The Minnesota leftist attempted to clear the air earlier this week in a New York Times opinion piece headlined, “Amy Klobuchar: What I Didn’t Say About Sydney Sweeney.”
[snip]
‘Party of Ugly People’
The doctored Klobuchar appears to be speaking at a Senate committee hearing, She demands Democrats receive “representation.” Of course, the satirical video has gone viral.
“If Republicans are going to have beautiful girls with perfect ti**ies” in their ads, we want ads for Democrats, too, you know?” the fake Klobuchar asserts in the vid. “We want ugly, fat bitches wearing pink wigs and long-ass fake nails being loud and twerking on top of a cop car at a Waffle House ‘cause they didn’t get extra ketchup.”
“Just because we’re the party of ugly people doesn’t mean we can’t be featured in ads, okay?” the AI Amy implores. “And I know most of us are too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside, but we want representation.”
She appears — and sounds — so sincere. But Klobuchar wants you to know it certainly was not her saying such “vulgar and absurd” things. That’s why she’s urging Congress to pass laws to ban such AI videos, which would be as absurd as social justice warriors calling American Eagle white supremacists for paying a blue jeans-clad, beautiful actress to say she has great jeans.
Any such law would certainly and rightly be challenged in court.
‘Joke Police’
[snip]
“Now think about that for a minute, isn’t the whole point of a campaign to harm the electoral prospects of a candidate or to change the voting behavior of voters in an election? It’s outlawing politics, basically,” Ryan Bangert, senior vice president for strategic initiatives at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said on a recent episode of The Federalist Radio Hour.
The Christian litigation and advocacy organization is representing The Babylon Bee and Hawaii voter Dawn O’Brien in a lawsuit against what ADF calls a “draconian law.” Hawaii’s assault on parody is similar to a California law signed by far-left Gov. Gavin Newsom following the release of an AI-generated video of the Democratic Party’s stand-in presidential nominee, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, satirically announcing her campaign.
“We’re used to getting pulled over by the joke police,” said Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon in a press release.
Last October, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of California issued a preliminary injunction against implementation of the law, citing Supreme Court precedent that “illuminates that while a well-founded fear of a digitally manipulated media landscape may be justified, this fear does not give legislators unbridled license to bulldoze over the longstanding tradition of critique, parody, and satire protected by the First Amendment.”
Earlier this month, ADF attorneys made their arguments for protecting the time-honored practice of parody in particular and free speech in general. Bangert said a ruling is expected soon. He’s confident of victory.
‘Incompatible with Free Speech’
[snip]
Bangert said the Digital Services Act imposes myriad mandates requiring social media platforms to take down whatever deputized content checkers or flaggers — many of them members of left-wing NGOs — deem inappropriate. Larger online platforms must either comply or face a fine of up to 6 percent of their global annual revenue.
“What we’ve seen from the Digital Services Act is there aren’t reliable protections in terms of protecting freedom of speech, free discussion, free discourse,” Bangert said.
More sinister, the European Commission is mulling a mass surveillance proposal that would give government authorities the power to scan every chat message before being sent. As Reclaim the Net reported:
[snip]
‘Worth the Cost’
Free speech has taken a beating in the United Kingdom, where 51-year-old army veteran Adam Smith-Connor, was convicted for the thoughtcrime of praying silently near an abortion clinic. He was praying for his unborn son, a victim of abortion 25 years ago. Last October, a UK court sentenced the veteran to a conditional discharge, and ordered him to pay prosecution costs of £9,000. ADF International is supporting Smith-Connor, who is appealing his conviction.
“Free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Vice President J.D. Vance warned in an address in February to world leaders in Munich. He pointed to the Smith-Connor case, asserting that “basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular,” are in the crosshairs.
[snip]
The First Amendment advocate added that their ostensible protections are putting time-honored individual liberties in peril.
“There will always be those who believe freedom of speech isn’t worth the cost,” the First Amendment advocate said. “Nothing good comes without a cost.”
* Original Article:
https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/22/democrats-cant-take-a-joke-so-theyre-trying-to-outlaw-free-speech/