Drew Dykstra

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

SCOTUS made the right decision on tariffs. Justices Gorsuch, Barrett, and Roberts chose the Constitution over politics.

The House voted last week, but only six Republicans sided with the Constitution:

Thomas Massie
Don Bacon
Kevin Kiley
Jeff Hurd
Dan Newhouse
Brian Fitzpatrick

[Thomas Massie for Congress @MassieforKY]

🎤 They can steal the microphone but I will never be silenced.

I was defending my wife, calling out my opponent’s COVID PPP fraud, and explaining that Congressmen work for the People, not the Speaker or the President!

Will you help me get my message out?
https://t.co/AgJY01JuFj

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

The Constitution isn’t optional.

The point of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement is to hassle the government.

It’s supposed to be difficult to search or arrest people. That’s not a bug; that’s a feature of our American republic.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

Republicans should not, in fact, “nationalize the voting.”

If you were worried about election integrity before, this would make things infinitely worse.

Decentralized elections are one of the greatest protections against large-scale fraud and abuse.

[Benjy Sarlin @BenjySarlin]

Wow, it says here Bovino is to guard the border wall, and also take no wife, hold no lands, father no children, wear no crowns and win no glory.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed…unless you approach law enforcement.”

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

Independent: 45%

[Senator Mark Kelly @SenMarkKelly]

When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired – which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.

In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.

Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.

If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

The chances of a successful prosecution here are zero point zero percent. Everything with this administration is performative nonsense to cater to an ever-shrinking base.

We don’t live in North Korea. Anyone here can freely state that service members must refuse unlawful orders.

[Martha Bueno @BuenoForMiami]

It’s “not a crime” but they’ll take it from you, making them the actual criminals.

Tyrants and thieves is what they are.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

“Carrying U.S. currency isn’t a crime, but it’s possible we’ll steal it from you, and then we’ll flip the burden so that you have to prove it wasn’t connected to criminality.”

This is simply legalized theft.

Uphold the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

End civil asset forfeiture.

[Ron DeSantis @RonDeSantis]

Performative.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

The prosecution claimed it was assault with a deli weapon, but the jury deemed their case totally sub-standard.

[FIRE @TheFIREorg]

Google should not have waited to acknowledge it was pressured by the Biden administration to block content on its platforms.

Google condemns jawboning now, but it failed to stand up for the rights of its users when it mattered.

FIRE will continue to call on private institutions to stand up for their rights — no matter who is in office.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

I’d never trust anyone on the right or the left who is inconsistent on free speech. A person willing to abandon this fundamental American principle for short-term politics—justifying their own hypocrisy by citing the other side’s hypocrisy—can’t be counted on to uphold anything.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

“Hate speech” is a term used by those in power to describe thoughts they don’t want spoken. It’s antithetical to the First Amendment.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

Thank God the First Amendment protects a lot more speech than the typical Republican or Democrat thinks should be (or is) protected. There are so many people who say they fully support free speech BUT—and then they advance a view that would make America way more like Europe.

[Justin Amash @justinamash]

Governor @SpencerJCox has shown great leadership in this moment.

[FIRE @TheFIREorg]

A message from FIRE’s Executive Vice President, @NicoPerrino:

We are horrified by yesterday's assassination of Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University. We are horrified first and foremost because two children lost their father and a wife lost her husband. And we are further horrified because all of us at FIRE have dedicated ourselves to the defense of free speech and open debate on college campuses.

At their best, America's colleges and universities provide a unique venue to discover truth, talk across lines of difference, and develop a deeper and fuller understanding of the world. Over the years, students and student groups have invited Kirk to speak at hundreds, if not thousands, of campuses. At these events, he would share his opinions and invite others to do the same. America must be an open society where this sort of debate can take place, where we feel safe to share our ideas in the public square, not just from behind bulletproof glass and bulletproof vests.

Sigmund Freud once said civilization started the day man first cast a word instead of a stone. He was right. Words are not violence. Words are what we use instead of violence to resolve our differences. We must not lose sight of this civilization-defining distinction.

Unfortunately, since 2021, we've seen a steady rise in support for violence in response to speech on campus. Earlier this week, we released our finding that one in three students express some support for the use of violence to stop a campus speech. That's up from 20 percent only three years ago. While we do not know the identity of the gunman, what happened yesterday is indicative of a broader cancer in our body politic that we must address.

But it must not be addressed with censorship.

For more than 25 years, FIRE has challenged colleges that use speculative and amorphous security rationales to justify censoring controversial speakers. Through public records requests and other means, we’ve often found these rationales serve as a pretext to shut down debate and capitulate to demands for censorship. Indeed, according to our Deplatforming Database, Kirk was the subject of at least 14 attempts to stop him from speaking on campuses since 2021. Over the years, FIRE has repeatedly written to colleges that sought to silence Kirk’s organization and supporters.

Moving forward, we can expect colleges and universities to place even greater emphasis on security ahead of controversial speakers arriving on campus. But administrators must not pass security costs along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a speaker’s appearance. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble their efforts to protect free speech. Rewarding threats of violence by taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and more violence.

Yesterday, an assassin’s veto silenced Charlie Kirk, just as it silenced the journalists and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo a decade ago, and just as it attempted to silence Salman Rushdie in 2022. But we cannot let the censors win. We cannot let violence prevail. We can and must come together in defense of our rights to be who we are and to speak our minds.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

My heart is broken for Charlie Kirk and my prayers are with his friends and family.

Our country was founded on principles of free speech and open political discourse.

Nothing justifies violence against any voice on the left or right of today’s debates.