Tom Clark
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tomsclark.bsky.social
Tom Clark
@tomsclark.bsky.social

Political scientist at Stanford University studying law, courts, policing, public safety. www.tomclarkphd.com Go birds.

Economics 30%
Law 20%
Curtis Yarvin, JD Vance’s friend & ideological influence, ended 2025 by claiming “only Hitler spoke the truth” about “too many subjects” & “Hitler was a genius.”

Extremism isn’t fringe on the right. Once marginal online extremists like Yarvin are influential at the highest levels of government.
Question: “why didn’t you just take everyone’s word instead of collecting evidence?”

Answer: “because trials depend on evidence.”
Smith explains why he got Speaker McCarthy's phone toll records.

Reposted by Tom Clark

Smith explains why he got Speaker McCarthy's phone toll records.

If this is real, it’s pretty funny.
BREAKING NEWS: Actual facts appear for the first time on "Truth" Social.
BREAKING NEWS: Actual facts appear for the first time on "Truth" Social.
Seems like an important story, like breaking news front page worthy
Q: Can you say any more about the explosion in Venezuela that you mentioned in a radio interview. Did the military do that?

TRUMP: Well, it doesn't matter. But there was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs. We hit the area.
This is not how a normal Justice Department talks about an ongoing investigation—or about putative targets and their uncharged conduct.
Barely a blip in the news. 🦗from the New York Times editorial and opinion pages. Compare with days of Hunter Biden Hysteria about unprecedented abuse of the pardon power.
This has been the autocrat’s playbook for a decade or two: have friendly oligarchs buy up independent media and then they impose government-friendly editorial policies so the autocrat doesn’t have to get their hand directly dirty killing the free press.
Iowa-based journalist Laura Belin compares Bari Weiss' adventures at CBS to Putin's makeover of supposedly independent Russian media, which she covered for RFE-RL twenty years ago. www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/12/25/o...
On "fair" reporting and what happened at "60 Minutes"
Laura Belin: I was alarmed (though not surprised) when CBS News boss Bari Weiss intervened to stop “60 Minutes” from airing a segment.
www.bleedingheartland.com

These stories are really shocking. Which is good, we shouldn’t get used to the government abridging civil liberties and abusing its power.
I did not understand this: one of the five Europeans the US has barred from traveling to the United States...is a permanent resident who lives with his family in the US.

Now he is worried about being arrested and deported for the crime of monitoring online hate.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/u...
Judge Blocks Detention of British Researcher Who Scrutinizes Online Hate
www.nytimes.com
I did not understand this: one of the five Europeans the US has barred from traveling to the United States...is a permanent resident who lives with his family in the US.

Now he is worried about being arrested and deported for the crime of monitoring online hate.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/u...
Judge Blocks Detention of British Researcher Who Scrutinizes Online Hate
www.nytimes.com

We’re way deep into the Idiocracy plot at this point.
If ICE can threaten arrest for filming, then journalists, watchdogs, and protesters can all be silenced the same way. You don’t have freedom of the press if recording police is treated as terrorism.  #holdfast

www.cato.org/blog/dhs-pol...
The Government Unconstitutionally Labels ICE Observers as Domestic Terrorists
A free country must have an absolute wall of protection for those who record government actions.
www.cato.org
A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty:

My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media.

Huh? When did I say that?!

Step 1, start a trade war to grind imports to a halt, destroying the logistics industry.

Step 2, build a secret police force to round up people you don’t like.

Step 3, make use of the destroyed logistics infrastructure to treat human beings like cargo.

apple.news/ABuh7OUkjTs2...
ICE documents reveal plan to hold 80,000 immigrants in warehouses — The Washington Post
The Trump administration wants to build seven large-scale deportation hubs to speed up deportations, internal ICE documents show.
apple.news
That’s not how GDP works. But it is how propaganda works.
Restoring Bivens rights: one bill "would allow citizens to sue for damages resulting from constitutional violations committed by federal officers," while the other "would create a cause of action against federal law enforcement agencies and police depts for constitutional violations."
These congressmen want to give you the right to sue federal law enforcement for violating your rights
The proposed bills aim to codify a 1971 Supreme Court ruling that allowed individuals to sue the feds for Fourth Amendment violations.
reason.com
Sean Duffy on blue states: "What I can do is I can pull their money. That's the leverage I do have ... I guarantee you that the federal taxpayer is not going to fund their roads and bridges and their systems when they are putting illegals on the roads."

Ellison is trying to buy Warner Bros. Now that the US has become a full-fledged personalist regime, this is just the way things work.
CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.
A violent Neo Nazi organization with close ties to and funding from the Kremlin appears suddenly to get a green light from Kash Patel's FBI.
Neo-Nazi terror group steps up US operations as FBI pulls back
Online activity shows the Base, headed by alleged Russian asset Rinaldo Nazzaro, sees US and Ukraine as key centers
www.theguardian.com
CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.

This is how it works. Let the administration corruptly influence the media, and then the media no liber can report on government.
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

Reposted by Tom Clark

The thing about the Free Press is that you can read it and have no idea that Trump is violating the purported values of the publication, or even that he is President. And the Free Press is the reason why Bari Weiss was put in charge of CBS News.

This is the upshot for the government that exerts a control over the media.
An Editor’s Note from 60 Minutes
Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…
An Editor’s Note from 60 Minutes
BRENNAN: What are you going to do to force DOJ to comply?

MASSIE: The quickest way and most expeditious way to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi. That doesn't require going through the courts. We're drafting that right now.
An underappreciated dimension of our media and politics environment is that every policy principal is now terminally online, arguing basic policy matters in public

In no sane world, prior to 2016, would anyone want the DNI (or any admin official) to set or defend U.S. policy or objectives this way