The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

Scathing. Relentlessly researched. I never want Kimberley Strassel to be suspicious of me!

Suspicion? Try damning indictment instead.

The story is of the machinations of the left attempting to curtail 1st amendment rights for all of their organized opposition, whilst leaving their own sources of funds unimpaired. Beginning with the admission of a century of attempted suppression of speech by both left and right, Strassel segues into NAACP vs ALABAMA, the seminal decision that prevented the disclosure of donors and members of an organization (obvious to the high court as a blatant route to targeted intimidation). Then the CITIZENS UNITED case, allowing corporations, like unions and “greenies,” democratic coffers, to utilize their dollars to fund PACs.
Detailing Lois Lerner’s skulking criminality, particularly the way she engineered the I.R.S. muzzling of Obama’s opposition leading up to his re-election, would be horrifying enough. But Ms. Strassel then takes us through Lerner’s continued attempts to stifle speech rights; employing the F.E.C., the S.E.C., the E.P.A., with an attempted suborning of the F.B.I.; any agency that could be led to pry donor /membership lists out of conservative and libertarian organizations.

Those never-ending manoeuvrers have been accompanied by demonstrations, vandalism, and mob action. A largely left wing bureaucracy and blatantly prejudiced media have stirred the cauldron. A president who lies reflexively is just another newt’s eye in the stew.

The author’s amusing hook is how well she skirts partisanship while being damningly encyclopedic. We are granted personal glimpses, often highly perceptive, of many chief actors. The mechanisms of agencies and legislative bodies are illuminated.
An openly honest work; I found it as gripping as the best fiction.