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“Attorney General Pam Bondi provoked a broad backlash this week after announcing she would ‘absolutely target’ protesters engaging in ‘hate speech’ — and claiming she had authority to investigate businesses that refused to print memorial vigil posters for the conservative activist Charlie Kirk…
“In an interview on Fox News’s ‘Hannity’ late Monday, Ms. Bondi suggested that she might direct the Justice Department’s civil rights division to ‘prosecute’ businesses if they turned away customers who wanted to print pictures of Mr. Kirk for memorial vigils, citing the case of an Office Depot employee in Michigan who was fired for rejecting such an order…
“She seemed to back away from a broad interpretation of her remarks on Tuesday morning, writing on social media that ‘hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime.’” New York Times
“Workers across the country who’ve mocked Charlie Kirk’s death online have quickly learned their words can get them fired. From American Airlines to Nasdaq—and in workplaces that include restaurants, schools and law firms—employers have ousted or suspended staff in recent days for gloating, deriding or making otherwise contentious posts about the conservative activist’s killing. Many are getting flagged to the posts by online activists who’ve collected the names of commenters. Some prominent conservatives have joined the call, too.” Wall Street Journal
All sides criticize Bondi’s comments about prosecuting hate speech:
“Under every relevant Supreme Court precedent, speech is speech is speech. There are other categories of speech: libel, incitement, threats, and so on. But speech that is supposedly ‘hateful’ — including about Charlie Kirk’s murder — is undoubtedly protected by the Constitution. Kirk himself was clear about this…
“If Office Depot had declined the request because the customer had white skin, that would be illegal. But printing is expression, and private companies are thoroughly within their rights to decline to accept a commission that implicates them in that expression. Securing legal recognition of that right has been a priority for conservatives for decades. It is astonishing to witness a Republican attorney general taking the other side.”
Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review
“‘Hate speech’ is a term of art perfected by campus bureaucrats to shut down views that progressives dislike, and President Donald Trump was elected and reelected in no small part because of the left’s censorial excesses. It was striking, then, to see a Trump official who should know better making the same mistake…
“The Bondi flap is unusual because Republicans in the Trump era have usually rejected the kind of nonsense that the attorney general had to clean up. During last year’s presidential campaign, it was Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz who was rightly roasted after proclaiming, ‘There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.’”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“Presidents swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Having an attorney general who either doesn’t understand the First Amendment or is willfully promising to violate it is at odds with that oath. Should Bondi follow through on her ill-considered pledge to ‘target’ and ‘go after’ Americans for hate speech, she would deserve to be impeached…
“Doing so in a misguided effort to avenge Kirk’s death, or to celebrate his life’s work, would be especially perverse, because Kirk himself rejected Bondi’s stated views. ‘Hate speech does not exist legally in America,’ Kirk declared in a 2024 post on X. ‘There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.’”
Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic
Other opinions below.
“I’m old enough to remember that for years MAGA condemned cancel culture and promoted itself as a radical ‘First Amendment’ movement that mocked ‘safe spaces’ and told everyone else to stop being ‘snowflakes.’ They said words don’t incite violence and we should not be cowed by political correctness and be allowed to say any hateful, racist, bigoted comments without any pushback, criticism, or consequences. But it was all bullshit.”
Wajahat Ali, The Left Hook
“[A] teacher wrote that Kirk had ‘spewed hate’ and had said that ‘deaths are worth it for the Second Amendment.’… [and] ‘if you liked what he stood for, then you can’t be upset that he died. He fulfilled his destiny.’…
“[In response] Rep. Derek Van Orden (R-WI), who represents the district where the teacher works, declared he would work ‘to remove all federal funding’ for the ‘entire city of Ellsworth’… unless this was ‘rectified immediately.’… This type of collective punishment for the asserted ‘crime’ of another member of the community is a favorite tool of fascist regimes. It seeks to leverage fear of reprisals to turn neighbors into snitches and enforcers.”
Jay Kuo, Substack
“When ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Trump for clarity on Bondi’s comments about hate speech, Trump said, ‘We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.’ He then claimed that ABC had already been forced to pay him $16 million for a form of hate speech (not what happened)… The aim here is to use the full force of government to destroy any opposition to the MAGA regime.”
Jill Filipovic, Substack
“There is an effort underway to equate the celebration of political assassination with the expression of conventional political opinion. Democrats and the mainstream media argue that firing, suspending, and shaming people for the former amounts to the right’s embrace of ‘cancel culture.’ Please…
“The casualties of cancel culture were tossed out for espousing garden-variety views that were, in many cases, held by a majority of the country. The former New York Times opinion editor James Bennet, who published an op-ed by a U.S. senator calling for the use of federal troops to put an end to the urban riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The Democratic pollster who shared research indicating that violent riots—as opposed to nonviolent protest—hurt Democrats at the ballot box…
“Cancel culture aimed to establish new norms of speech and debate, like the notion that publishing an op-ed arguing for a mainstream policy was inappropriate because it put employees of The New York Times in physical danger… The firings of the past few days are not an ‘ominous trend.’… Cheering the murder of our political opponents has long been outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse.”
Eliana Johnson, Free Press
“A school teacher who lauds the assassination of a public figure — any public figure — should not be able to instruct children. Similarly, deans of students at our colleges shouldn’t have that responsibility if they express happiness that Kirk has been killed. Commentators on news outlets who state or imply that Charlie Kirk reaped what he sowed should be let go. They pollute public discourse and discredit the outlet they work for.”
Paul Mirengoff, Substack
