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Yes, Trump is a fascist who, inter alia, is trying to punish speech he doesn’t like (or by people he doesn’t like).  But for the most part, the courts are not letting him get away with that, so the clock moves back to 1 minute before midnight.

(Short link for this post is psacot.com/z)

This just in… the First Amendment, age 234, is barely hanging onto life¹ after multiple attacks by federal agents, most recently the arrest of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. The regime’s alibi for the arrests is the purest bovine effluvia.

It claims they were engaged in “conspiracy to deprive others of their civil rights,” which is rich coming from a government that plans to walk proudly up to the First Amendment as it lies dying and finish it off by strangulation or gunshot.

Apparently covering a news event is conspiracy. A magistrate and a federal appeals court decided there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest Lemon, and so, in a crude and craven example of venue-shopping, the feds used a compliant grand jury to indict him. ²

The arrests of Lemon and Fort, alas, are not unprecedented in the sense of the government attempting to suppress dissent.

In 1734, 57 years before the amendment was born, Journalist Peter Zenger was brought to trial for libeling Gov. William Cosby. He was acquitted, setting a precedent for free speech and the First Amendment by allowing public criticism of the government and government officials.

In 1798 Congress—angered by criticism of the President—passed the Sedition Act [expired in 1800] which criminalized criticism of the government. They called it sedition, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Department of Injustice calls it conspiracy. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

My First Amendment Doomsday Clock

Footnotes

1. 1. https://psacot.com/murder ↩︎
2. 2. Just after it indicted a ham sandwich ↩︎

It could not possibly be clearer:

Trump Cabinet secretaries conspired to violate Constitution, judge says

On Thursday [Jan. 16], U.S. District Judge William Young (a Reagan appointee) again denounced the administration’s conduct in unusually stark terms. “Talking straight here,” he said. “The big problem in this case is that the Cabinet secretaries and ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment.”

As of January 14, 2026

My First Amendment Doomsday Clock has moved to 40 seconds to Midnight.
I just realized Renee Nicole Good’s death by street execution a few days ago was an incredible First Amendment violation.

And, overnight, the DOJ trashed its own guidelines and obtained and executed a search warrant for the home of a Washington Post reporter. More here.

I don’t know what it will take to get the clock to midnight, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t put past these bozos. Makes no difference; moving the clock to midnight will be thoughtcrime¹, punishable by summary execution carried out by anyone who thinks it is thoughtcrime.

No One Will Ever Print The Truth

First Amendment Dies of Head Shot

December 15, 1791-Jan. 14, 2026

The First Amendment died on Jan. 14, 2026, after a double head shot applied by masked thugs in black (and their lickspittles in the FBI) who first killed a woman for petitioning the Government for a redress of grievances, then ransacked a reporter’s home on the basis of a flimsy warrant. Effectively, the Blackshirts killed the  beleaguered amendment. The First was 235 years old.

It was not surrounded by its loved ones at death, because apparently most Americans didn’t care enough to do anything during its predictable decline.

For more than two centuries, the First Amendment proudly carried out its mission statement, which prohibited Congress from, among other things, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Since the 1868 passage of the soon-to-be-repealed 14^th Amendment, it was erroneously assumed that the prohibition applied to the Executive Branch as well. Under the theory of the Unified Executive (endorsed by the Supreme Court), anything goes.

King Donald I personally attacked free speech rights because, like all dictators, the things he hates most are criticism and ridicule. He issued the orders for the rubout, Mafia style. “Whatever you do, don’t whack the First Amendment, capiche? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with cement overshoes, as long as they fit, right? Thank you for your attention in this matter.”

1. 1. Thank you for Newspeak, George Orwell, 1984 ↩︎

Doomsday Clock
After last week’s orders from HRH Donald I, I have moved the clock from 10 minutes to midnight to 5. If either of them come to pass, we are looking at 1 minute or under.

If either of these stories come to pass, we go to 45 seconds.

* Donald Trump called for Democrat members of Congress to be imprisoned and executed. It comes after a group of members of Congress who have served in the military made a video reminding servicemen and women that they can refuse orders if they are unlawful.

* Trump is in active conversations with Paramount and Larry Ellison about a potential takeover of CNN that would include firing specific journalists he dislikes. This is an effort to reshape and control major media outlets in real time.

In a better world than this, here’s the protection I dream of seeing for the First Amendment.

There is a penalty under law for government officials who deliberately, persistently and knowingly violate the constitution. It is 18 U.S.C. sec. 242, which seems (to this layperson) to protect First Amendment rights. There will be considerable porcine aviation before enforcement. Still, enforcement should be swift, sure and severe.

In the case of any president engaged in such activity, Articles of Impeachment could be sent to the House (by some “bi-partisan” entity), possibly with a deadline for voting.

Also, punish anyone below the level of President who uses the power of the government to punish free speech, whether by direct action (you’re fired for what you said), or through bribery (“sure we’ll approve that application, once you fire…”) or extortion of private firms (“nice little network you got there. Shame if something happened to it”). 

Anyone holding an office or acting on behalf of an officeholder, who restricts free speech, should face political consequences. One or two such public punishments might serve to discourage future violations.