State Department Revokes Visas Of Foreigners Who Refused To Pretend Charlie Kirk Is Worth Mourning
from the ministry-of-love-goes-after-more-wrongthink dept
The Party of Free Speech Snowflakes is at it again. Despite Charlie Kirk not actually being a member of the administration or, indeed, a political leader of any sort, the Trump Administration continues to act as though one of its own has been assassinated, rather than just another podcaster who happened to be more popular (for all the wrong reasons) than most.
The State Department has made a big deal in recent months about refusing/stripping visas over what’s normally considered to be protected speech in the United States. That’s because it’s headed by DEI hire Marco Rubio, who is prized not only for his ability to follow orders but his willingness to sit and not speak unless spoken to during diplomatic summit meetings.
Rubio — and his deputy Christopher Landau — are the gatekeepers of the Nazi Bar that is America. And if you can’t be bothered to cry your eyes out for a guy who’d never shed a tear for you, you’re not allowed to hang out in a country where you’ll probably just end up arrested during another untargeted ICE sweep.
Donald Trump’s US state department said on Tuesday it had revoked the visas of six foreigners over social media comments made about the assassination of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk.
“The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” the state department said in a statement posted on X. “The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
The state department then listed six “examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the US” in a thread on the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, the Trump donor who called himself “a free speech absolutist” before buying the site formerly known as Twitter.
If you can stomach it, the X thread contains a list of supposed offenders of this brand new rule about temporarily residing in the United States. As is to be expected, those singled out for their refusal to treat Kirk’s death with the respect it doesn’t deserve are from countries this bigoted administration considers to be unworthy of rights or basic human respect, like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Paraguay. Somehow, a couple of social media posts from people in Germany and South Africa make it into the mix.
This is the end result of a witch hunt deliberately started by the deputy secretary of the State Department:
Last month, a deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, urged social media users to send him posts critical of Kirk, saying he was “disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action”.
And there it is: the party that thinks free speech should only protect their hatefulness towards others, but should never be extended to speech it doesn’t like. While Charlie Kirk may have occasionally provided advisor-esque input to the Trump administration, he was never a politician nor a member of Trump’s cabinet. To elevate him posthumously into Someone Who Cannot Be Criticized is fucking disgusting. He was just another white dude with a bunch of biases who was blessed enough to make a bunch of money by taking advantage of the Trump administration’s embrace of white Christian nationalism ideals.
A person’s temporary residency in another country should never be based on whether or not they agree with the current government’s ideals nor the internet randos the government has decided are more equal than the rest of us. America was built on dissent. Now, it’s being destroyed by someone who seems to think he’s the second coming of King George.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, charlie kirk, christopher landau, donald trump, free speech, marco rubio, protected speech, state department, travel visas, trump administration
Comments on “State Department Revokes Visas Of Foreigners Who Refused To Pretend Charlie Kirk Is Worth Mourning”
Hey, hey, Kirk was more than just some podcaster, he was the the racist frontman for a billionaire funded astroturf group designed to attack higher education and drive anyone left of center out of teaching, a shitbag who kept a hitlist of professors he was looking to silence in the name of free speech. A man who was handed millions to be a youthful face on age old attacks higher education despite never having gone further in his education than community college. He’s a guy handpicked by the republican party for elderly racists to form a parasocial relationship with, and waste their money on, because their kids no longer visit and their grandkids are known only through photos on facebook as they used the N word one too many times in front of them at a family gathering.
I’m not american, I have zero plans to go there, I can say whatever I like about the tiny faced bigot.
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Re: Comrade
I can tell you are not an American and if that is the way you feel, then please stay where you are. We have enough unhinged communists here already.
Re: Re:
Him saying that he isn’t American was apparently not entirely clear enough for you, so what gave it away?
Him saying that he has zero plans going to America was apparently not entirely clear enough for you, so what gave it away?
From the looks of it, the number of idiots using the word communist divided by the number of actual unhinged communists is infinity.
Re: Re:
Hi, I’m a born-and-raised American who has lived in the South all his life.
FUCK CHARLIE KIRK.
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American here. Born, raised, and cornfed in the Midwest. Charlie Kirk was the mouthpiece for the modern Hitler Youth, and you’re a piece of shit fascist who couldn’t define “communism” if your life depended on it.
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I am an American and we need far more people like bloof.
Murder is wrong, but when Charlie Kirk was murdered, nothing of value was lost.
Re: Re:
I’m American.
When Charlie Kirk was killed, nothing of value was lost.
Fuck him, his family, and especially you.
Re: Re:
Bob Dylan wrote you a song back in ’63.
Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues
“Looked behind the cloths, behind the chair
Lookin’ for them Reds everywhere
I looked way up my chimney hole
Even looked deep inside my toilet bowl
They got away”
Charlie Kirk, podcaster, mouthpiece for the modern Hitler Youth. You will be missed by Nazis and mouth breathers. Some of them, I assume, are good people. RIP.
Charlie who?
And for what? Why does Marco Rubio do it? I realize that I’ve posted comments like this half a dozen times already but really, really, why? Rubio has already been publicly castrated by his boss. He cannot aspire to any higher office. He has less to do on the job than Kamala Harris had going on during the Biden years and mainly seems to be confined to trying to mop up the mess whenever Trump shits the foreign relations bed with a diarrhetic 2am twitter post.
He’s despised by the MAGA right for his previous life as an establishment Republican. He has zero future with that constituency. He’s reviled by the exiled actual-conservative constituency for being a gutless fascist sellout. His own Cuban-American Floridian base will never vote for him again because of his disgusting treatment of immigrants.
Why does he do it? Is he part of the dwindling camp that still believes he can blunt the damage Trump does to America better from within the system? If so, why is he so manically trying to do the Donald’s worst bidding? Why is he so desperate for the approval of a man who publicly derides and belittles him?
It just makes no sense.
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Because he’s looking to have a career after politics, sucking all the toes in the hopes he will get a board seat at Facebook, Fox or some conservative thinktank for being a good little boy. The Trump base don’t have to like him, Trump doesn’t even have to like him, as long as he has the right connections, there’s a seat for him on the gravy train.
Re: Re:
Rubio can basically go “fuck Trump” after both he and Trump are out of office, since Trump will no longer have the power to go after him and a not-zero number of Republicans will want to move past Trump’s bullshit. Whether MAGA adherents give a damn is largely irrelevant so long as some right-wing billionaire decides to pay Rubio’s bills for the rest of his life in exchange for pushing the Overton Window further away from “eat the rich”.
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If billionaires are out there right now handing out lifelong gravy trains to push the overton window in that direction someone should tell them it isn’t working.
Re: Re: Re:2
It’s working well enough that Trump is in the White House.
Re: Re: Re:3
Again. After what happened the first time.
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Hey look… the Chewbacca defense.
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Because he has no soul. He does what he is told by the party, and the party commands him to do this, and so he does. I very much doubt the possibility of getting out has even entered his mind.
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I mean, “why did he take a cabinet position if he has no chance of ever holding elected office again?” kinda seems like a question that answers itself…?
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Does it though? Does he have terminal cancer? Is he planning to die before 2028? Who in the White House right now isn’t painfully aware that unless Trump goes full Fuhrer they’ll all be in jail by February 2029 and if he does go full Fuhrer their odds of survival directly correlate to how much Trump loves them (up until the moment he doesn’t anyway)?
It’s like hiding from the leopards by placing your head between their teeth because all the “good” hiding spots are already taken. Is he that stupid? I struggle to believe that he is. I keep expecting every day to find out it was either blackmail or a weird sex thing.
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My dude the last time Trump left office he tried to have Congress murdered and the only people in his administration who went to jail were two guys who ignored congressional subpoenas. Sometimes I wonder if you’re really this dumb or if you’re engaged in some kind of propaganda effort.
Re: Re: Re:2
And some of those people in the White House right now were hiding for fear of their lives that day. That’s what makes it so inscrutable! His goon squad literally tried to kill them the first time. Now they are crawling over each other to out-goose-step each other right into another such situation. On a surface level, it looks like massive collective amnesia and manic insanity.
If I’m a propaganda agent I’m a damn bad one since even I can’t figure out what “cause” I’d support these days. If there’s something I’d want other people to believe in, it’s that honor, integrity, the rule of law, peace, democracy, and civil rights are all things worth demanding. They are all non-negotiable. It’s not a matter of bargaining which of them you are willing to trade away in order to get the rest. The entire collection of them is the bare essential minimum for holding public office in this country. It’s all or nothing.
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It’s really, really costly signalling. So deep in he can’t stop even when no one cares about him regardless what he signals. And sometimes evil people just can’t stop being evil; it’s for their own satisfaction as well.
Charlie Kirk was a sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigot. There, now can I be deported too?
“Four legs good, two legs of racist white man better.”
-Rubio probably.
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Give me a break
A “true threat” is a legal standard used to define when threatening language is not protected by the First Amendment. If the statements fell under that category, it is a crime in itself.
Federal laws come into play under more specific conditions. A primary basis for federal jurisdiction is when a threat is transmitted across state or international borders using any form of communication. Under 18 U.S.C. § 875, it is a federal crime to transmit a communication in interstate commerce containing a threat to injure another person.
There also higher standards of conduct and a lower level of rights attached to a Visa. The State Department can revoke a visa if they have cause.
Tech Dirt needs to concentrate on reporting on technology vice being a platform for left wing ideology.
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Go fucking die you fucking nazi.
Hope your kids starve to death you racist.
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The dude is dead, it’s kind of hard saying anything that could threaten him at this point.
Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to offer up such a fucking piss-poor excuse of a misdirection to what’s actually going on?
And I have to ask but I don’t have high hopes for you actually providing a coherent answer, what left wing ideology? Here, let me help you: “You said something I dislike and it threatens my echo-chamber! Stop doing that and ignore all the shit going on!”
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Yeah, so…
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None of those statements meet the “true threat” test –signed an expert witness in a federal case that revolved around whether or not statements made on social media constitute a “true threat” in which the defendant was acquitted, in part, thanks to my testimony.
True threats are a VERY high standard. See:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2011/07/19/09-50529.pdf
We’ve never been leftwing. We don’t post based on ideology. We post based on truth. I’m sorry you can’t understand that.
And you don’t own us, so fuck off telling us what to write or what to concentrate.
Charlie who?
'If they don't like Kirk then they don't like us, deport them!'
I feel you may be overthinking this, they’re not idolizing Kirk they’re weaponizing him, using him as a lightning rod to spot targets to silence and/or deport because someone who doesn’t like Kirk likely isn’t too fond of the regime either.
Re:
They’re also trying to use him as a rallying cry, their Reichstag fire or 9/11.
The problem is that most people didn’t know or care who Charlie Kirk was, and the GOP, Kirk himself very much included, has spent the past 30 years training Americans to treat shootings as an inevitable fact of life, a banality to be forgotten.
Re: Re: 'We must protect ourselves from-' *Checks notes' '-It was one of us again?!'
Also funny how quieter they became when it turned out that, to the surprise of no-one, the shooter was once again someone from their side, which rather undercut the whole ‘We must protect ourselves from the violent liberals!’ war-cry that popped up basically while the body was still warm.
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Half the people on the right elevating him to sainthood now have posted content online attacking him for being grifty or not being antisemitic enough, there was a concerted effort to unseat him at TPUSA by baby Nazi Nick Fuentes.
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Got a source? I would love to read those examples.
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Unfortunately like Kirk himself did with his brags about bussing in protesters for January 6th, a lot of the attacks were abruptly scoured from the internet the second it became inconvenient, but the hatred toward him from the far right was fairly well known.
https://www.wired.com/story/extremists-hated-charlie-kirk-now-radicalizing-others/
Do the ICEstapo wear masks because their usual white hoods are at the cleaners?
Both sides
I’m a liberal (independent) and Biden / Harris voter. Liberals absolutely started this by talking about how free speech isn’t freedom from consequences. They gleefully stopped conservatives from speaking on college campuses. And did what they could to get people fired for the crime of saying things they didn’t like. That was a big reason the election didn’t go their way. If I say this on places like Reddit I’m called some pretty nasty things and accused of being a Republican operative.
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Are you implying that free speech without consequences is a good thing? FYI, all speech have consequences, that’s how factual reality works and the only ones raging against this is people who say stupid shit at other people’s expense.
If this offends you so much, you are entirely free to stump for Trump fans, racists, anti-semites, white supremacists and fascists and offer them a spot on your property. Or did you mean actual conservatives that want fiscal responsibility, a smaller government, less debt and a balanced budget?
If you are liberal you must have done this, right? If you are offended by the question you don’t really understand why I asked it.
No, it wasn’t really. The Democrats couldn’t put forward a coherent message about the economy and Harris wasn’t a particularly good candidate to begin with, instead many independents went with Trump because of the promises he made on tax cuts and improving the economy.
Because you are coming across as someone who tries to put forward a “both sides bad” argument while only focusing on democrats or liberals, a tactic common among alt-right trolls cosplaying as democrats.
And that leads me to ask, are you a alt-right troll cosplaying as a democrat/liberal or are you woefully underequipped to understand what is actually happening in the country and how certain parties have shaped the narrative? The answer can of course be yes to both questions.
Re: Assert 'Both sides', proceed to blame only one
And did what they could to get people fired for the crime of saying things they didn’t like.
Out of morbid curiosity what were the speakers saying that people who got them fired ‘didn’t like’, and to avoid confusion please be specific. Also big [Citation Needed] on people being fired simply for saying things that people ‘didn’t like’, who were they and what specifically did they say?
You Liberals Have Rotten Hearts
The moment you equated racism with murder was the day you sold your souls. Coincidentally, everyone you disagree with is a racist. Funny.
Politics can’t fix your soul. Trump only has a few more years left and then what? You got nothing.
Re:
So, I have an idea: Let’s look at the framing of the individual parts of this comment.
The subject line says “liberals” (a group which we can assume to include Democrats) have rotten hearts, but makes no mention of conservatives/Republicans who have expressed the rot within their own hearts, such as the men in the Young Republicans group chat who expressed bigoted beliefs and “joked” about the violence Nazis used during the Holocaust. The framing here assumes that only “liberals” have rotten hearts, which implies that conservatives have been, are, and always will be pure innocent angels.
This sentence frames the “liberal” argument against racism as “an act of racism is equally as evil and harmful as an act of murder”. But such framing is rare in liberal/progressive/leftist circles, at least so far as I’m aware. I’ve personally never seen anyone make the argument that the taking of a life is a crime that is equalled in its depravity and impact only by someone saying the N-word, but I suppose it’s possible such an argument has been made before by someone at some point.
The framing of this sentence implies that “liberals” will label anyone with whom they disagree “racist” regardless of how, or on what subject, “liberals” disagree with someone. It therefore implies that “liberals” will call one of their own “racist” if two Democrats disagree on anything from economic policy to “what’s the song of the summer this year”. It also implies that any disagreement that is rooted in opposition to racism lacks credibility even if the opposition is to speech or actions that genuinely reflect racist beliefs (e.g., the Young Republicans group chat), which further implies that opposing racism is bad because doing so lacks credibility.
This sentence assumes that people go into politics to fix their souls, even though that seems more like the realm of religion or therapy.
And this? This frames the “liberal” opposition to Donald Trump as limited only to Trump instead of being broadly against the theocracy-adjacent fascist ideology of the Republicans and their wealthy billionaire allies. It also implies that such opposition will disappear after Trump, which further implies that the GOP will somehow stop being overtaken by the MAGA ideology once Trump is out of office, despite the current GOP being the product of more than fifty years of evolution (from the Civil Rights Movement onward) to its current existence as a party that doesn’t give a damn about its leader being a bigoted asshole that posts AI videos of himself as a king where he literally shits on the people he’s supposed to be serving as president.
The overall framing of this entire comment, then, is that Republicans are allowed to be kings and shit all over the American people and maybe even be open racists because the “liberal” opposition to racism and bigotry have made Republicans act the way they do. But hey, what do I know? I’m just a schmuck with a laptop.
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He died doing a tour where he was trying to paint the mass shootings that america has on a near daily basis as acceptable in the name of freedom and bring even more people into the firing line, blaming trans people and minorities for the murders largely carried out by straight, white men, so eff him, eff them, and eff you too.
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lolwut?