 Look, I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but our civil rights and civil liberties are gradually being eroded by our governments and nobody really seems to notice. And Americans don't notice because it is constantly happening, albeit slowly. See, it's really easy to discern a loss in civil rights and civil liberties when it happens all at once. For example, back in 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and millions of people in multiple states lost the right to bodily autonomy like that. But that was not spontaneous. See, for decades, there was this slow buildup to dobs. Red states over time would regulate abortion more and more that restrict access to reproductive health care in indirect ways. And those were all warning signs that people pointed out. But I mean, when something is being taken away from us slowly and gradually, it's really difficult to get people to acknowledge how serious that threat is or even care about it until it's too late. We're all kind of frogs in a pot that don't realize the water is boiling because the heat's just being turned up slow enough for us to not even notice. But we need to recalibrate and adjust our sensitivity to these issues because if we don't, then we're going to lose more rights. If we don't see the warning signs and respond accordingly, we're bound to get more wake-up calls like dobs. Now, there's a number of civil rights and civil liberties at threat. The House just voted in favor of warrantless surveillance by reauthorizing FISA, which is a brazen violation of the Fourth Amendment. And on top of that, multiple states are taking away somebody's liberty to just be trans. So there's a lot to pay attention to. And there's a lot of civil rights and civil liberties at stake. But today, I just want to talk specifically about the First Amendment because millions of people in multiple states effectively lost the right to organize mass protests as Ian Milheiser of Vox reports. The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will not hear McKesson veto. The decision to not hear McKesson leaves in place a lower court decision that effectively eliminated the right to organize a protest in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruminous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act. So how did this happen? Well, back in 2016, Black Lives Matter activist D. Ray McKesson organized a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following the murder of Alton Sterling by police. Now at that protest, one of the many people there decided to throw a rock at a cop and seriously injured him. Now nobody knows who threw the rock to this day. Now the court is allowing D. Ray McKesson to be sued since he's the one who organized the protest, even though he didn't throw the rock at that cop, nor did he say we should throw rocks at cops. But here's the thing, the Supreme Court already affirmed that organizers can't be held liable for violence at protests that they organized in the 1982 case of NAACP v. Clayborn Hardware. And they also reaffirmed that in 2023 in the case of Councilman v. Colorado, where they made it clear that you can't charge an organizer with incitement of violence unless their words were specifically intended to incite violence, even if they accidentally incite violence by using rhetoric that's just a little too charged, they have to purposefully incite violence in order for you to charge them. But when it comes to McKesson v. Doe, the Trumpian Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals erroneously argued that previous precedent wasn't sufficient for this case and argued that new restrictions to the First Amendment should be set because of this case. Milheiser continues, the Fifth Circuit concluded that Clayborn's three separate theories that might justify holding a protest leader liable are a non-exhaustive list and that the MAGA-infused court is allowed to create new exceptions to the First Amendment. It then ruled that the First Amendment does not apply where a defendant creates unreasonably dangerous conditions and where his creation of those conditions causes a plaintiff to sustain injuries. And what exactly were the unreasonably dangerous conditions created by the McKesson-led protest in Baton Rouge? The Fifth Circuit faulted McKesson for organizing the protest to begin in front of the police station, obstructing access to the building, for failing to dissuade protesters who allegedly stole water bottles from a grocery store and for leading the assembled protest onto a public highway in violation of Louisiana criminal law. Now the Supreme Court chose to not take up this case, meaning that the unconstitutional ruling from the Fifth Circuit is going to remain in place. And as a result, people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas have effectively lost the right to organize mass protests. Because think about it, if somebody gets violent, you could be held liable. And you might argue that, you know, you can protect yourself from legal culpability if you proactively dissuade people from getting too rowdy. But here's the problem. That doesn't protect you from sabotage. Quote, as Fifth Circuit judge Don Willett, who dissented from his court's McKesson decision warned in one of his dissents, his court's decision would make protest organizers liable for the unlawful acts of counter-protestors and agitators. So under the Fifth Circuit's rule, a Ku Klux Klansman could sabotage the Black Lives Matter movement simply by showing up at its protests and throwing stones. Now for those who don't know, there are counter-protestors and antagonists at virtually every Black Lives Matter protest. The same is true for pro-Palestinian protests and pro-borsion protests and pro-LGBTQ plus protests and so on and so forth. And all it takes is one person in these states, and the organizers could be the ones who gets punished for the crimes of somebody else, including a saboteur. This is absurd. I mean, under these conditions, who's going to want to organize a protest? And if nobody's organizing protests, nobody's going to be attending protests if there's no organizers. I mean, sure, spontaneous protests can still break out, but I mean, you understand the chilling effect that this has on free speech in these states where this is now the de facto law. It's just, it is so horrifying that the Supreme Court basically allowed this to go on. But it's not surprising. Now in states where organizers can't yet be penalized for the actions of individual protestors or antagonists, elected officials are doing their very best to incite violence against Americans for simply exercising their free speech rights. For example, sitting senator Tom Cotton recommended vigilante violence against pro-Palestinian protestors who blocked a freeway, writing on Twitter, quote, I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic, take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It's time to put an end to this nonsense. And a day later, after many wondered how violent he's encouraging people to get, he shared a clip of protestors being physically dragged off the streets for blocking traffic. Now, you're probably assuming that he just feels really strongly about these types of protests, which aren't very popular admittedly by their very nature. I mean, the point is to be as disruptive as possible to get headlines, mission accomplished, right? But it's not just these types of protests that he's against. He's made it very clear that he's generally against our First Amendment rights. I mean, this is the same fascist who penned an op-ed in the New York Times back in 2020, encouraging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to violently shut down black lives matter protests using the military. So his instinct is to respond to protests with violence. Now some random person says, I don't like these protests, let's drag them off the street by their hair. That's different than somebody who was an elected official who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment saying that very same thing. And here he is vocalizing his disdain once again for people exercising their First Amendment rights. But he's not alone because the House of Representatives actually just passed a resolution deeming the phrase from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free as anti-Semitic. And it was sponsored by Anthony de Esposito, Josh Gothheimer and Jared Moskowitz, all-benefit series of APAC donations, by the way, and it passed overwhelmingly 377-44-1 with somebody voting present. And every single Republican voted for it, excluding Thomas Massie, and most progressives voted against it expectantly, excluding perpetual disappointment Ro Khanna. Now to be fair, supporters of this bill aren't explicitly calling for violence like Tom Cotton, but they do support violence, just not against American citizens. They support violence against Palestinians. And as Rashida Tlaib put it, we are seeing the same, quote, messaging bills on the floor every single week. These bills are just an attempt to distract from the genocide in Gaza. I am not voting for any of these bills while the genocide of Palestinians continues. And she's right. In fact, she was censured herself for saying from the river to the sea, even though she is a Palestinian woman, the only Palestinian in Congress, mind you, who clarified that she doesn't mean anything negative or genocidal by saying that she simply means liberation for Palestinians. And she wants both Jews and Arabs in the region to be free from injustice. But despite that, many Democrats joined Republicans in condemning her speech. But you might be thinking, maybe these politicians, they're just against violent rhetoric. And since from the river to the sea can be co-opted or used nefariously for anti-Semitic purposes, they felt compelled to support that resolution because they're just against violent rhetoric in general. Now, that might be a persuasive counterargument if they condemned actual violent rhetoric, but they won't. In fact, Republican Tim Wohlberg recently called for Gaza to be nuked and he wasn't censured. In fact, as Marissa Cabez reports, the 22 Democrats in particular who voted to condemn her, she did to leave, haven't had much to say about that Republican calling for mass murder when she reached out to all of their offices. Now, out of 22 of them, she got three responses. So one of them surprisingly was from Richie Torres, who called Wohlberg's comments deranged and depraved. And his press secretary idiotically said that Wohlberg's comments were somehow on the same level of tolebs. But despite thinking that, they didn't respond when they were asked if Torres would call for Wohlberg to be censured. Now, the second person she heard from was Greg Landsman, who condemned Wohlberg and said that he would vote to censure him if a vote were in front of him, although he's obviously not willing to take the initiative and hasn't sponsored a resolution himself. So apparently he's not that angry. And finally, she heard back from Brad Schneider, who said that Wohlberg's remarks were bad, but he appreciated Wohlberg walking it back. And when he was asked if he would vote to censure Wohlberg, he said, no, because, quote, we need to stop talking about censure and focus on governing. So he voted to censure Rashida Tlaib for saying from the river to the sea, but he wouldn't vote to censor Tim Wohlberg for saying that we should nuke Gaza because we need to focus on governing and move on. Well, I'm sure you will be incredibly surprised to learn that Schneider voted in favor of condemning the phrase from the river to the sea. Yeah, so they're pretty selective in the speech that they choose to condemn. But the point is Congress members have no business condemning which phrases activists use. It's none of their business as far as I'm concerned. And to be clear, it's not like they're saying use of this phrase should come with a penalty, but this is a microcosm of a bigger problem in this country when it comes to free speech regarding Palestinian human rights specifically. And as these lawmakers repeatedly condemn American's free speech, they also stand idly by as pro-Palestinian speech comes under fire around the country. And I say this because the Jewish Virtual Library reports that 38 states have adopted anti-BDS laws, all of which punish people that exercise their First Amendment right to advocate for a boycott of Israel. And some people are required to sign loyalty pledges in these states to Israel in order to get state jobs or contracts. And even though no federal anti-BDS law has been signed, both the House and the Senate has passed anti-BDS bills. So what stands amount to condemnation of speech today could become full on criminalization tomorrow. And regardless if there's legal penalties or not with these types of resolutions, they still have a chilling effect on free speech overall. Americans are constantly punished for pro-Palestinian speech. And the most recent victim is USC graduate Azna Tabasim, who was selected as valedictorian, but had her speech canceled due to unnamed security concerns. Now, those security concerns that they cited for canceling her speech also comes after there was a lot of backlash to her being announced as the valedictorian. Now, at the time that I record this, the university hasn't said why there's a security concern, but it's clear why her speech was canceled when you scratch just beneath the surface. So the university has said that this is not a free speech issue. Do you view it that way? I think there's a nuance here. I think, you know, I expressed an opinion through a link that I had on my Instagram. The hate and the vitriol that was unleashed towards me after, I think was part of the reason that the university caved in. And so when it comes to being a free speech issue, sure, maybe my valedictory speech is a privilege and it's a privilege. I do not take lightly and other students and evidently people around the world do not take lightly. But at the end of the day, my views, the views that I have expressed and the views that USC has instilled within me as well, um, where we're stifled and we're subject to hate. Now, to be clear, this isn't a First Amendment issue because the First Amendment protects speech from governments, not universities. This is a private institution, technically. But with that being said, it's still a free speech issue and governments set the tone for the rest of the country. And if universities receive funding from federal and state governments who have passed anti-BDS laws, as is the case in California, they might feel inclined to follow the lead of lawmakers even if they don't technically have to. In fact, lawmakers, they usually set the parameters of the Overton window, not just in DC, but across the country. And as a result, other institutions tend to align with the level of respectability established by Congress. In other words, when Congress leads, we all follow. But in conclusion, the rights that we have now are being eroded and we shouldn't allow this to be normalized. And we also shouldn't let grifters like Dave Rubin and Tim Pohl and Steven Crowder and others who purport to be free speech absolutists co-opt this entire cause when we all know the extent to which they care about free speech starts and ends with their own personal grievances that they have with social media websites that will let them post like baited content or some shit like that. Free speech is important. And the silence from so-called free speech absolutists about these stories is deafening. Now, I'm not saying free speech is absolute, but you can't just defend it when it's speech you like. You actually have to be consistent if you genuinely care about it. And we should all care about it and speak up now before it's too late, as Dobbs has taught us with other civil rights and civil liberties.