President Donald Trump and Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi are a dream staff with regards to making an attempt to violate People’ proper to free speech.
Bondi claims to have discovered a solution to prosecute folks for burning the U.S. flag with out violating Texas v. Johnson, the 1989 Supreme Courtroom choice that dominated flag burning is protected underneath the First Modification.
“We will do that without running afoul of the First Amendment,” she mentioned.
Oh, okay, so long as you say so.
Usually, criminalizing speech that the Supreme Courtroom has mentioned is protected by the First Modification … runs afoul of the First Modification. However since each Trump and Bondi assume they’re the neatest folks within the room, let’s entertain the logic in his dumb government order, issued on Monday, that may put folks in jail for desecrating the American flag.
Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi, proven in June.
Trump and Bondi aren’t going to prosecute flag burning as such. As a substitute, they may prosecute folks for desecrating the flag in the event that they resolve it’s prone to incite some extra imminent lawless motion, as a result of the Supreme Courtroom has by no means held that that’s protected. As if Bondi remembered for one second she is essentially the most highly effective lawyer within the nation, she slapped one quotation in right here to again this up—to the Supreme Courtroom case that dominated it was protected. Good luck determining what she’s making an attempt to say right here.
They will even prosecute folks for flag burning if it discriminates in opposition to Americans or violates their civil rights. It’s exhausting to maintain explaining to the legal professional common of america that protected First Modification expression can’t, by its nature, violate somebody’s civil rights. However hey, what about these immigrants who burn it, huh??
“American Flag burning is also used by groups of foreign nationals as a calculated act to intimidate and threaten violence against Americans because of their nationality and place of birth,” Trump’s order claimed.
See above and go learn the flag-burning case you learn in legislation college, Pam. In throwing out Texas’s legislation criminalizing flag burning, the Supreme Courtroom mainly informed folks to cease being such pussies:
We’re fortified in at this time’s conclusion by our conviction that forbidding legal punishment for conduct comparable to Johnson’s won’t endanger the particular function performed by our flag or the emotions it conjures up. To paraphrase Justice Holmes, we submit that no one can suppose that this one gesture of an unknown man will change our Nation’s perspective in the direction of its flag.
All of that is crimson meat for Trump’s base, but it surely’s additionally only a solution to assault immigrants. Per his order, “The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting within their respective authorities, shall deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, pursuant to Federal law … whenever there has been an appropriate determination that foreign nationals have engaged in American Flag-desecration activity under circumstances that permit the exercise of such remedies pursuant to Federal law.”
The Supreme Courtroom, proven in 2024.
What precisely is the definition of “American Flag-desecration activity” for which you might be rendered to jail? Who can say! However to be completely frank, we do know what it appears wish to disrespect the flag in a profound manner that wounds our nation as a complete: The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrectionists, who had been whipped right into a froth at Trump’s behest, used the American flag to assault legislation enforcement. Received your desecration proper right here, pal.
Irrespective of how Trump phrases it, he can’t create a legal explanation for motion out of skinny air. If conservatives need this so unhealthy, get Congress to move it and get your conservative buddies on the Supreme Courtroom to rule it constitutional.
Although the manager order tried to be vaguely crafted sufficient to indicate that they wouldn’t prosecute until the desecration violated another underlying legislation, Trump couldn’t even maintain it collectively in the course of the signing ceremony.
“You burn a flag, you get one year in jail,” he mentioned. “You don’t get 10 years. You don’t get one month. You get one year in jail. And it goes on your record, and you will see flag burning stopping immediately.”
If Bondi can illegally arrest and attempt to prosecute somebody by pretending this government order is a legislation, the administration may get fortunate. Not one of the Supreme Courtroom justices who determined the flag case stay on the bench. Who is aware of—with this crop of conservatives who consider the one speech that must be protected is something that offends their tiny conservative Christian eyeballs, Trump may need a shot.
