were talking about collaborative inclusivity—I don’t know. Vote for her or don’t vote for her, but isn’t it great to just have a positive conversation right now?” Note that, in an interview with Trump, Ruhle would be sitting against the President, this is in contrast to Harris where Ruhle was sitting with the Vice-President. And what the hell is “collaborative inclusivity”?
Kamala Harris was raised in a middle class family
For her part, Harris repeated the same words and phrases she uses every time she speaks. She praised “the spirit and character of the American people.” We have “ambition,” “aspirations,” “dreams,” and an “incredible work ethic.” Her vision for the economy? “I call it an ‘opportunity economy,’” she answered (it was her question, by the way). “I come from the middle class” she told us once more.
Ruhle praised Harris for her plan to give first-time home buyers $25,000 for a downpayment before noting that there is a housing shortage in the United States. No mention of whether that problem is a result of the Biden-Harris administration engineering the mass influx of millions of foreigners to small cities and towns across the United States. Harris answered that “some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people.” I counted three instances of some variant of the word “holistic” in that sentence, but given its vacuity, it feels like more.
Of Trump Harris said, “He’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues. And one must be serious and have a plan, and a real plan, that’s not just about some talking point ending in an exclamation at a political rally, but actually putting the thought into, what will be the return on the investment, what will be the economic impact on everyday people?” She perfectly described her campaign and projects it onto Trump. So what’s new?
"I challenge anybody to find an interview from over nine years of Donald Trump where he actually talks about facts as specific as those facts."
The interview was so bad that Morning Joe got the call to gaslight his audience over her performance. “I challenge anybody to find an interview from over nine years of Donald Trump where he actually talks about facts as specific as those facts,” he tweeted You don’t have to go back nine years to find such an interview. I will just pull an unscripted sit-down he did only a few weeks ago. He seems a bit tired here. Perhaps it’s the environment Lex Fridman sets. At any rate, enjoy.
Marcellus Williams was executed on September 24, 2024 for the brutal murder of journalist Felicia Gayle in her own home in 1998.
Marcellus Williams
While burglarizing her home in St. Louis, Missouri, Williams stabbed Gayle 43 times with a knife he obtained from her kitchen. Items stolen from Gayle’s home, including a laptop belonging to her husband, were found in Williams’ possession. Williams’ girlfriend reported to police that Williams was covered in blood when he picked her up on the day of Gayle’s murder. Williams admitted to his girlfriend that he murdered Gayle when confronted with Gayle’s purse, which she had found in his car. Williams threatened to kill her and her family if she reported it, which delayed her going to the police. While incarcerated for yet another crime, Williams provided to a cellmate nonpublic information about the murder that only someone involved in the crime would know. This informant’s reported this information to the police.
Today, Missouri Governor Parson decided to take the life of Marcellus Williams—an innocent man who did not commit murder.
I am not here to relitigate the case. I have reviewed both sides of the case and determined that Williams was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Claims such as the one made below by Ibram X. Kendi, that DNA evidence proves his innocence, are not merely false but misunderstand basic legal concepts. It isn’t worth the time to debunk all the false claims. My purpose here is threefold: criticize the race hustlers, note the purpose of identity politics, and condemn the death penalty.
Tonight, Missouri lynched Marcellus Williams. DNA evidence proved he was innocent. It didn’t matter. Because the United States is a serial killer of Black people. pic.twitter.com/PUgTdzm8xU
First, I have written about lynching in the pages of academic journals and here on Freedom and Reason and I can assure readers that, even if there were legitimate doubts in this case, Williams was not lynched. Lynching is something else entirely (see Agency and Motive in Lynching and Genocide). The NAACP is further tarnishing their image by framing the execution in this false way.
Second, the furor over Williams’ execution is an attempt in an election year to manufacture a George Floyd-type outrage to help the Democrats. Trump is doing better than past Republicans among black voters, so the project to portray all whites as racist has slipped into a higher gear. This likely won’t be the last attempt at inflaming racial tensions. The heinous nature of Williams’ crime worked against the effort to portray him in a sympathetic light, but there may be other cases with wider play.
Finally, I know many of my friends and family disagree with me about this, but the political hijacking of this case by progressives is distracting from the real injustice, namely the fact that the United States still kills some of it prisoners. To be sure, Missouri didn’t lynch a man. They lawfully executed a guilty man for a heinous crime. The world is safer without Williams in it. But Missouri should not kill its prisoners. No state should. America should abolish the death penalty.
Serious crime skyrocketed between the mid-1960s and the mid-1990s. As I note here, why this happened requires a long and complex analysis. However, what brought down crime after the mid-1990s is not a complicated story: it was a drastic expansion of the criminal justice system—incarcerating more violent offenders for longer periods of time and putting more police on the street focused on crime prevention, drug trafficking, and gang activity. However, over the last decades, police departments have been stood down and prosecutors installed who routinely decline to hold perpetrators responsible for their crimes.
We’ve been told by the Harris-Walz campaign, the corporate media, and progressive social media influencers that violent crime is down under Biden-Harris. We saw a few weeks ago that, according to a report by the Department of Justice, violent crime isn’t down. It’s up. The DOJ’s Criminal Victimization, 2023 found that, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, or NCVS, from 2020 to 2023, violent crime increased 37 percent, rape 42 percent, robbery 63 percent, and stranger violence 61 percent. Also in the DOJ report, property crime was up 13 percent, driven by motor vehicle theft, which increased 48 percent.
Now the FBI has finally updated its Crime Data Explorer, or CDE. What do those data show? As with the NCVS, violent crime isn’t down. It’s up. The above chart depicts over a decade of data. The FBI doesn’t make it easy to eyeball, failing to provide dates along the x-axis, but we can count dots. Look at seventh dot. That’s September 2020. Trump is President. Violent crime is down. The eighth dot is September 2021. Biden is president. Violent crime is up.
However, there’s something missing the reports. A couple of things, actually. As readers of Freedom and Reason know, blacks are overrepresented in violent and serious crime statistics. For years, the percentage of blacks who perpetrate homicide and robbery has consistently exceeded fifty percent (some years approaching sixty percent for robbery) despite blacks being only around thirteen percent of the population. Most violent and serious crime is perpetrated by young males. Young black males comprise approximately 4-5 percent of the population. This means the overrepresentation of blacks in crime is even more significant than it might appear at first.
Statistics for the nation as a whole show that blacks (mostly male) perpetrate half of all robberies, while forty-six percent of all victims are white. However, “Not Specified” and “Unknown” attributes enjoy much larger percentages than in years previous. Given that, in 2022, fifty-eight percent of offenders were black, one might guess with a reasonable degree of certainty what percentage of “not specifics” and “unknowns” might be included in specified and known categories. Indeed, it may be worse than it was before.
Here is the data for New York State and New York City respectively. A lot of “unknowns.” (This is especially odd for the victim race category.)
Here are the racial demographics for homicide in New York City. Sixty-eight percent “unknown.”
Here’s robbery for Chicago. A lot of “unknowns.”
A lot of “not specified” for murder in Chicago:
What’s going in Baltimore? Sixty-four percent “not specified.”
Here’s Atlanta. Fifty-nine percent of robbers are black. Twenty-one percent “unknown.” Nineteen percent “not specified.”
Here the second thing that’s missing. I wanted to show you New Orleans, but the demographic data—age, sex, race, ethnicity—are all blank. That means that the New Orleans Police Department reported no data for violent crime. Here are the CDE charts for homicide and robbery. Note the totals. Nothing but zeros.
I wanted to show you Los Angeles, too, but there is no demographic data reported for LA, either. Or Jackson, Mississippi. Does crime go down when you don’t report it? Absolutely.
Birmingham, Alabama did report demographics with relative few “not specifieds” and “unknowns.” Eighty-six percent of robbers are black.
Birmingham Police reported numbers for homicides, as well. Look at the number of “unknowns” in the offender category. Now look at the victim race category.
It is pretty clear why officials have been keeping the data away from the public and why the media conveys a different impression the what the facts indicate—and what our common sense tells us. The media hasn’t bothered to tell the public that the data reported to the FBI first depends on crime victims reporting crimes to the police, then on police departments reporting those numbers to the FBI. The NCVS finds that, for most serious crimes, less than half of the crime that victims report in surveys are reported to the police. What the CDE report tells us is that some of the biggest police departments in the most crime ridden blue cities aren’t even reporting these numbers.
The supposed drop in crime is a mirage. The media knows this. If that institution were to function the way it was supposed to, it would be reporting to you what I am reporting to you. But the media the propaganda apparatus for the corporate state, captured by progressive ideology, and they are covering for the blue cities. We call them “blue cities” because they’re run by Democrats. Democrats created and maintain the conditions that generate violent crime. They are also hiding or obscuring racial demographics. This is because the primary victims of progressive policy is black people. Progressives only chant “Black Lives Matter.” They don’t actually believe it. They never have. After all, what has the Democratic Party represented since its inception?
People stopped paying attention to the conditions of blue cities for many years because of the historic drop in crime. Since crime has been on the rise, the result of depolicing and reluctant prosecutors, the ubiquitous preachments of identity politics, and the effects of globalization, including mass immigration, an increasing number of people have taken notice. Since Democrats can’t turn this around before the election, they have taken to hiding the numbers. The media is all too eager to help. And if Democrats win the election, they won’t turn this around for the same reasons they caused this to happen. And the media will continue to cover for them.
The mass shooting in Birmingham, Alabama, last night, that left four dead (so far), and seventeen wounded, is not a problem of guns but of violent crime. Guns don’t shoot themselves. People use guns to shoot other people (and themselves). If the public wants to reduce homicide, it needs to understand why people kill other people. Part of this is understanding who is doing the killing. The security state and the corporate media want the public to believe it’s the lone white male. The public has yet to learn who perpetrated the Birmingham shooting because it’s not. It usually isn’t.
A mass shooting killed four people and wounded seventeen others in a popular nightlife area in Birmingham, Alabama
Serious crime skyrocketed between the mid-1960s and the mid-1990s. Why this happened requires a long and complex analysis. However, what brought down crime after the mid-1990s is not a complicated story. Progressives tell us that it was the assault weapons ban, which came into effect in September 1994 and sunset in September 2004. But so-called assault weapons are involved in a very small portion of homicides (fewer than one in twenty)—and who is robbing people with an AR-15? What brought crime rates down was a drastic expansion of the criminal justice system—incarcerating more violent offenders for longer periods of time and putting more police on the street focused on crime prevention, drug trafficking, and gang activity. NewYork City under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William Bratton is the paradigm.
Thanks to the tilt of criminal justice policy and practice towards law and order, the nation enjoyed a historic drop in crime after the mid-1990s. But that’s been reversed over the last decade. And it shows no signs of letting up. The DOJ’s Criminal Victimization for 2023 is out. The Department of Justice found that violent crime increased 37 percent from 2020 to 2023, rape 42 percent, robbery 63 percent, and stranger violence 61 percent. The NCVS does not include murder statistics, and the FBI has still not released the 2023 statistics (and the 2022 statistics are incomplete), so I can’t report that figure for that year. But I can report murder for the years earlier, and it’s scary. Also in the DOJ report, property crime is up 13 percent, driven by motor vehicle theft, which increased 48 percent.
What went wrong? Around 2010, academics and the mass media began pushing the white supremacy/white privilege narrative. In a detailed content analysis of major media sources published in Tablet in 2020, “How the Media Led the Great Racial Awakening,” Zach Goldberg finds that, “[y]ears before Trump’s election the media dramatically increased coverage of racism and embraced new theories of racial consciousness that set the stage for the latest unrest.”
You can find Goldberg’s article here, and I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing, but I want to pull a few charts from the piece to make the point immediate for you. In the first two charts, the reader will see the drastic increase of reference to “racists” and “racism” occurring around 2010 and a corresponding rise in the percentage of the population who reported that racism in the United States is a problem—this after a long decline.
Source: Zach Goldberg, Tablet, 2020
Indicated by the next several charts, the use of terms like “racists” and “racism” were buttressed by a slew of novel or academic terms developed by progressive social scientists and historians and pushed out by the corporate media and culture industry: “systemic racism,” “structural racism,” and “institutional racism”; “racial privilege” and “white privilege”; “racial hierarchies,” “whiteness,” and “white supremacy”; “racial disparities,” “racial inequalities,” and “racial inequities.”
In this way, the alleged effects of “whiteness,” “systemic racism,” etc., were identified as causing racial disparities and inequities without any demonstration of the validity of the alleged independent variables or their explanatory power. No matter, the terms comprised the assumption in force. Reinforced by race hustlers like Ibram X Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, and through constant repetition, the abstract facts of racial disparity became their own cause, especially since even suggesting they were explicable by reference to causes outside of the antiracist narrative risked being labeled a racist.
Source: Zach Goldberg, Tablet, 2020
Two major pieces of this narrative played a critical role in producing the crime wave we’re currently suffering: (1) dissemination of the myth of a racist criminal justice system and (2) sowing resentment among racialized populations impoverished by globalization—offshoring and immigration. Elites blamed the situation of blacks on working class whites to deflect from the fact that transnational corporations and white progressives and their black collaborators were responsible. Against a backdrop of decades of decay in America’s central cities caused by Great Society social engineering and the destruction of the black family, demoralization combined with decarceration and depolicing produced rising rates of violent and serious property crime.
Today, there is more violent and serious property crime than there has been in a long time. It’s so bad that many city and state governments are not reporting out the statistics—hence in unavailability of the FBI Uniform Crime Report. Predictably, serious crime predominates in blue cities run by progressive politicians and policymakers. These are the same politicians and policymakers who manufactured the myth of the racist criminal justice system and socialized identity politics, i.e, the reracialization of the nation’s collective consciousness. Given the criminogenic conditions that these politicians and policymakers perpetuate, without effective public safety measures, violent and serious crime inevitably returned.
What can we do about it? If you don’t want to do anything about it, or make it worse, then vote Democrat. But if you want to return to the rule of law and public safety, then you will have to vote for the alternative. We are on the threshold of a new day—but we have to seize it. Not seizing the moment is not a neutral act. We can vote for Harris and remain in the ever-growing authoritarian darkness of the corporate state, or we can vote for a movement that is bringing together the left and the right around democratic-republican principles of governance and classical liberal values. Things are more hopeful than they have been in my lifetime. But half the nation wants to be governed harder by the nanny state. And the nanny state—and the destruction of the family it brings—lies at the heart of criminogenesis in America.
Have you seen this? They don’t want you thinking about endocrine disrupters, food additives, forever chemicals, microplastics—emotion regulating, gene altering, mood alerting pharmaceuticals, etc. They want you worrying about practices that sustain human life, like growing food, heating homes, and fueling transportation.
I see something along the lines of this regurgitated endlessly X: “Nothing changes the fact that Donald Trump is a twice impeached, adjudicated rapist, business fraud and convicted felon traitor who incited a deadly attack on our Capitol.”
First, an impeachment isn’t a conviction. Impeachment is an indictment (or information). Trump was acquitted at trial on both impeachments, the latter concerning the charge of inciting a riot. A man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Trump was found “not guilty.” Trump therefore retains his legal innocence.
Trump acquitted on charge of inciting US Capitol riot
Second, Trump has no criminal rape convictions. A judge in a civil trial said she believed Trump committed rape. Her beliefs do not substitute for a rape conviction. The opinion is an aside from a judge who took seriously the claims of a deranged plaintiff. Trump is not an adjudicated rapist. The man has never even been tried for rape.
Third, Trump is not convicted of any felony counts related to business fraud in New York until the jury verdict is entered into the record at sentencing. Sentencing has been postponed until after the election—and the judge will likely set aside the verdict after Trump is elected in November. And even if the judge were to affirm the verdict, Trump could appeal, and at some point up the appellate chain see the verdict is overturned, because the trial was facially fraudulent.
Democrats lie like dogs. Constantly. Pathologically. If the Democratic Party were a person, it’d be an individual who, if examined by a clinical psychologist, would be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Believe nothing Democrats tell you. Truth means nothing to them. They’re psychopaths.
The Democratic Party is all Establishment. By Establishment I mean the dominant economic, political, and social elites who hold power and influence in a society—the entrenched authority that maintains the status quo and resists change, controlling key aspects of business, government, education, media, and cultural production. The Establishment is out of touch with the broader population’s needs or desires (for example in Springfield, Ohio). The Establishment is a collective force that protects its own interests at the expense of the people.
The Establishment is globalists. The proxy war with Russia in Ukraine is an expression of globalist ambition. While the Democrats are all in, the Republican Party is split between the Establishment and the populist-nationalists. Trump represents the return to constitutional republicanism and classical liberal principles. Reclamation of our founding is antithetical to globalist ambitions. Ryan Wesley Routh, who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump yesterday in Florida, was on the side of the Republican Party he perceived was Establishment, correctly with Nikki Haley, wrongly with Vivek Ramaswamy. This is how he could support the Republicans but loathe Trump.
Political cartoon from October 1884
Trump is a populist-nationalists who doesn’t want the proxy war with Russia. That’s why the Establishment says he is Putin’s stooge. If you don’t understand this split then you won’t understand the assassin’s support for the Republican Party while parroting Biden-Harris talking points. We saw the same thing with the first assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks was a registered Republican. But what kind of Republican? Establishment Republicans hate Trump because Trump is not Establishment. They have endorsed Harris-Walz because the Democratic Party is Establishment. Even Dick Cheney has come out in support of Harris-Walz.
It’s remarkable people haven’t figured all this out. I’ve been writing about this years on Freedom and Reason. We are in the midst of a great realignment. Realignment turns on the actual bifurcation point in a grand historical struggle between transnationalism and nationalism. The attempts on Trump’s life represent the effort to cut off the head of the populist-nationalist movement that represents resistance to globalization—open borders, the transnationalization of corporate power and its governance and legal structures, fusion with China and the entrenchment of authoritarian and technocratic control.
The Establishment wants things the way they were from January 20, 1989 to January 20, 2017. They thought Hillary Clinton would win the White House in 2016 and they could continue dismantling the American Republic and entrenching the corporate state. They rigged 2020 to get the project back on track. They thought they could delegitimize Trump before 2024—lawfare and all the rest of it. They haven’t been able to, so they’re turning to desperate measures.
The first assassin cannot tell us who he worked with, who prepared him, because he’s dead. But we know a lot about the second one. We can see he is aligned with the Establishment. He wanted the proxy war against Russia to continue. He was in Ukraine working with the Azov Battalion. Newsweek is reporting that Routh told The New York Times in March 2023 about his effort to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight in Ukraine. He told the Times that he spent several months in Ukraine in 2022. A Semafor report published on March 2023 cited Routh as the head of the International Volunteer Center (IVC) in Ukraine. The Associated Press reported that Routh was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. He saw a Trump victory as the potential end of the transnational project. When he parroted the Establishment rhetoric about Trump representing a threat to democracy, this is what he meant.
Was Routh a CIA asset? Ian Carroll has made some observations worth your attention.
Is this evidence the Trump assassin was a CIA asset?
It’s still early, don’t jump to any conclusions.
I’m just out here doing the FBIs job for them because we all know Chris Ray busy prepping the cover up as we speak.
freedom and reason 