Rick Wilson, Emily Atkin & Dennis Baron

free speech absolutists like one Elon Mush. But first we have the host of the Enemies List the Lincoln Projects, Rick Wilson. Welcome back to UH Fast Politics fan favorite. Rick Wilson. Good afternoon, Molly, Good afternoon, Jessin. How are you guys? Sunday? Well, we're going to talk about the only three topics there are in American life. Ellen Trump, Kanye go E, three men tied together, my face, drawn into a drawn into a matrix of narcissism, money, ego violence,

and anti Semitic craziness this spring. It's personally what I think is interesting about the three of them is so this weekend we learned that Twitter removed tweets of Hunter Biden's penis well, I've been told if you don't post Dick pics from Hunter Biden's ledged laptop for the arousal of the Maga Horde, that you're that you're violating the Constitution and the election should be rebooted, because obviously, because you violated the First Amendment, by the way, that's punishable

by death. In case you're wondering a violation of the First Amendment, treason, treason I've been told has bought seven six forty You told me, well, I've been told by a bot who appears to either be a Japanese anime character or a Russian supermodel, and in her or it's or his profile, it definitely says that they are one a to a maga Constitution patriot back the Blue. Jesus

is my Lord and Savior. That anyone who believes that the election did not swing on the single issue of whether Hunter Biden's Dick pics would appear on Twitter is a littard cut shill, Soros, World Economic Forum rifter pedophile.

Because you know, obviously there were so many millions of Americans who were looking and saying, well, you know, I guess we have a half a million dead people from COVID and a maniac for president who has been lavishly corrupt personally cruel is surrounded by Q and On conspiracy theories and insane people. But the real question is whether Hunter Biden's dick pics appear on Twitter. I don't know, listen. I have not sorted out individuals are actually around Elon

at all times now. But we know it's Jason, and we know it's David Sachs, and we know it's a few of these others. But there's got to be somebody, Molly, who is in the middle of this matrix, who has become like the Gateway pundit whisperer, right, there must be no, No, there's got of ache bag in this mix somewhere. And maybe it's Andy. No, Andy, Antifa isn't real. Repeat, Antifa is not real, right, Or maybe it's Pizza Jack or could be Mikey C. And I also smell a certain

funk of Greenwold about him. What I call the funk of Greenwold. It's a kind of it's a kind of dusky jungle scent from the Brazilian rainforest with poison. I think I think it's so interesting about this crew is they really think that the Hunter Biden laptop thing, which has by the way, no has not delivered for Republicans in nor in two So let's give it another shot in this will be the thing, this thing that no one gives a funk about, it is going to finally

be the thing that brings down the Biden administration. I just want to read to you from the brilliant Tim Miller piece in The Bulwark. It was fantastic. I just want to read the title first. Uh no, you do not have a constitutional right to post Hunter Biden's dick pics on Twitter. But my favorite was this comment from

here we Go. Right wing commentator Buck Sexton again real name, said this was a bright red line, bright red line violation, whatever that means, and Biden should be impeached for it. I want to point out that all of these links that were taken down were taken down well Biden was a candidate and Donald Trump was president. So technically, as I as I posted to Buck Sexton before he deleted that tweet, I wrote, calendars, how do they work? Because I really wanted to know, I mean, is there some

sort of Biden time machine we don't know about. Is there some sort of portal that he had with a wormhole to lead to the past or something. The thing that offends me the most about it, that I will never get tired of, is I actually am a constitutional conservative and believes the Constitution is the operating system of the United States, as flawed as it is. But these fuckers they don't believe in anything. It's like a constitutional constitutional rugs being valid, but a company. Wait a second,

hold on, what could you read that for me? Could you read that for me from the actual Constitution? Will know? What is that in the older the New Testament? I don't. I don't see it. You know, these fucking people they believe whatever convenience of the moment, whatever instantaneous thing arouses their ire or their or their dander, as my grandmother would say, for for the thirty seconds of attention they give it. That's the thing that's treason and it's unconstitutional.

And why are you not in get now? The storm is coming TMT dot org every fucking time you see these people like how dare you treat the life January six protesters so cruelly by putting people who can get in crimes in prison, weather Away. It's so awful, and it's like, well, I think that you you you hang out with Hollywood liberals. Therefore you're a pedophile. You should be burned alive right now in a cage. Okay? Cool? Yeah, Well you gotta have it one way or the other. Right.

I understand your system of jurisprudence is random and arbitrary, but does that really sounded the country want to live in? Okay? Now? Um, I just want to say that the thing that I'm baffled by is okay. So there's a large percentage of people slash bots, slash people, ish right something between people and bots that believe right that you should get the den right the death penalty, violating the First Amendment by not letting Hunter Biden's dick pick be posted on Twitter.

But here's my question for you. Elon Musk is not a human body he or not yet anyway. He is actually like a real, fully grown billionaire who's made zillions of dollars and is the CEO of two companies. What the fuck? Like? I get, like what happened to Matt Taibi? I get what happened to Glenn Greenwald, whoa hold the funk? Up and hold the funk up. Yes, I don't get

what happened to Matt Taibian clean Greenwald. Even if I got it, I wouldn't excuse it, Okay Taibi as apparently he's angling to be like head of calms for alt right, inc. Whatever the funk that whole business was, which was very selective, as we noted a lot more attention to the please remove the dick pics of Hunter Biden from the Biden campaign versus the incumbent president's campaign complaining about you know, why are you removing these people talking about I've mecton

or whatever the fucking was. But but let me look back on this for one second. The idea that this clack of people now surrounds Elon Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, for now that they have basically given him the right mind virus, that they're trying to use their their like broship with him to convert Twitter into a a weaponized element of the right wing media machine and to kill it off for everybody else. It's becoming incredibly obvious how committed they are to this, and that

how much of a sucker he is. I want to play cards with this fucking guy, because okay, dude, you're great at selling your rockets or your or your cars or whatever, and maybe you're pretty smart about some things, but they are playing him. I've come to believe that this guy is one of these people who's incredibly narrowly talented. And some people one time told me, like, the most weirdly talented people in the world are like opera singers. They have a specific skill that is a most unique

in the world. There are a dozen great opera singers in any given time, and most of them can't wipe their own ass. Most of them cannot like call a fucking cab. And the weird thing about Elon, I mean increasingly coming to believe is that there's a group of people around him who has decided to and somehow they got the vector into him, and now he believes, like he used to believe, that humanity needed to become a

space faring civilization. We need to build a complicated engineering structure of rockets that can do heavy lift to orbits so we can escape the Earth in case there's a giant tragedy. And okay, he was getting pretty good at that, but now they've convinced him that the world is run by shape shifting lizard alien pedophiles, and only Twitter posting Hunter Biden's dick pits can can save us because free speech.

And I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you the the the idea that the apotheosis of free speech is putting fucking Andrew Anglin and Richard Spencer back on the platform. Yeah,

that's fantastic. You know, I'm sorry, maybe there will be consequence to that, because every advertiser I and think of right now, they've been carefully monitoring the Twitter situation and they're like, man, I hope that Daily Stormer comes back on the platform, because that's going to really really convince us to put our brand dollars behind the same place we can get Richard Spencer and Andrew England content. My god,

can we just rename it chan. That'd be fantastic. I can't wait to not spend my brand's advertising dollars on that platform, right, I mean, think about all the money that goes into four chan and eight chan for advertising. People love Nazi content the best. Here's the thing, not even the fucking my pillow guy advertises on the chance, right, good point. And if you've lost if you've lost Mike Lindell. I do feel like there's a world in which Michael and Dell and you know, Ellen end up as comrades

and arms right, you know, I think that. I think the charming buddy picture that's going to emerge from this planes, trans and automobiles with the two of them, Mike and Ellen's big adventure, it would be like like platforms, rockets and brain chips, I mean misadventure. Well, yes, he's now across country people by rage and conspiracy theories. It's Lindell, you think Elon stays on the course here, or you think something crazy happens mad Toheebi te B Taibi continues

to release more Hunter Biden Dick picks. I mean, where does this go? Well, look, I think this is a guy who is so far in it now. You know, it's the old Hunter s. Thompson thing. Once you're into a serious drug drug habit, it's hard to you know, it's hard to know when to stop or whatever the phrases. I think he's so dug in on this now, and I think these people surrounding him have found just like Steve Bannon has some sort of weird like scab covered

charm for exotic four billionaires. These guys have figured out some way to play Elon's vanities or whatever I mean. For fox sake, Bro, you're in your fifties, stop being like the Peppie the Frog meme reply guy and starts acting like a serious person. He's not right now in a position I think where he can stop. Right, It does seem like he's not able to stop whatever it

is he's doing. Yeah, right, there's either a mental framework he's in where he can't stop, or these people have suckered him so thoroughly where he keeps thinking, Okay, well, I'll just pull the lever another time and hope that this time the food pellet comes out instead of the electro shock around my dick, because they've obviously conditioned him

in some way to believe that. You know, if you just do enough ship with the alt right, you'll somehow find a mysterious audience of people who are out there waiting to just surge into the platform with a billions of dollars and be an audience profile that becomes valuable to people who would advertise for billions of dollars. Right now, it's increasingly like, well, you know is four chan not racy enough for you? Will come on over to the bird. All right, we have to stop talking about Elon Moscos

who cares? We have to talk about the Constitution being paused? Who or taking it suspended? I'm sorry every fucking Republican in the country. And and by the way, let me give you reporters, because I'm not a reporter. I'm not a journalist. I'm just an asshole who makes TVs for a living and writes a couple of books here and there. Let's just help you guys out here. Let me give you the thirty second brief on how to do this.

You go up to Congressman so and so or Senator so and so or Governor Ron De Santis, and you say, do you agree with Donald J. Trump, former President of the United States, that the Constitution should be suspended? And blah blah blah blah blah. And they'll say, we'll let haven't seen the twee eats. I'm not not truth social. I don't know, but that seems like I don't know the whole context of that. And what you do then

is you pull your arm back across your chest. You take your right arm and pull it across your chest so your your right hand rest on your left shoulder. You flatten your hand down, and you slap the shift out of them across the face with the back of the hand archie, because that's what that's what it hurts the most. And you say, do you agree with Donald Trump the Constitution to be suspended because of because no one got to see Hunter Biden's dick picks, and reporters

won't do it. They won't fucking do it, And then they'll ask themselves someday like I don't understand what we're being put on this fucking real car. What I just both sides are a point to make. No, they are not both sides of a fucking lie. There are not

both sides of a sucking outrage. This is a moment where the leader of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump, who is the leader of the election field, who is the leader of the conservative for whatever that word means now movement in this country, right, they will not in the end say the magic words and hear the magic words. And I'll repeat these for Republicans if you're listening. I will not vote for Donald Trump in the primary or general election. I will not vote for Donald Trump in

the primary or general election. I Senator John bumble Fuck will not vote for Donald Trump in the primary or general election. If they did that, they would somehow crack open the tiniest little window of possibility that history will not view all of them as complete fucking dip shits. Really,

I think it's too late, hasn't that chip sailed? As I said, It's the tiniest possibility if they go out after they do that in like cure various childhood cancers, or to work amongst the poor and deserving for three decades. But most of them are doing what they always do. And this is a gigantic, colossal, ongoing failure of our national media. You that they've built a sort of behavioral pattern where they say like, well, I'm not untruth social I didn't see that, or or if he did that,

that would be these like triple nested conditional phrases. If he did that, and that was the full context of it, And I couldn't imagine what the situation would be where I could see anywhere but issuing a sternly awarded and deeply knitted brow criticism of him. I mean, come on, people, but It's a failure of America's media that they let them get away with it time and time and time and time and time again. They don't ask them the critical question because you know what, for all, I'll do

the mitch here. I'm gonna do the mitch for you already, Donna, We're gonna enter a somewhat what Colinria it's how rageous. But when he's the nominally of my party, I'm gonna have to overlook that. That's because that's that's that's the underpinning of all this bullshit. They will still not say that there's a line that Trump can cross that they won't bend and break for they cannot say it. They will not say it. They refuse to say it over and over and over and over again. And it's the

easiest goddamn thing in the world. Emily Atkin is the author of the newsletter Heated. Welcome Too Fast Politics, Emily, thanks for having me, glad to be here. Should we talk first about Elon Musk? I feel like that's what we have to talk about. We have to Okay, sure, let's do it. I'm sorry you write a newsletter called Heated, which focuses on climate um and is incredibly brilliant and amazing. And you have a piece in it called the Climate

Case against Elon Musk. What is the climate case against Elon Musk? Apparently it's just a piece to rile up all the Elon Musk fanboys again to personally bring myself of pain and suffering. That is, how dare you criticize? I too have been told that I am too stupid to understand the genius. And I'm used to this because a big part of what I consider my job as a climate reporter is to try and talk about the

role that billionaires play in fueling the climate crisis. And a lot of billionaires also happened to be the philanthropic in the climate change space, Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos. But Elon Musk, he's a whole in a whole different category because of Tesla, and because Tesla was really the first electric car company in the United States really take off, really like in the world, to to take off and prove that there is a viable market for electric cars.

There's an argument that many people make that he can do no wrong for the climate, and that he is the most important human being for the climate that he's done the most individually to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And I felt that one job as a climate reporter was to say, like, hold up, I don't know that that's true. I mean, of course you're wrong, because Elon Musk is the greatest genius ever. Well, and that's what I've learned that just in case those Internet people aren't right, explained

to us what you found. I do want to preface this by saying that I don't discount the positive climate impact of having a successful electric vehicle company like Tesla, right, Like that is hugely important to be developing these vehicles, right, But that's only one part of a large climate puzzle

that we're dealing with. And the way that we assess countries, the way that we assess corporations, is not in the one good thing they did, the one great thing they did, even I'm willing to entertain that idea, right, it is cumulatively. I try to make this point in my piece that if the United States shuts down coal plants, that's amazing, But if we also add twenty million cars to the road,

that's nothing. You've done nothing, right, So you can look at the impact of Tesla and perhaps subjectively come out to the conclusion that this is an incredible company for the climate. But Elon Musk is a human. How do we assess Elon Musk as a human? I think it's really tough to objectively make an assessment of one person because emissions are so complicated and they happen. There's emissions now, and then there's emissions in the future. Are you mad

at him about his jed, Well, Elon must have. Elon Musk lives on his JED. Okay, he takes it very short distances all the time. To be fair, I wasn't even considering his jet because among blie he actually has one of the lower climate footprints, which is still a much more massive footprint than say you or I have, or any like normal person has, But it's like less

than like Bill Gates's climate footprint. But anyway, so Tesla as a whole, sure it's good for the climate, But Elon Musk as a whole, I'm not sure that that's the case. Let's just take for one, his public advocacy

of putting Republicans in power. It doesn't make any sense that you could be the biggest climate hero of all time and advocate putting literal climate deniers whose only energy policy is more fossil fuels, and whose policy is to revoke the energy credits, the renewable energy credits that made Tesla successful in the first place. It doesn't make any sense number one, and number two, If what Elon Musk is advocating for happens, if Republicans do take power, then

all of the climate gains are going to be reversed. Right, And Elon Musk is hugely influential in American politics. He has a massive fan base, he has a lot of money. He can literally change the stock market with one tweet. His public advocacy of Rondis Santis of a Republican House and Senate. That matters, and it's going to continue to matter.

His whole siding with the political right, which is the party of climate denial and the party of fossil fuels, has the potential to completely wipe out his record with Tesla any positive emissions gains. And that's just one aspect of it. There's so many more aspects to Elon Musk's legacy that have the potential to be hugely problematic. Well, let's talk about bitcoin, because that seems like an important thing.

Explain into our listeners why the problem with bitcoin besides the fact that their evaluation that they have no value right now, yes right, bitcoins, besides being worthless, are are massively consequential to the environment because of the because of the greenhouse gas emissions. It takes the energy it takes to run the servers that do the mathematical equations that

mine a bitcoin. So as more and more bitcoins are mind, it takes more and more computers, more and more servers to run these equations to be able to get a bitcoin. And so you have warehouses full of these servers that are constantly on, constantly running these equations in mind bitcoin that are powered by coal powered electricity sources because people will buy these warehouses in countries where it's cheap to do it, and all of their power is coal fired power.

The energy cost of bitcoin is is enormous. It is comparable to trees, and it is continuing to rise. And one of the very passing points that I made in the piece was that Tesla, under Elon Musk decision making, bought wanting to have billion dollars in bitcoins without even thinking about the environmental consequences. It wasn't even until later when people were like, what are you doing? This is completely antithetical to your mission with Tesla that he said, Okay, well,

we're not gonna accept bitcoins for payments anymore. But we all know that Elon Musk is still a bitcoin bro right. This is in no way advocating against bitcoin. Bitcoin is a much bigger climate threat than people realize, right, right, right, because of the energy it uses, right. I mean, I guess bitcoin wouldn't be a huge problem if say all of it were mined using renewable energy sources. But number one,

that's not the case. And number two, we have a finite amount of space in the world to put renewable energy resources, and it's we're having enough problems as it is right now to you know, power our society with renewable energy. It's like taking renewable energy and using it to power more fossil fuel operations. It's like, why can we use it for the stuff we need to use it for. This is a literal climate crisis that we're in right now. We actually have to be really thoughtful

about all of our energy use. An Elon Musk is not thoughtful about this kind of stuff. What he's really thoughtful about is crafting his own image to be portrayed as somebody who is doing only good things for the planet, that his act of somehow enriching himself to be the literal richest person on earth is somehow a completely philanthropic endeavor. I have a really hard time believing that's true. Yeah, So talk to me about what else you're seeing in

the climate world. This is such a complicated and depressing beat.

What else are you seeing? Well, I think probably the most important thing right now that I think is happening is a hijacking of the overall climate conversation by the right and by fossil fuel interests to say that natural gas is clean energy, to say that carbon capture is a great solution that is going to save us all, and that we don't need to transition to on represent renewable energy, that we need this clean quote unquote clean

natural gas bridge fuel, which is completely scientific bologny, but it's very attractive and very pervasive because it seems really moderate, and I think people are in real need of some kind of sense of moderation, some kind of sense of calm, and the idea like Okay, we're tackling climate change, but we're doing it in this really moderate and reserved way where we can still have fossil fuels and still and go really slow and just and everything is going to

be fine, And I get the need for that. Unfortunately, natural gas isn't a clean fuel. It's a fossil fuel that leaks a ton of methane. Scientists overwhelmingly say that there can't be any new fossil fuel development by and that's in order for us to meet the threshold of warming that will keep it to safe levels. And natural gas is a fossil fuel, and so there's an overwhelming effort to try and after years of denial, right after

years are saying this isn't a problem. Well, okay, it is a problem, but we've got it under control, and we're gonna use natural gas and we're going to create new technologies that capture carbon out of the sky and bury it underground and everything is to be Okay. That sounds great, but it's not true, and it's just go And I think it's one of the most pervasive forms

of disinformation happening right now. That the reason that I bring it up is because I think it's something that all political reporters and people interested in politics need to be armed with that kind of knowledge, that that is disinformation and it is to try to make you feel better, right when it actually makes the situation much much worth I mean, are you seeing it seems like one of the pieces you've written is about this sort of that there are a lot of these climate newsletters that are

sponsored by X or Chevron, and that that is a real conflict. We talked about that a little bit, right. I mean, having a climate change news outlet of any kind sponsored by Chevron or Axon is like having a newsletter on gun violence and crime and match you to sponsored by the gun industry. It doesn't make any sense, and it's also insulting to the victims of the crisis that you're covering. Again, I think this is something that news editors will do because they believe it makes them

seem objective. But it's it's not biased to say that fossil fuels cause the climate crisis. It is objective to say that they do, and we probably shouldn't be advertising for fossil fuels in our climate change newsletter. And that's besides the fact that these ads from fossil fuel companies tend to contain misinformation about climate change. They say things like we're working towards climate solutions and everything is cool. And that is how well documented pr attempt to convince

you that everything is fine when it's not. We call it in this space delayism. Right, there's denialism and then there's delayism. And that's what I think is like the biggest story moving forward is this coordinated to delay solutions to climate change, to placate people into not wanting to

call for the solutions that scientists say are necessary. Right, They want you to call for the solutions that fossil fuel companies say are necessary, and that is always going to be the solution that makes the most money for fossil fuel companies. Thank you so much, Emily, This was great. Please come back. Thank you for having man. I always really appreciate it. Dennis Barron is the author of You Can't Always Say What You Want and a professor of

English a University of Illinois. Urbana Champagne, Welcome to Fast Politics, Danni's I I'm glad to be here, Molly, So I want to talk to you about your book Free Speeches like the Hot topic right now, explain to me your thesis, Um, this book? Okay. Basically, what I try to do in a lot of my work is to take something that's the current issue or problem and look at the history behind it, because usually it doesn't come out of nowhere.

There's usually some something we could learn from the past that will help us maybe understand the present a little bit,

or at least that's my that's my hope. And so what I am looking at are the various attempts in our past in the US, with some examples from other countries as well, of the legal attempts to regulate, control, limit, and in some cases support freedom of speech, freedom of expression, How the legal system has interpreted the First Amendment in the past, and how that applies to the present, what

kinds of issues there are in the present. It's it's obviously become very explosive in the last few months, the last couple of years, with all sorts of ideas about what free speech is or isn't and my speech is free and your speech needs to be shut down kind of stuff going on? Is this new? Not really? Not really? Of free speech has always been used as a way to kind of steer people in approve directions and keep them quiet if they stray from from those kinds of

more kosher ways of communicating. You may have heard of this man, Elon Musk. I have heard of Mr Musk. Yeah, he considers himself to be the first person to ever have fought for free speech. He is a free speech absolutist. Help me out here. Explain to me do you think that that is a reasonable supposition? And do you think that there is a place for free speech absolutist? Do you? I mean, where do you fall in this world? I'm taking a linguistic approach regardless of what I think about

Mr Musk. If we have to take the New York Times way of referring to people with these honorifics, you scratch your free speech absolutist. You find somebody who wants to protect their own speech and limit yours. That is a pretty incredible line. Can you say more on that? Sure, people have been in the last few years and certainly last few months, people on the on the extreme right and maybe even the not so extreme right in the US, probably in other places as well, have been wrapping themselves

in the notion of free speech. Whether it's the First Amendment or just a sort of general feel good free

speech thing. You can say what you want, you can't stop me from talking in order and that they're wrapping themselves in the First Amendment free speech protection in order to silence everybody who disagrees with them, And that is like totally bizarre, but maybe not so surprising because speech is a given take between people who don't necessarily agree with one another, and so they weaponizing free speech should not be particularly surprising. Uh in the past. Uh well, okay,

let's get back to the present for a second. What we're seeing is a combination of individual free speech in terms of organizations like Twitter or Facebook or or social media in general, or the media in general having limits of what can be said on their platforms and whether those limits should be, how they should be defined, how they should be enforced. And on the other hand, you have the sort of legal limits on speech. What what speech is actually lawful? What speech is not protected by

the First Amendment. So, in terms of our legal history, currently hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. What is not protected are things like obscene speech or threats or incitement to riot or defamation. All of those are considered to be outside the protections that governmental protections of speech, but only in terms of what the government can and cannot do what private groups like companies, social groups, schools, clubs, families in terms of encouraging and limiting the speech of

people who speak in those groups. That's a whole separate issue. And these social groups all said sometimes very precise limits of what you can and cannot say. If you swear and you're a child, you might have to put a nickel in the swear jar. Okay, there's an example of how families try to control speech. It seems not to have worked, because there are still people who swear. That's maybe not the best way of social group trying to

place it. The thing I'm noticed is like I come from this family where I have these you know, my mother was Eric Jong, is Erica Jong. My grandfather was Howard Fast. Both were censored, right, My grandfather was blacklisted. My mother's work wasn't published in places like you know that she had. You know, there were different countries that even parts of Italy, southern Italy, they censored her work. But largely I have had almost no censorship in my life.

I mean, certainly there are times when you can't get something published or whatever. But that's not censorship. So is Elon Musk actually being censored? Is he being censored? No, these free speech absolutists are not actually being censored. No, No, they're not being censored. He likes speech so much he bought the company. That's maybe not the best slogan to use. But what he's doing with the company is not clear

to anybody. It's kind of chaotic at the moment. But what seems to be going on is letting people who have previously violated the Twitter terms of service back onto the platform and kicking other people off the platform who maybe are not violating the terms of service but have simply said, oh, I don't like what Elon Musk is doing or who for a variety of reasons. I mean, there are charges the other day that he's kicking off

pro Jewish accounts and supporting anti Semitic accounts. I I don't know, you know, to what extent is accurate, but that's the kind of thing that you're reading in the Washington Post in the New York Times. So the idea is he seems to be stacking Twitter in terms of support of right wing speech and speech of people that he probably agrees with, and away from kinds of speech that he disagrees with. So how that's absolute is is not. He's putting a thumb on the scale of speech. That's

not free speech. That's not the marketplace of ideas. Of course, the marketplace of ideas was always rigged because those who are in power control the market. I just want to uh, sort of dive into this a little more. Are you seeing any places where people are not able to have free speech? I mean, I feel like this is a it's a solution without a problem. Okay. Yeah, And if you're talking about the US, not really, there's this cancel

culture screaming on on the part of the right. Is all a kind of moral panic that it is pretty fictionalized. Nobody has the constitutional right to give a speech to the college. Nobody has the constitutional right to publish an opinion essay in the Times of the Post. No one has a constitutional right to have a Twitter or a Facebook account. These are things that get negotiated in in the marketplace of ideas, if you will. Twitter can decide who to suspend and who to let on the platform.

Facebook can, Instagram can the new York Times decides who it publishes. Traditional publishers decide whose book gets published, whose book never sees print. There's nothing unusual about that. What's nice about the Internet is that pretty much anybody who wants a voice can have a voice on it. You can you can find people to read your words, even

if you don't have a Twitter account. Just put something online and somebody someone or is going to say, oh, I like your picture of a cat, or or I agree that minorities are trying to replace all of us. But doesn't mean you're right. Right? Do you think that cancel culture really exists? And if so, why does it not and why editorial writers keep writing about it. They want eye bowls on their site, they want clicks. It's like that again, another stupid solution for a non problem.

I mean, certainly there are people who innocent people get charged with crimes and things like that. But I don't think that cancel culture is the greatest danger facing your everyday American. It is absolutely not a danger at all. If somebody has a controversial opinion and they're saying it in public, they are opening themselves up to critics who disagree with them. That's the given take of speech. The First Amendment. Free speech never immunizes you against the impact

of what you say. The law is pretty broad allowing First Amendment rights. I mean, there's been a lot of talk about the idea of like, is there a place for sort of like you know, in illegality, for crying fire in in a crowded theater. Is there a place for that? Is there a sort of way around the First Amendment there? I mean, it doesn't seem like there is, but there certainly is some anxiety about that. Okay, So the issue with crying fire, it's falsely crying fire in

a crowded theater. If you cried fire and there is a fire, of course, then your speeches. Okay, people will still get trampled on their way out. That still doesn't mean that the exit doors haven't been barred shut and things like that. But in the past, of course, there were a number of very well known examples of audience

panics in theaters and people getting crushed. And it turns out that there was no actual fire and and it's a legal hypothetical that was established by the Supreme Court in its decision in the United States Fishink in nine that there are certain kinds of speech that no one would argue that the First Amendment protects that sort of thing.

Other kinds of speech that are not protected. I mentioned before obscenity, threats, incitement, fighting words, anything that brings imminent lawless action in terms of the most recent characterization by the Supreme Court, which is why you know, the whole issue of you know, to what extent is Trump responsible for inciting January six rioting? Is that protected political speech or is that incitement to riot which is not protected at all? And of course I'm leaning towards thinking of

that as incitement. So let's just get back to this idea. So where does this go, this sort of free speech war and all of this anxiety that's harder to predict. I mean, I don't want to engage in futurology because it's a full scame. But right now there are lots of attempts by conservative legislatures, by conservative politicians in other countries to limit speech under the guise of protecting speech. And then that seems to me just basically wrong. And if that's what we have to look forward to in

the near term, that's what we have to resist. That's what we have to fight against because the voices of those who have been traditionally less powerful, who have traditionally had less of a platform, those are the voices that need protection, that need inclusion. At The founders who drafted something like the First Amendment would want to protect against the kind of tyranny of the majority, as they framed it. These rules are there to protect the little people, to

protect those who whose voices have historically been limited. So interesting. Thank you so much for joining us, Thank you, thank you so much. Molly Rick Wilson. Yes, you are a special guest star for the moment of gray. You'll remember it from another podcast that shall not be named that neither of us work on anymore where we used to college. I'm going to start a new podcast called Podcasts of the Damned. I mean, that's really real. Real, Invite me on, man,

I will instead. We now have stolen that idea, and now we have our moment of gray, which is suspicious, like it's been a long weekend, Rip Wilson, who gets your ire today? Oh my infinite ire is as as always reserved from Mr Constitution Shredder. It is this mysterious clack of people around musk and I think this is a reporting failure so far, and maybe it's out there more than I found, but I haven't really found it. I mean, Kara Swisher has kind of touched on some

of these people who they are. But I think it is really important that the behavior of Musk at Twitter is not just Elon Musk sitting in a room with an anime WIFEO pillow, you know, and caffeine free diet coke and a sex toy. This is something going on broader than this. There are more people involved in this that r Steve Bennet says a great Tuesday night, But there are more people involved in shaping his behavior and what's going on than have been reported. And I think

that is the biggest story underpinning all of this. This isn't coming out of nowhere. This isn't something random. They got around the sky and they sucked up to him and they made him feel like, you know, you can be the hero of the of the right, Elon, you can be a free speech liptard are killing Cuxlayan bro you know, hello friend, as they say, And I think

that is a story that is being missed. I think that that's what I'm really pissed at is that this is not being this is being reported on the static and the spectacle and not on the signal and the substance. I agree heartily. I also, so you want to hear who my I would love to since we can't call it that. Oh my moment of fuckery because trademarked right exactly and every time we say we have to pay the Beatles four. Today my moment of fuckory is watching

Marjorie Taylor Green. You may remember her as being the you mean, the speaker, Speaker designate, Marjore Taylor Green, the Speaker of the House, Marjorie Taylor Green, margin of Christmas Day parade to confusion, and I mean they certainly know who she is. There's a little video for marching behind her suv down at Christmas Parade. I mean, I guess

it's good that she's around her constituents for constituents. She's absolutely waving, wearing a little red coat, marching behind an suv that says Marjorie Taylor Green and has a little reef on it. She looks very emphatic. The crowd looks very confused. None of them are waving back at her. Actually, I see one woman waving back at her. So for that the leader of the Internet, intellectual dark web. That

is my moment. Effect Ray. You know when the Shapiro Green Institute of the eventually it will truly transform the American character and frankly universities will establish in hire departments for green studies. It's going to be Thank you, Rick Wilson, please come back. You are very welcome. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes

sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.