Tag: wrongthink

Campus deplatformings hit record high

Campus deplatforming attempts have reached a disturbing new milestone. For the first time since FIRE began tracking these incidents, more than 200 attempts to prevent invited speakers from appearing on campus have been recorded in a single year — and 2026 still has nearly three months to go. The previous record, set just last year, has already been shattered. And the problem isn’t confined to one side of the political spectrum.

The attempts are being initiated by actors across the political spectrum — with attempts from the right of the expression exceeding attempts from the left both last year (116 to 64) and this year (96 to 74).

Recent incidents include:

  • Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology and founding director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University, accepted an invitation to deliver the keynote address at the U.S.-China Catholic Association’s 2026 conference at the University of St. Thomas. After Chinese government officials reportedly objected to Yang’s participation, citing his past criticism of the Chinese government, Yang withdrew from speaking at the conference.
  • The Chicago Thinker, a conservative student publication at the University of Chicago, reserved Breasted Hall through the university’s Turning Point USA chapter for a “fireside chat” with Tim Pool, host of Timcast IRL, and Jack Posobiec, a political activist and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer. According to the Thinker, the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC), which manages the venue, confirmed the booking on Aug. 30 but canceled it nine days later. ISAC told organizers by email that the event “might be, as the terminology goes ‘controversial,’” and would require heightened security. University administrators reversed this decision.
  • At Harvard University, the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance urged the Kennedy School to disinvite New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof after he wrote about claims of Israeli soldiers using dogs to rape Palestinian detainees. Harvard rejected the demand.
  • Turning Point USA scheduled a “Freedom Built to Last: Honoring Charlie Kirk” memorial at Utah Valley University, featuring a number of prominent conservative speakers. Students for a Democratic Society at UVU opposed the event honoring Kirk and his political legacy. The university declined to cancel the event, and it proceeded on Sept. 10.

This year, there have also been six attempts targeting Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, the most of any individual. These attempts failed at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Yale University, Cornell University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Piker’s invitation to speak at the University of Washington was revoked because, according to university officials “the planning process did not meet the required rigor for university-hosted Speaker Series events.”

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Democrats Just Cranked Their Government Weaponization Agenda Up to 11

If you could measure the Democrat Party’s appetite for weaponizing the government against Donald Trump, it’s always been at ten. They impeached him twice, and tried to put him in prison… multiple times. Well, they’ve they’ve cranked the dial to 11, and they’re no longer satisfied with going after Trump himself.

They want everyone who works for him, and may work for him, too.

And Trump knows it’s coming.

In an interview with Time earlier this month, the magazine asked Trump whether he’d consider pardoning administration officials if Democrats regain power and come after them. “Yeah, sure I’d do that,” Trump said. He pointed to former President Joe Biden, who handed out preemptive pardons in the final hours of his presidency.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) just made Trump’s case for him.

Speaking October 13 at the University of Chicago during a live taping of Vox’s America, Actually podcast with editorial director Astead Herndon, Slotkin laid out how Democrats plan to deal with Trump and the people who serve under him.

This should terrify anyone who values a free country.

“I want to look at these signature cases and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him,” Slotkin said in a 26-second clip of the exchange that began circulating Saturday. “I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration? Like that sounds fun. I might get an opportunity.'”

She kept going. “I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that,'” she continued. “I want that deterrence message sent.”

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DSA Congressional Candidate and State Rep. Chris Rabb Says He’s Against Incarceration — Except for ‘Lawless MAGA Thugs’

Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, a Democratic Socialists of America member running for Congress, told leftist podcaster Wajahat Ali this week that he opposes mass incarceration as morally wrong and bad policy, then stated that he wants to make an exception for locking up “lawless MAGA thugs.”

Rabb also used profanity while referring to supporters of President Donald Trump.

“I’m a decarceration person,” Rabb began.

“I believe the country that represents 5% of the world population but 25% of the people put in cages is morally wrong. It’s also bad policy, but I will make an exception for all of those f—ers who are lawless MAGA thugs, who have destroyed lives and communities. Lock all of those f-ckers up. I know that seems a little hypocritical of me being on the left and being anti-incarceration, but lock those f-ckers up.”

He immediately doubled down, saying, “I hope you all will forgive me in my, perhaps, weakness. It’s not vengefulness, but right is right. We should have a level playing field. If there are moms who are going to jail because they changed what school district they are in so that their kids could get a better education, and they get locked up, you better believe a Jared Kushner should be experiencing some jail time. So, if that makes me a conservative, gosh, but we need to send a message.”

Rabb also called for Congress to impeach and subpoena people “who are destroying what’s left of our fragile democracy.”

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ACTUAL FASCISM: Dem Senator Elissa Slotkin Wants to Scare Young People from Working for Trump Out of Fear of Prosecution

Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan recently appeared at the University of Chicago for the live taping of a liberal podcast.

At one point in the conversation, she described her preferred strategy of going after not only President Trump, but the people in his inner circle who ‘enabled’ him.

She then says that she wants young people coming out of college to be too afraid to work with his administration for fear of ‘a ton of problems.’

These are the people who are calling you a fascist.

Transcript:

I want to look at these signature cases, and not just focus on the president, but on the people who enabled him.

I want young people coming out of school to say, should I go work for the Trump administration? Like, that sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.

I want them to be like, Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.

I want that deterrence message sent.

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Bombshell Report: Big Banks Debanked ‘MAGA’ And The Left’s Other Political Enemies

The Timothy Two Project International’s mission is to do as the Apostle Paul instructed his protege Timothy: Teach others to teach the Gospel. TTPI has for more than 15 years reached indigenous pastors in some 70 countries — in some of the more impoverished places on Earth where there is little or no formal biblical and theological training available. 

In 2020, Bank of America canceled the nonprofit’s account, an account the Timothy Two Project had held since 2011. Suddenly, inexplicably, TTPI was “operating a business type we have chosen not to service,” according to the financial services titan. 

Steve Curtis, TTPI’s international director, explained in the Washington Examiner in 2023 that the notice came out of the blue. 

“We opened our Bank of America account in 2011, and used it to make small grants and pay our largely U.S.-based staff members. Our ministry focus has stayed consistent in whatever may qualify as a ‘business type’ since we started our bank account, and we are accredited with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability,” Curtis wrote. “So we were surprised and confused by the bank’s decision.”

Major financial institutes were “debanking” all manner of right-of-center individuals and organizations during the Biden years, a scary era of prosecution and persecution of the left’s political enemies. 

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and several other mammoth U.S. financial institutions cited “reputation risk” in denying service to American consumers between 2020 and 2025, according to a damning new report issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The 45-page report titled, “Debanked: Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” is an indictment on the left’s cancel culture fury and the Goliath banks that were “willing or unwitting accomplices” in the sweeping silencing treatment, said Jeremy Tedesco, special counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.

‘Now We Have the Goods’

ADF and other First Amendment defenders had for years warned of a growing debanking effort targeting “disfavored” organizations and industries — aka the left’s ideological enemies. Tedesco said critics scoffed. They said the red flag raisers “didn’t have the goods.” 

“Well now we have the goods,” the civil rights attorney says in an upcoming episode of The Federalist Radio Hour. “We have the biggest banking regulator in the U.S. government saying, ‘This is happening, and it’s happening at a wide scale at the biggest banks in the country.’”

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Dirty Jack Smith Had a Spreadsheet on Americans and Their Address Who Bought a Trump Hat Between 2021-2025

On Wednesday we learned that former Special Counsel Jack Smith collected information on 639,000 Republican voters and donors during his sprawling Arctic Frost investigation, according to documents released by Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The information collected included the donors’ physical home addresses, credit card information, occupations and donation amount.

Later today we learned Jack Smith’s illegal spying investigation included Trump supporters who bought MAGA hats!

If you bought a red MAGA hat you likely ended up on Jack Smith’s spreadsheet along with your address.

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Reconciliation propaganda in high school exposed by BC teen

A 16-year-old B.C. high school student says he is being denied the opportunity to return to class unless he removes his YouTube video called “Lies and Reconciliation,” which exposed some of the propaganda that was pushed on students during his school’s Truth and Reconciliation Day programming.

Isaac Simpson, a Grade 11 student enrolled in a Lower Mainland school’s film and television program, decided to put his filmmaking skills to use after growing frustrated with what he was being taught about Canada’s history, often unbeknownst to parents.

From a masked Black Lives Matter advocate telling students about truth, to another virtual speaker telling the youth to embrace discussions of “land back,” to a disturbing exaggerated illustration depicting Catholic nuns and an RCMP officer forcibly tearing Indigenous children from their mothers, Simpson’s video gives parents a rare look inside the classroom.

“I got really sick of all the indoctrination being pushed down students’ throats,” Simpson told me. “They were just telling you what to think, not how to think.”

But his decision to expose the material came at a cost.

After initially being suspended for what the school described as a period of “pause and reflection,” Simpson and his parents attended a meeting with school officials that the teen likened to an interrogation.

Simpson documented that experience in a second video posted to his YouTube channel, Isaac Simpson’s Flying Circus. Both videos have since been gaining attention online.

Now, Simpson says he has been told he cannot return to school unless the videos come down. He refuses to comply.

“I’m not taking it down because, you know, I stand by what I said,” Simpson explained.

I caught up with the young filmmaker to find out why it was important for him to expose what’s happening in his public school despite the risk.

For Simpson, the issue is bigger than his suspension. Currently, “parents have no way of figuring out what is being taught in schools,” he said.

I also spoke with his mother, former Global News director and current B.C. political commentator Anita Krishna, about the school’s response and what comes next.

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Jury Convicts Blogger After Ohio Senator Reports Crude Political Joke

An Ohio jury has found a blogger guilty of sending a crude, but clearly political joke to a state senator who had just dropped out of a Senate president race – and who chose to call the police instead of simply blocking the number.

All it took was for Senator Jerry Cirino to personally call the police chief in his hometown of Kirtland and ask that charges be filed against D.J. Byrnes, who writes under the pen name “The Rooster.”

The image that was sent to the senator depicted the cartoon ogre Shrek holding his genitals, and the accompanying text was a joke at the politician’s expense.

The judge who signed the arrest warrant had received campaign contributions from Cirino and had been endorsed by him.

Cirino also emailed the local police chief, saying he was “officially filing a complaint” and asking the police to “take appropriate actions” – and to make sure the “harassment” stops.

The Shrek image sent by Byrnes was described in the arrest affidavit as “fully nude with an exposed and erect humanlike penis engaged in an act of masturbation.”

Byrnes’ attorneys argued that the image, accompanied by a text that called Cirino “Young Mussolini,” was simply a political statement.

“The image made the exact same point he texted. Cirino had exposed himself,” said defense attorney William Livingston.

“One message and a meme and one reply, all about a single subject: the Senate race that Cirino had just lost,” Livingston said.

Another attorney, J. Michael Murray, told the court that the image of Shrek was meant to show that Cirino was “exposing himself, as he couldn’t win the presidency.”

Murray said that Byrnes, who was arrested in public at the Statehouse in June and held for 23 hours, “spent a night in jail because he offended a powerful politician.”

Prosecutor Matthew Lallo asked the jury: “Tell me how that is not a harassing message.”

Byrnes was found guilty and ordered to pay $200 in fines and court costs. His attorneys plan to appeal.

Cirino, meanwhile, maintained that he was not trying to stifle free speech, saying, “This was about protecting my rights as an individual.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said in June that the government “generally cannot punish people for saying things to or about public officials, even if some find the speech offensive, insulting or vulgar.”

FIRE also rejected the notion that the image of Shrek was obscene, saying it was “protected political mockery, not obscenity.”

FIRE’s advice to Cirino at the time was: “Block the number.”

The real punishment was the arrest, the night in jail, and the trial, all courtesy of a powerful politician who chose to “pursue” a critic instead of blocking them on his phone.

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Ohio Journalist Goes on Trial for Sending Picture of ‘Shrek’s Penis’ to GOP Lawmaker — Faces Up to Six Months in Prison

An Ohio political blogger will go on trial Thursday for allegedly sending a state lawmaker a picture of Shrek with an erect penis.

D.J. Byrnes, 39, publisher of the Ohio political newsletter The Rooster, has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor telecommunications harassment over the bizarre exchange with Republican State Sen. Jerry Cirino.

The saga began after Cirino gave up his bid to become president of the Ohio Senate.

Byrnes, a committed leftist who nicknamed Cirino the “Young Mussolini,” allegedly sent him a taunting message celebrating his political setback.

“Good to see you finally made your humiliation public, Young Mussolini. THE PATRIOTS CAUCUS sends its regards!!!!!!!!!!!” Byrnes wrote, according to court filings.

“I don’t know who this is but I am certain you are a moron,” Cirino responded.

Byrnes allegedly sent the senator a digitally altered image depicting the famous green ogre fully nude with an exposed and erect penis.

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New Report Confirms Biden’s DOJ Did Target Parents Who Spoke Out At School Board Meetings

The Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group released a report Monday concluding that former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4, 2021 school board memo grew out of pressure from the Biden White House and turned the department’s law enforcement powers on parents.

The report describes how DOJ officials under President Joe Biden looked for ways to bring federal cases against parents and protesters who addressed school boards and school officials during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also contains the Working Group’s formal acknowledgment that the prior administration’s actions “chilled the exercise of parental and free speech rights, parents who lawfully exercised their parental rights and freedom of speech were often targeted by members of the educational establishment.”

Garland addressed the memo to the FBI director, the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, the director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and U.S. attorneys nationwide. The memo told its recipients that “in recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence,” even though, according to the report, he had seen very little evidence of actual violence or violent threats against school administrators or at school board meetings when he signed it.

The Working Group traces the memo’s ideological origin to a letter the National School Boards Association sent to Biden on Sept. 29, 2021, five days before Garland acted. That letter asked the federal government to consider that “these heinous actions” “could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

Records cited in the report show that leadership at the Biden White House and the DOJ pressed for a memo that would locate a federal “hook” for prosecuting parents and charging protesters with federal crimes.

“Among the most egregious findings, exhibits show that individuals in the Biden White House and Attorney General Garland’s advisors wanted to involve federal law enforcement and prosecutors in matters involving parents and school boards,” a DOJ press release explains.

Further, the Memo established a task force to find federal enforcement options for investigating and prosecuting parents, and the FBI opened 25 “Guardian assessments” on parents. One FBI whistleblower disclosed that a mother was investigated because she “is a gun owner” and belonged to a “right-wing mom’s group.”

Internal communications and investigative records show that more than a dozen DOJ and FBI personnel raised concerns about the memo and its directive. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” one employee wrote. Another wrote that “they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.” Several of the objections centered on the law. One staffer warned that the directive was “challenging from a First Amendment perspective,” and another said it placed the department on “potentially dangerous ground.” Other employees focused on how the directive would reflect on the department. One wrote that the memo “look[s] political.” Another called it “a partisan exercise aimed at those who do not support the Administration,” and a third cautioned that it would “tarnish reputation as an apolitical law enforcer.” One described the effort as “very messy and political.” Shorter reactions in the record include “ridiculous,” “horrible,” and “confusing.”

Emails cited in the report show that Garland issued the memo over those objections and that White House officials influenced his decision.

The department announced a series of remedial steps alongside the findings. Parents and other school board meeting participants who became subjects or targets of a Guardian assessment because of the memo will have the opportunity to review their assessment. The FBI has closed or discontinued most of those files, and each one will now carry a disclaimer stating that the memo raised serious constitutional concerns and that readers should treat the assessment with caution.

The DOJ will also review the file of every person investigated under the memo. Where reviewers identify a constitutional violation, the department will issue a formal apology and adopt internal controls intended to prevent a recurrence.

Leaders of the DOJ and the Department of Education sent letters on parental rights to the attorneys general of all 50 states. The department said Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Trump administration have made securing parental and First Amendment rights a top priority.

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