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Invaded in Every Way

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Hedges, who previously wrote for the New York Times, NPR, Truthdig, and other publications, noted Sunday that he is no fan of Trump supporters, Christian nationalists, and so-called conspiracy theorists. Notwithstanding his antipathies for elements of what some characterize as the far right, the veteran reporter indicated that he still cannot — and others should not — support "the judicial lynching against many of those who participated in the Jan. 6 events, a lynching that is mandating years in pretrial detention and prison for misdemeanors."

After all, "Once rights become privileges, none of us are safe," wrote Hedges.

In October 2021, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth determined that a Jan. 6 prisoner's civil rights had been violated, reported Reuters.

Lamberth said, "It is more than just inept and bureaucratic shuffling of papers. ... I find that the civil rights of the defendant have been abridged. I don't know if it's because he is a Jan. 6 defendant or not, but I find that this matter should be referred to the attorney general of the United States ... for a civil rights investigation."

The prisoner in question, former Proud Boys member Christopher Worrell, has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and broke his hand while in custody. Despite a surgeon recommending that he undergo surgery to repair his hand, the Department of Corrections apparently didn't bother providing the doctor's notes to the U.S. Marshals Service, necessary for the surgery to take place.

The cancer patient languished in jail for months before getting the treatment he needed.

Hedges noted that the mistreatment over 1,000 people arrested and charged so far for participations in events on Jan. 6, including Worrell, has been celebrated or at best ignored "by Democratic Party supporters and much of the left."

He noted that while partisans may have enjoyed the persecution and prosecution of those they are convinced are their foes, no doubt with the help of former ABC news chief James Goldston's dramatic framing, "these show trials will come back to haunt them."

Hedges wrote that the same Special Administrative Measures established by the Clinton administration, originally brought to bear against convicts who ordered murders from prison and mass murderers, are now used to isolate "all manner of detainees before and during trial."

SAMs "severely restrict a prisoner's communication with the outside world; prohibiting calls, letters and visits with anyone except attorneys and sharply limit contact with family members," wrote Hedges. "The solitary confinement-like conditions associated with SAMs undermine any meaningful right to a fair trial according to analysis by groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights and can amount to torture according to the United Nations."

Joseph D. McBride, a lawyer who once provided free legal advice to members of the Occupy movement in New York City, now represents several individuals charged in the Jan. 6 protests.

McBridge told Hedges, "The post 9/11 model is being applied to American citizens."

Like those Muslim Americans who had their rights trampled with the help of the Clinton-era measures, despite having had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, Islamist attacks on the United States or the 19 hijackers responsible, McBride suggested that Jan. 6 protesters are now considered to be "a threat based on who they are, what they look like, what they believe in."

Statists have decided to hound "a new group of people, primarily white Christians, Trump supporters, for now," said McBride.

Hedges noted that while Ryan Nichols — a Marine Corps veteran previously without a criminal record — is now living under strictly controlled house arrest in Texas, he spent much of his two years of pretrial detention in solitary confinement.

Nichols, who ran a search-and-rescue nonprofit, was accused of assaulting officers and obstructing an official proceeding. He faces 20 years in prison and is scheduled to go on trial March 27.

FBI agents blitzed his house on Jan. 18, 2020, after arriving in armored vehicles and cutting power to his house.

Nichols' wife told Hedges, "We didn’t know anything was wrong. They asked Ryan to come in for questioning. Ryan went and turned himself in. They arrested him and I didn’t see him again for over a year and a half."

Nichols reportedly got the mass-murderer treatment: roughly 22 months in solitary confinement, which landed him on suicide watch, strapped to a bench in a room where the light was permanently on.

While her husband wasted away, Bonnie Nichols said her financially stressed family, including her two young boys, would routinely receive death threats.

"We are God-loving patriots," said Bonnie Nichols. "Who’s going to be next? It’s not about Republican or Democrat or white or black, Christian, or Muslim. We are all children of God. We are all U.S. American citizens. We are all entitled to our constitutional rights and freedom of speech. We can all come together and agree on that, right?"

Concerning the thousands arrested and charged so far in connection with Jan. 6, and the 476 who pleaded guilty "in what has been the largest single criminal investigation in U.S. History," Hedges noted that with the exception of "a few of the organizers of the Jan. 6 protest such as Stewart Rhodes, who founded Oath Keepers, [who] may conceivably be guilty of sedition, and even this is in doubt, the vast majority of those caught up in the incursion of the Capitol did not commit serious crimes, engage in violence or know what they would do in Washington other than protest the election results."

McBride suggested to Hedges that the undue severity of their treatment was the result, in part, of propaganda advanced by the media, the Biden White House, the Democratic Party leadership, and a tainted Washington jury pool of people with links to the federal government.

"The D.C. jury pool is poisoned beyond repair," said McBride. "When you just look at what the January 6 Committee did alone, never mind President Biden’s speeches about ‘insurrectionists,’ ‘MAGA Republican extremists’ and all this stuff, and if you just consider the fact that D.C. is very small, that people who work in the federal government are all by definition, kind of victims of January 6 and what happened that day, their institutions and colleagues were ‘under attack.’ How can anybody from that town serve on a jury pool? They can’t. The bias is astounding."

Hedges underscored that this political theater, which has involved the performance of real sacrifices on stage, is "exacerbating the growing tribalism and political antagonisms that will increasingly express themselves through violence."

"We are complicit, once again, of using the courts to carry out vendettas. We are corroding democratic institutions," he added. "We are turning those being hounded to prison into political prisoners and martyrs. We are moving ever closer towards tyranny."

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I will 'literally fight you, b**ch': Over 100 Yale Law students ambush free speech panel; cops called to escort speakers to safety



More than 100 Yale Law School students ambushed and disrupted a recent free speech panel — and added enough intimidation to the mix that police were called to escort the speakers to safety.

What are the details?

The March 10 panel hosted by the Yale Federalist Society featured Monica Miller of the progressive American Humanist Association and Kristen Waggoner of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative nonprofit promoting religious liberty, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The outlet said the opposing groups took the same side in a 2021 Supreme Court case on legal remedies for First Amendment violations — and the Yale event was meant to show that a liberal atheist and a conservative Christian could find common ground on free speech issues, the Yale Federalist Society said, according to the Free Beacon.

But when law school professor Kate Stith began to introduce Waggoner, the nearly 120 protesters — who outnumbered other onlookers — stood up and held signs attacking Alliance Defending Freedom, the outlet said.

ADF has successfully argued several Supreme Court cases on religious exemptions from civil rights laws that violate freedom of conscience — in particular Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2018, the outlet noted.

I will 'literally fight you, bitch'

Protesters also dug their claws into the Yale Federalist Society, with one protester telling a member of the group that she would "literally fight you, bitch," the Free Beacon reported, citing audio and video it obtained.

Stith then spoke up, reminding protesters of Yale's free speech policies which bar any protest that "interferes with speakers' ability to be heard and of community members to listen," the outlet said.

When protesters heckled and raised middle fingers at Stith, the Free Beacon said she told them all to "grow up."

As you might guess — based on the protesters' collective attitude — they reacted with shocked howls and shouts at panelists and declarations that their outbursts are "free speech."

Stith then told them if their disturbances persisted, she would "ask you to leave — or help you leave."

Yale Law Students Revolt Against Free Speech youtu.be

When the protesters exited — one yelled "f*** you, FedSoc" — they stayed in the outside hall and began to stomp, shout, clap, sing, and pound the walls, making it difficult to hear the panel, the outlet said.

Protesters' chants of "protect trans kids" and "shame, shame" were so loud that nearby classes, exams, and faculty meetings were disrupted, the Free Beacon said, citing students and a professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Associate dean was there

Ellen Cosgrove, the law school's associate dean, attended the free speech panel and was there the entire time, the outlet said, adding that she did not confront any protesters.

The Free Beacon added that things seemed dangerous at times, with protesters blocking the only exit and two members of the Federalist Society saying they were grabbed and pushed while attempting to exit.

"It was disturbing to witness law students whipped into a mindless frenzy," Waggoner told the outlet. "I did not feel it was safe to get out of the room without security."

After the panel ended, police arrived to escort Waggoner and Miller from building, the Free Beacon said.

Majority of Yale Law students sign letter backing 'peaceful student protesters'

After the incident, more than 60% of the law school's student body signed an open letter supporting the "peaceful student protesters" they claimed had been threatened by the police just showing up, the outlet said.

"The danger of police violence in this country is intensified against Black LGBTQ people, and particularly Black trans people," the letter said, according to the Free Beacon. "Police-related trauma includes, but is certainly not limited to, physical harm. Even with all of the privilege afforded to us at [Yale Law School], the decision to allow police officers in as a response to the protest put YLS's queer student body at risk of harm."

The letter — signed by 417 students — also blasted Stith for telling protesters to "grow up" and the Federalist Society for hosting the event, which "profoundly undermined our community's values of equity and inclusivity," the outlet said.

Stith declined to comment, the Free Beacon noted.

"It feels wild to me that we're at this point in history, and some folks are still not immediately signing a letter like this," one student wrote to her class GroupMe, according to the outlet. "I'm sure you realize that not signing the letter is not a neutral stance."

An email to Miller — signed by 150 law students and sent before the panel took place — said she shouldn't participate, the Free Beacon said.

"We are at a loss to understand why the [American Humanist Association] ... has decided to legitimize an organization that is so actively hostile to queer flourishing," the email said, according to the outlet. "We urge you to withdraw from this event, which is little more than a thinly-disguised slap in the face to Yale Law's queer students and their allies."

In reaction, Miller told the Free Beacon that "as lawyers, we have to put aside our differences and talk to opposing counsel. If you can't talk to your opponents, you can’t be an effective advocate."

Waggoner also told the outlet, "Yale Law students are our future attorneys, judges, legislators, and corporate executives. We must change course and restore a culture of free speech and civil discourse at Yale and other law schools, or the future of the legal profession in America is in dire straits."

Other notable free speech advocates weigh in

Nicholas A. Christakis — Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale — took note of the "immature behavior of students in the nation’s most elite law school" and also said they're guilty of "using florid language to voice their complaints, failing to ask well formulated questions of a speaker, and failing to understand the difference between protest and a heckler's veto."

Readers of TheBlaze may recall that Christakis was bullied by a mob of Yale students over his free speech views and eventually resigned from his position as master of Yale's residential Silliman College in 2016.

Other notable individuals agreed with Christakis:

  • Jordan Peterson wondered, "Why does anyone still agree to speak on university campuses?"
  • Barrie Weiss said "this is happening because of an epidemic of cowardice among the people meant to be leading these elite schools."
  • U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) added that "left-wing children at Yale are so fragile they can't even tolerate a bipartisan panel on the First Amendment. Pathetic."
  • Robert P. George — McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals & Institutions at Princeton University — tweeted that "it's hard to get the message through to people drunk on ideology and in possession of the privilege and power in their institutions that the Woke possess at Yale Law, but freedom of thought, inquiry, and speech are as essential to intellectual life as oxygen is to biological life."
  • Jonathan Turley — Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University — noted that the incident represented "an all-too-familiar pattern being played out across the country. The record of most schools is at best passive aggressive in declining to enforce their free speech rules. The result is a chilling effect on free speech that is perfectly glacial."