Most of the unhinged takes in the wake of the highest-profile political assassination in the United States since 1968 have come, unsurprisingly, from the Left. Conservatives mourned, prayed, and attended vigils instead of rioting and looting like their political opponents. There were no calls for retaliatory assassinations or any form of political violence as millions of leftists took to social media to celebrate the brutal killing of Charlie Kirk. School teachers, college professors, doctors, and mainstream journalists are being fired or suspended from their places of employment as employers are realizing the pitfalls of being associated with the Democratic Party’s most loyal and depraved supporters.
Unfortunately, while the vast majority of the political Right is unified by both grief and a deep love of God and country, a ridiculous, unconstitutional, and counterproductive proposal has emerged from none other than Attorney General Pam Bondi.
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CHARLIE KIRK SHOOTING SUSPECT FACES SEVEN CHARGES, PROSECUTORS SEEK DEATH PENALTY
“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society. … We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech,” Bondi told podcaster Katie Miller.
Of course, “hate speech” does not exist. “Hate speech,” meaning speech that the Left doesn’t agree with, is protected by the First Amendment, and a career lawyer and two-term Florida attorney general obviously knows that. Bondi went even further off the reservation in an appearance on Fox News: “If you want to go and print posters with Charlie’s picture for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. We have, right now, our civil rights unit looking at that.”
That dog just won’t hunt. For 13 years, conservatives have defended Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado. Democratic activists have repeatedly sued Phillips, a devout Christian, to force him to bake cakes that violate his long-held religious views. Phillips won at both the Supreme Court and the Colorado Supreme Court. Apparently, Bondi’s strategy to counter the Left’s malicious lawfare is to attempt, and undoubtedly fail, to force Democrats to “print the posters, bigot.”
Bondi is too smart to believe what she is saying regarding free speech, and this episode is likely a feeble attempt to grab a headline and ingratiate herself with the supporters of Charlie Kirk, but, clearly, Bondi is not ready for prime time. Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, was communicating with others both before and after the assassination, and those transgender-centric possible terrorist cells require the full attention of the Justice Department. Antifa and other street-communist organizations must be aggressively investigated and dismantled if further left-wing terrorism is to be prevented, and all Bondi is doing by employing tired, leftist language is handing Democrats ammunition to use against the otherwise noble efforts of the administration.
I opposed Bondi’s nomination in December 2024 based on her abysmal record on gun rights, and now that the attorney general has expressed blatant hostility toward the First and Second amendments, it is time for conservatives far and wide to call for her resignation.
Kirk died doing what he did best and what made him a household name: exercising his First Amendment rights in a hostile environment. Instead of following the lead of Democrats and Democratic-adjacent Republicans such as Bondi, the Right should remember what Kirk believed about First Amendment issues: “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. 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.”
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.