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The so-called "Anti weaponization fund" has been defeated due to public and internal backlash.
It was so unpopular that even Republican senators were furious and yelling at Blanche over it. According to Ted Cruz
But why did it die?
Republicans are willing to bow their heads to Trump on most things, but the same way defund the police was unpopular (because people like the police), senators really like the capitol police and don't approve of rewarding the cop beaters with money. Trump got away with the pardons, but actively awarding attacking the cops who protect them is a step too far from many.
It was also just really unpopular among voters. Just like the senators, voters don't approve of giving money to cop beaters. Not even many republican ones are supportive of that just because they did it in Trump's name. Of course it's also quite likely that many interpreted the question as a fund for victims of Trump's weaponization, such as James Comey whose lead prosecutor just stepped down or Jerome Powell but not all probably did.
As my own senator put it
Senators also felt that the deal was too blatantly corrupt and hard for them to defend with a straight face.
Either way, they've dropped it now and the fund is dead in the water. Interesting showcase of how many republican congressman haven't completely neutered themselves for the executive yet, they just mostly argue behind closed doors.
The general impression (however incorrect in this case) was that it would go in substantial part to Trump personally. Even GOP voters know that it’s precisely Trump who paints himself as an immensely rich and successful billionaire, so this is giving some very rich guy a lot more taxpayer money, which is hard for politicians to justify.
More generally, every government rewards its supporters, and there are far more under the table ways to do it than this kind of fund. Trump has already done so much of it through the crypto companies, expediting approvals for various Trump tech aligned businesses, endorsing or engaging in partnerships with startups that have his sons on the board etc. If he wants to reward his supporters, this is the way to do it.
The main strategic issue for the right isn’t making it more profitable to be on the right, it’s on making it more personally challenging to be on the left. He needs to much more aggressively steal from and prosecute and expropriate violent leftist activists, make their life hell the way the left did to the right in power. This has far better long term utility. Put people on no fly lists, have banks close their accounts, stop renewing passports and drivers’ licenses.
The Trump admin has been trying to do this, they're not even subtle. James Comey is the most blatant and unarguable example.
Ironically this exact argument is exactly what FIRE, the free speech organization that became famous when it fighting against progressive universities, warns of.
This is to them, a door that hasn't been opened yet that Trump is opening now and if you want to see what weaponization against conservatives could really look like, then just wait.
Hopefully we don't get 2028 Dem who is that vengeful and abusive, I would like for us to start shutting doors instead of continually opening new ones. But I will at least be glad to point out these "it's ok to do what you want against your enemies" arguments to people who seem to suddenly change their mind in three years.
Thankfully the Trump admin will fail here. And so will the 2028 vengeful Dem. But what a shame that everyone just wants to keep opening doors anyway, eventually we'll cross a threshold where society breaks down.
What are we talking about? This is James Comey, he did all this to Trump first. High-profile supporters of the President have already been through being put on the no-fly list, or had their clearances threatened or pulled, or had bullshit process investigations launched against them. Comey pioneered a lot of it! They spied on Trump's campaign! And the people who did it, like Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, got sue-and-settle sweetheart deals from FBI because oh the public controversy has hurt their reputations they deserve millions of dollars in reparations.
Comey even had to break laws to do it. He had to lie and cheat. They simply cannot get him because Washington refuses to allow it.
Everything you are decrying already happened! That barn left the door, the horse is wide open. If you want to complain about weaponization of the federal government for political views let's start with Michael Flynn. You can go first.
Imagine the following alternate timeline: Crossfire Hurricane is a public investigation that plays a prominent role in the news cycle for the entire summer of 2016, culminating in Comey's announcement a few weeks before the election that he is considering recommending charges. Trump loses the election. Meanwhile, the FBI has quietly been conducting an investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server and it only becomes public knowledge after a leak is published in the Weekly Standard on Halloween. Trump loses the election, and some on the right speculate that the FBI investigation played a major role in the loss. Would you consider Comey a Republican stooge in that scenario?
This is not antipodal to my position, which is not "Comey is a Democratic stooge".
Moreover it's completely different from what actually happened. Crossfire Hurricane was based on an underlying charge everybody involved knew was bogus. (Hillary did process classified emails on private computer servers.) Comey stonewalled the investigation and appointed friendlies to Hillary to its top positions. His boss, Loretta Lynch, famously crossed paths on the tarmac with Hillary and Bill to warn them about the investigation. The FBI closed the investigation and was only forced to reopen it when Republican senators found new evidence and submitted it to the FBI, forcing their hands. Finally, Comey famously gave a speech recommending that Hillary not be charged. At every point in fact he acted to minimize the damage to Hillary. (Or to maximize his own leverage and political power, which is not incompatible with etc.)
The opposite world James Comey hypothetical looks something like this:
A large and public investigation is opened into Hillary Clinton murdering and eating a child. James Comey privately assures President Clinton that he knows these allegations are not true, then tells Congressmen and Fox News that raping babies is a serious crime and the dignity of the Republic requires taking this seriously. He gets fired, but not until after the investigation gets launched and consumes two years of Hillary's Presidency. It ultimately concludes in a report that, although there is no proof that Hillary murdered or ate any children, she refused to cooperate with the investigation and so we can't be so sure that she's innocent. And we know that there are Chinese school exchange programs in New York and Washington DC and Hillary met with the Chinese schoolkids and the Chinese won't tell us what they know. Hillary is eventually impeached for threatening the Prime Minister, but during the proceedings everybody just debates whether President Clinton ate those babies or not. Hillary wins and it gradually comes out that James Comey and all his subordinates knew the entire time that everything about eating babies was totally made up and came straight from the Trump campaign via the Bolivian government. Oops!
Now Hillary tries to have James Comey prosecuted, but, you can't do that, you can't weaponize the Justice Department like that! Democrats will really regret politicizing the government to prosecute their enemies, which is something Republicans have never done before. We can't even really say that James Comey is a Trump guy. After all, during the 2016 Campaign, there was a large public investigation into how Trump shot and Killed someone on Fifth Avenue, something nobody denies he did. It's well known how James Comey undermined the Trump campaign by giving a big speech saying that what Trump did was a crime sure but not a big deal. Besides, James Comey is a registered Democrat, he was appointed by Democrats who hate Hillary, so for him to be doing all this it must be out of a deep devotion to duty. (Maybe Hillary and Bill got a divorce.) He investigated both sides. He's non-partisan. There's just no other explanation except that Hillary is a vengeful witch who is politicizing the government and destroying America.
I like to imagine that Hilldawg Democrats are really incensed about "Hillary Derangement Syndrome" and that Republicans, who just elected Timothy McVeigh to Congress, are complaining about how the Democrats have all become like Hitler and it was much better when Obama was around.
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FIRE is among the many, many, many organizations who lost their way and don't support what they say on the tin. Look at their tagline for that very article:
Do they think I'm an idiot? Do they think I haven't been paying attention? Did they forget the world they themselves have lived through?
I don't need to wait, because I've seen it for well over a decade at this point. I know exactly what it looks like when Democrats want to censor political opponents, and it looks like massive coordinated deplatforming from every institution or large conglomerate in the world.
What the fuck is FIRE thinking publishing this kind of dreck? They ought to know better, but then again, see my first sentence.
Thinking about the Obama administration: malicious tax audits of non-profits, Operation Choke Point debanking conspiracy and Citizens United outright censorship. So yeah I don't have to imagine very hard.
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Wait since when? It sounds like you are just pissy that they have principles. Meaning they defend free speech even when its a conservative in the executive.
Their archive has a ton of recent cases that do not cleave to a left vs right dichotomy but instead a free speech principled stance. https://www.fire.org/cases
Greg Lukiaoff the CEO has talked about this before and calls it "hypocrisy projection"
https://x.com/glukianoff/status/1784609444124316135
You see this constantly in replies to FIRE lawyers, people who have no idea what they are will go "You didn't say anything about X or Y" when no, FIRE definitely did do that. It's constant from all political directions.
People just fling out accusations of hypocrisy at them to cover up for their own hypocrisy.
Being a principled person is a fun life cause you'll have people telling you're biased and unfair in every direction you can imagine and there's just no convincing them. They don't want to be convinced, you can lead the horse to a river, dunk their head in and make them drink it and they'll spit it out!
You're actually correct on this one; that's some good theory of mind.
On this page, you have a bunch of people repeatedly asking you for evidence your positions; you consistently obfuscate, deflect, and pretend to misunderstand what they're saying.
I understand that it's flattering to cast yourself as a principled person, and anyone disagreeing with you is just terminally stupid.
Thing is, it's not actually true.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it would be great for accusers of MKC to post receipts along with their accusations. Right now it just seems like people are ganging up on him for no good reason.
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”Goal posts were packed up and moved to Sudan” is one of those lines you wish you’d remember to use the next time it’d be appropriate.
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Lmao if you keep agreeing with me and I with you, someone might call me your sockpuppet. Brb gotta go touch grass with my real life obligations.
But yes, very intuitive to what behavior is happening here.
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I didn't see this one in there.
So your stance is words are worth more than actions?
What about this one, this one, this one
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That article is a reprint and kept the tagline from the original. Lukianoff himself at least remains aware, though whether he still controls FIRE or it was skinsuited out from under him I don't know.
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Can you give a single example where FIRE took the pro censorship side?
They're a free speech organization in favor of free speech and they know one way that you convince people to support free speech is to get them to consider "what if it happens to me?". Would you want to have the government claim you threatened the next president for saying 86 48?
Here is an example of them aligning with Democratic interests to facilitate homelessness.
Just like the when the Sierra Club starts talking about immigration rights instead of saying that immigrants to the US are bad for the environment, when FIRE starts talking about homelessness I recognize it as Conquest's Second Law.
They lost their way on free speech by standing up for free speech?
Cause that's what they're doing
They're the free speech org, of course they're against government ordinance that suppresses unliked or unwanted speech.
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