Donald Trump takes cue from Joe Biden: Labels free speech domestic terrorism
Taking a cue from Joe Biden, Donald Trump is waging war against “domestic terrorism” via a memo recently released by Attorney General Pam Bondi ordering the FBI to comprise a list of “extremist” Americans found to be exercising their free speech rights to criticize him and his policies.
And to show just how serious he is about this, Trump will be offering special funding programs bribes to states willing to help him and his flunkies in the FBI and DOJ round them up (via KenKlippenstein.com):
Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” according to a Justice Department memo published here exclusively.
The target is those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.”
In addition to compiling a list of undesirables, Bondi directs the FBI to enhance the capabilities (and publicity) of its tipline in order to more aggressively solicit tips from the American public on, well, other Americans. To that end, Bondi also directs the FBI to establish “a cash reward system” for information leading to identification and arrest of leadership figures within these purported domestic terrorist organizations. (The memo later instructs the FBI to “establish cooperators to provide information and eventually testify against other members” of the groups.)
The payouts don’t end there. Justice Department grants are now to prioritize funding to programs for state and local law enforcement to go after domestic terrorism.
The memo also directs the FBI and JTTFs [Joint Terrorism Task Forces] to retroactively investigate incidents going back five years, authorizing the JTTFs in particular to use everything at their disposal to do so. (Emphasis mine)
Bondi’s memo goes down the punch list of so-called indicators of terrorism identified by President Trump in his National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) directive, which Bondi says her memo is intended to implement. NSPM-7 was essentially a declaration of war on just about anyone who isn’t MAGA following Charlie Kirk’s assassination (his death is explicitly mentioned in the memorandum), but Bondi’s memo to the FBI appears to be the plan for how Trump will wage it.
When I mentioned that Trump was taking his cue from Biden by labeling free speech an act of domestic terrorism, it’s because that’s exactly what happened. I hope you can see the similarities.
In August 2021, Biden and his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a terrorism threat advisory designed to silence the dissenting voices of people exercising their God-given, constitutionally protected right to free speech to protest government. Calling the “terrorists” on their list pushers of “anti-government rhetoric” — including “opposition to COVID measures” — DHS admitted at the time that its advisory wasn’t based on any actual terrorism threats or plots but decided to issue it ahead of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and the “upcoming holidays” as a kind of heads up.
So, just what did the DHS base its list of domestic terrorism threats on? You guessed it. It was everyday Americans exercising their God-given right to free speech (via YAHOO News)
It cited increased use of “online forums to influence and spread violent extremist narratives and promote violent activity.”
The new advisory updated a January alert following the attack on the US Congress by supporters of then-president Donald Trump, when DHS said the country faced “increasingly complex and volatile” threats from anti-government and racially motivated extremists, often stirred up by online influence from abroad.
The bulletin had already been amended in May, with DHS warning violent extremists could exploit the easing of Covid-19 restrictions to conduct attacks.
“Extremists may seek to exploit the emergence of Covid-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the United States as a rationale to conduct attacks,” the DHS advisory said, adding that “pandemic-related stressors… may contribute to more violence this year.”
The advisory, which expires on November 11, also noted that in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), had put out an English-language version of its propaganda “Inspire” magazine for the first time in over four years.
This “demonstrates that foreign terrorist organizations continue efforts to inspire US-based individuals susceptible to violent extremist influences,” DHS said. (emphasis mine)
I don’t want you to miss this: Biden’s DHS lumped users of online forums, people who disagree with COVID restrictions, and Al-Qaeda into one, big, all-encompassing category. This meant that in the eyes of Joe Biden, exercising your free speech right to protest masks and vaccine mandates and/or using social media to do so means you’re no different than the terrorism we witnessed on 9/11.
“Domestic terrorism — driven by hate, bigotry and other forms of extremism — is a stain on the soul of America,” Biden once said in a statement. “It goes against everything our country strives for, and it poses a direct challenge to our national security, democracy and unity.”
Biden’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism added thousands of prosecutors and other law enforcement officials to the government payroll, including key personnel additions in the DOJ and DHS. One of the main focuses of his plan is to improve the sharing of information across federal agencies to track domestic terrorism. Calling Elon Musk and DOGE.
Another area where Trump is taking a cue from Biden on the so-called domestic terrorism front is finding new ways to share information between government agencies by increasing the focus on “open source” information and “augmenting information-sharing the government does with tech companies” — a partnership that already existed under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.
By the way, for those who plan to send me nasty messages or threats, I’m not discounting domestic terrorism. I’m simply pointing out how the anti-terrorism agenda promoted by Joe Biden and Donald Trump is clearly aimed at people guilty of nothing more than disagreeing with government tyranny and exercising their free speech right to say so.
By the way… Before Biden, blaming terrorism on white Americans while ignoring radical Islam was big business during the Obama presidency, and in the latter part of his second term, his pro-Muslim/anti-American sympathies made being “anti-Muslim” a justifiable reason to deny someone their constitutional rights. How is this any different from today with Americans being labeled domestic terrorists for doing nothing more than expressing their objections to the policies and practices of one Donald Trump?
Calling the actions of liberty-loving Americans opposed to his policies domestic terrorism was a policy launched by Joe Biden, and Trump is taking a cue from his predecessor to take things up a notch by silencing the voices of those who oppose him and labeling free speech an act of terrorism.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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