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Joseph Mangano's avatar

Further proof that conservatives only care about free speech insofar as they can weaponize the concept. What's particularly scary about these suspensions and firings at the behest of right-wing mobs is how easily employers are capitulating.

The instance where the cancelee was found to lack "basic empathy" is especially galling. So many of these ghouls who defend the 2nd Amendment without restrictions in the face of umpteen school shootings lack empathy, yet we are expected to dance around that notion. Charlie Kirk was no saint. I'm not here to revel in his public execution, but I'm also not here to deny that he said some truly reprehensible things in his comparatively short life.

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Linda Weide's avatar

Joseph, I point out the hypocrisy of the far right in their free speech for me, but not for thee, here in this piece I wrote about the US trying to quell liberal German voices and amplify the far right.

https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/the-trump-regime-interferes-in-german?r=f0qfn

I have now been told by a reader that the Trump administration is considering making foreign journalists have to renew their visas every 7 months. So, that is a way of censoring too.

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Joseph Mangano's avatar

Interesting...thanks for sharing.

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NubbyShober's avatar

Let's just call it what it is: Cancel Culture. Supersized.

The GOP have taken a Liberal process they've decried for a decade as unjust mob rule; and put it on steroids, bolstering it with the full power of the Federal Government, to burn books, and end the employment of anybody who says something they find disagreeable. Trump2 conservatism doesn't just dogpile you on social media; but gets you fired from your job and then indicted on spurious federal charges.

All right, the "...and indicted" part hasn't happened yet. But AG Bondi has assured us it will. For anyone speaking ill of Kirk.

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Robert's avatar

Ooh, you absolute bottle thrower! You should be doxxed and deported!

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Lillian P.'s avatar

Sarcasm???

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Kate McMullan's avatar

The idea that employees are urged to report co-workers for insensitive speech comes right from the pages of 1984.

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Lex Alexander's avatar

As road-tested by the Stasi in the former East Germany.

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Linda Weide's avatar

Yes Lex. And they are trying to make allies and amplify all of the former East Germans who are now part of the AfD. I write about that here.

https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/the-trump-regime-interferes-in-german?r=f0qfn

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Lex Alexander's avatar

Nice work!

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Linda Weide's avatar

It is the autocratic playbook which Trump and his henchmen and women are rolling out in full force.

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Peter's avatar

Republicans always in projection/confession mode have turned it up to 11 over Kirk's murder. Sadly nut unsurprisingly the corporate media has adopted a pure defensive cower and is not calling them on it, nor are they even fully reporting that the murderer is a white, male, Mormon, from a gun loving family, radicalized by Nick Fuentes, a Nazi among Nazis.

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BTAM Master's avatar

Could you please include a link to this? I've heard this in bits and pieces but not found one definitive article.

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Kyle Holbrook's avatar

Those two articles barely discuss Robinson, and even less barely his family. The Gazzette article basically lets Robinson's Family off the hook AND highlights potential "evidence" which on the surface appears "thin" at best.

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Therese S.'s avatar

Trump is a cancer across the country and Kirk helped guide young people to vote for him. I'm not sorry to see him gone.

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Rickey Woody's avatar

Please keep in mind that trump is the distraction. The Deep State he has placed in positions with the approval of the republican senate, is the real threat. They know how the government works and are chopping away with zero oversight.

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Katy Bolger's avatar

100% Trump is the distraction and a great one for the purposes of those working in the dark behind him, using his power and squeezing more power for the executive so as their puppets, Trump, Vance, little Johnson dance and spin, those dark actors disembowel our government.

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Kathleen Dintaman's avatar

Trump stepped in as "Ringmaster" of the Republican Circus.

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Roberta's avatar

The fear is the point. I am retired yet still get the nag in the back of my brain concerning some weird retaliation. The killing was wrong but that doesn’t mean I have to pretend to celebrate a life built on hate to save my position in the world. As it gets more and more difficult it becomes more and more important to speak your truth.

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Annamarie's avatar

I hope all these folks find excellent new jobs and that lawyers volunteer to sue the institutions.

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Robert's avatar

Gosh, the Trump administration is certainly creating unusual conditions in America these days.

(I hope that comment, written in the spur of the moment, didn't go too far. Apologies to anyone who has taken offence. I should probably delete it, come to think of it. )

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Mark Shields's avatar

😏😉

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Larry Carr (autocarr)'s avatar

I’m confused —Florida Politics suspended Gancarski, saying the reporter lacked "basic empathy." I read somewhere the Kirk, and others in the Christian Nationalism movement, believed empathy was a bad thing?

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Dennis D.'s avatar

Careful, quoting Kirk is offensive to his memory. :-)

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Catherine Mary Kauffman's avatar

The thin skin of the Right is getting to the point it appears they are wrapped in a single layer of tissue paper. No critique is too mild, no correction is acceptable. And yet, they are quick to exploit any impolite or insensitive thing the Left says to the point of firing. In comparison, I wonder how many Left leaners have been fired in comparison to Right leaners. I think someone did some serious study of McCarthism.

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gridsleep's avatar

America is now run by cowardly bullies. If you have read 1984 or Brave New World, you will have in mind the kind of froth mouthed chattering table pounders who now dictate, literally, the behavior of everyone else in the country. From Trump to Kirk they crowd the landscape, fill the news, and dictate the rules for the rest of us to live beneath. Just say no. NO. NO. NO. When Trump speaks, say NO. When Kirk's words are quoted, just say NO. When Shapiro or Miller or Vought speak, just say NO. Stand and refuse to obey, refuse to be silent, say NO. You are not the boss of me.

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Victoria Brown's avatar

Perfect! 👍

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Robert's avatar

Judd great points at free speech only for the MAGA

folks but not the majority of the

American people. The majority of us must keep printing and speaking the truth until We tear

down these walls of hatred.

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Amy Alexander's avatar

This is so disturbing. The NFL stadiums hosting "Celebrations of Life" including Highmark where the Buffalo Bills play, which is just 10 minutes from me, is just WRONG. The anxiety I am feeling from not being allowed to express my feelings because people think I am celebrating his death. Our country has lost it's way and I am afraid we won't be able to turn it around.

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Kristi Noem’s Goat's avatar

I was astounded to hear that Charlie Kirk received such mention at NFL games and other events. I was astounded to hear that our taxpayer money was spent to fly his body back to Arizona. I was astounded to see the flags ordered to be lowered to half staff for a man who is the antithesis of democracy. I’m sure I’ll soon be astounded when Kirk is posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom.

Kirk has been proclaimed to be the next Republican Presidential nominee. Kirk owns no diploma past high school and has never held public office. Isn’t that fitting for a party of imbeciles.

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Tanya Dobbs's avatar

Only states decide when to fly the flag at half staff. For example, New Jersey didn’t.

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Kristi Noem’s Goat's avatar

NC did.

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Mark Shields's avatar

You ARE allowed!!!

Never forget.

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Signe K.'s avatar

Wow. McCarthyism is still alive and kicking. Oops, did I say "kick"? Sorry for the political violence, don't fire me.

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Suki Herr's avatar

I mostly know who Karen Attiah is due to what she wrote after the murder of Jamal Ghashoggi. A brutal murder likely oked by Donald Trump&or Jared Kushner.

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Mark Steinberg's avatar

The dictatorship expands its control.

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