David Noll
LightNews LightNews
banner
david.noll.org
David Noll
@david.noll.org
24K followers 1.7K following 6.3K posts
Vigilante Nation: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Vigilante-Nation/Jon-Michaels/9781668023235
Updates on the meritocracy: https://tinyurl.com/56u9n6zc
Posts Replies Media Videos
david.noll.org
Just a factual statement of the theory!
November 10, 2025 at 4:42 PM
david.noll.org
Many people are saying
A photo from the No Kings march that shows a group of normie women carrying a large banner that reads " Trump: we all hate you." They are flanked by a protester carrying an American flag and a senior citizen riding a scooter.
November 7, 2025 at 3:19 PM
david.noll.org
hahaha
Hi David, this is Shernelle reaching out for Stanley Montfort (Kantha Team at SERHANT.) < With the mayoral transition coming up in early 2026, Stanley's checking in with a few condo owners in the area curious if you've thought at all about leasing or selling sometime next year? Happy to set up a quick call if that's something you'd consider. 11:07 AM
November 3, 2025 at 4:21 PM
david.noll.org
January 6 was no big deal
January 6 United States Capitol attack The January 6 United States Capitol attack was a riot on January 6, 2021, in which supporters of President Donald Trump, protesting the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 election victory amid widespread claims of voting irregularities, breached security barriers and entered the U.S. Capitol Building during a joint session of Congress, temporarily disrupting proceedings and prompting the evacuation of lawmakers.[1][2] The breach followed a rally near the White House where Trump repeated fraud allegations and directed the crowd to march to the Capitol, stating they would proceed "peacefully and patriotically" while also declaring "we fight like hell" and that if they did not, "you’re not going to have a country anymore."[3][4] Several hundred individuals entered the building after overcoming Capitol Police lines, engaging in vandalism, confrontations with officers, and unauthorized occupation of areas including the Senate chamber, though most carried no firearms and the incursion was cleared within hours, allowing certification to resume that evening.[5][6]
October 27, 2025 at 10:35 PM
david.noll.org
Protestors with signs that say SCOTUS Betrayed Us Fake Time Magazine cover with Trump reading Time to Retire Big sign: Trump: we all hate you Kid with a sign that says don't make me go to law school
October 18, 2025 at 6:25 PM
david.noll.org
No Kings New York
Flags waving in a crowd of people on the street Times Square full of marchers An inflatable frog with a sign that says "do I look the enemy within?" Signing reading no eres rey guey
October 18, 2025 at 6:23 PM
david.noll.org
A beautiful day to protest wannabe dictators
A green hill with a tall poodle in the foreground looking quizzical
October 18, 2025 at 12:57 PM
david.noll.org
sir you are driving a cybertruck
Back of a cybertruck with a bumper sticker that reads "Elon killed my resale value"
October 14, 2025 at 6:56 PM
david.noll.org
A few small issues I might have raised if I were editing this.
October 14, 2025 at 6:26 PM
david.noll.org
some of you need a reminder about engaging trolls
Sally Jenkins post sharing Caitlin Flanagan's "Don't Bet Against Bari Weiss" Ratio me. Please. It's a badge of honor. If you don't like a link, go follow some chicken-heart who needs the approval of the thought-police. Caitlin Flanagan of @theatlantic.com is a tremendous writer and this piece is an excellent read.
October 13, 2025 at 1:07 AM
david.noll.org
Cropped and zoomed in image of Tisch almost maintaining poker face as Adams goes off
October 10, 2025 at 7:49 PM
david.noll.org
"No superficial individual expression"
The famous photo of Hegseth's cringe-inducing Christian nationalist tattoos
September 30, 2025 at 2:05 PM
david.noll.org
Ladies and gentlemen, the meritocracy
Ms. Halligan, who took over on Monday after her predecessor quit rather than prosecute James B. Comey with what he believed was insufficient evidence, had a little trouble with the first two tasks. At one point, she entered the wrong courtroom. When she found the right one, she stood on the wrong side of the judge, then appeared confused about the paperwork she just had signed.
September 27, 2025 at 11:02 PM
david.noll.org
some language that actually incited violence
So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give. The Democrats are hopeless, they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help. We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
September 25, 2025 at 5:34 PM
david.noll.org
In response to California passing a law limiting law enforcement officers' ability to conceal their identities, the president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California contends that police are not subject to democratic control.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/u...
Brian R. Marvel, the president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents over 87,000 public safety officers, said he was outraged by the passage of the law. He said in a statement that he believed that California did not have the authority to regulate federal agents, so it would ultimately apply only to local law enforcement officers, which he called a “troubling betrayal that California’s local law enforcement community will not soon forget.” He said that limiting face coverings and opening officers up to prosecution would most likely hurt recruitment and drive officers from the state.
September 21, 2025 at 3:40 PM
david.noll.org
his scorn for "the groups" and the conceit that you can build a new party from scratch through this half-assed process suggest to me that, at a fundamental level, he does not understand what the democratic party is and how it works.
Searchlight, Mr. Jentleson said, will conduct its own polling and serve as an ideas generator in the service of winning with margins big enough to advance meaningful policy in Congress, where increasingly slim margins have made such achievements difficult. Mr. Jentleson described a “Shark Tank-style policy generation process” to attract proposals from outside Washington with an aim of untethering mainstream Democratic thinking from the current ideological spectrum.
September 17, 2025 at 4:57 PM
david.noll.org
it's pretty hard to argue with this
58. President Trump’s hundreds of history-making media appearances and roles include: WrestleMania V (1989); Ghosts Can’t Do It (1989); All My Children(1992); Lady Boss (1992); Home Alone 2 (1992); Fallen Champ: The Untold Story of Mike Tyson (1993); Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1994); The Little Rascals (1994);Across the Sea of Time (1995); Eddie (1996); The Nanny (1996); The Associate(1996); The Drew Carey Show (1997); NightMan (1997); Spin City (1998); 54(1998); Celebrity (1998); Sex In The City (1998); Miss Universe 2001 (2001); The Job (2001-2002); Zoolander (2001); Donald Trump Real Estate Tycoon! (2002)(video game); Two Weeks Notice (2002); Miss USA 2002 (2002); Ali G Show (2003);Marmalade (2004); Days of Our Lives (2005); Miss Universe Pageant; The Apprentice (2004-2015) and Celebrity Apprentice (2008-2015); Hosted Saturday Night Live (2015); Hosted WWE; and much more.
September 16, 2025 at 1:33 PM
david.noll.org
Simpsons screecap: We must go forward, not backward. Upward, not downward. And always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom.
September 5, 2025 at 8:39 PM
david.noll.org
Ladies and gentlemen, the meritocracy
O'Neill, unlike Monarez, has no training in medicine or infectious disease science. He is a former speechwriter for the health department, during the Bush years, who went on to work for the tech investor and conservative megadonor Peter Thiel. During the Covid pandemic, O'Neill voiced public support for unproven treatments that were not supported by scientific evidence, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, as well as vitamin D as a supposed "prophylaxis". He also posted a number of conspiratorial theories on social media, including the baseless claim that "the name #COVID was chosen to conceal the origin of the virus. This name made it harder to study and probably slowed the response."
August 29, 2025 at 6:56 PM
david.noll.org
so we have the total integration (at least at the level of internet propagandists) of MAGA's vigilante wing and federal law enforcement.

Jon Michaels and I termed this "vigilante capture."
VIGILANTE CAPTURE With each passing campaign of harassment, despoilment, and chaos, the chances increase that vigilantes and their allies will be on the inside. They will have pressured current, conscientious government officials to resign; deterred potential competitors from applying or running for office; and, having cleared the field, seized positions as election administrators, city council members, and even county supervisors. Once in place, these officials will essentially function as Jim Crow politicos for the twenty-first century, commingling state power and vigilante violence to ensure that groups who challenge the white Christian nationalist agenda are systematically denied political power and civil rights.
August 16, 2025 at 8:18 PM
david.noll.org
thanks to the New Yorker
A Guy Richards Smit cartoon showing federal agents descending on D.C. A couple looks on. The caption has been changed to, "If only we had been nicer to Robert Bork."
August 14, 2025 at 12:18 PM
david.noll.org
Sorry to throw another case at you, but CFPB v. Consumers Financial Services Association gets into this. I don't find CT's reliance on dictionaries persuasive, but I do think the basic analysis (did Congress authorize X for a defined purpose) is sound.
(i) The Constitution's use of the term "appropriation" provides important insight into its meaning. The Appropriations Clause itself specifies that an appropriation must authorize withdrawals from a particular source, the "Treasury." And, the proviso limiting Congress' power to "raise and support Armies"—that "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years"—indicates that appropriations assign funds for specific uses. Contemporary dictionary definitions support this conclusion as well. The evidence suggests that, at a minimum, appropriations were understood as a legislative means of authorizing expenditures from public funds for designated purposes. Pp. 1481-1482.
August 13, 2025 at 6:26 PM
david.noll.org
I'm sorry but it beggars belief to think that, in enacting a statute ***to redress Nixon's illegal impoundment of appropriated funds***, Congress secretly blocked recipients of statutory funding from funding from enforcing statutory obligations.
The ICA does have a disclaimer that nothing in it “shall be construed” as “affecting in any way the claims or defenses of any party to litigation concerning any impoundment.” 2 U.S.C. § 681(3). But that does not mean that any aggrieved party may initiate litigation. See Pub. Citizen v. Stockman, 528 F. Supp. 824, 828 (D.D.C. 1981) (arguing that 2 U.S.C. § 681(3) is a “blatant disclaimer of any congressional design to provide for a private right of action” (citation modified)). Instead, the language disclaims any effect on the claims or defenses of any party that may bring litigation. 16 Section 681(3) also meant that a case then-pending before the Supreme Court at the time that the ICA became law was not moot. Train v. City of New York, 420 U.S. 35, 41 n.8 (1975). But that simply confirms that the ICA had no retroactive effect. See Pet’r’s Suppl. Br. at 9– 11, Train, 420 U.S. 35 (No. 73-1377); see generally Vartelas v. Holder, 566 U.S. 257, 266 (2012) (explaining that under the “principle against retroactive legislation,” courts “read laws as prospective in application unless Congress has unambiguously instructed retroactivity” (citation omitted)).
August 13, 2025 at 3:30 PM
david.noll.org
This is exactly what Jon Michaels and I were referring to when we wrote that the Right was deploying vigilantes as foot soldiers in the culture wars.
Under Vigilante Democracy, the hurt feelings of individuals dis-comforted by a diverse America are forged into legal and physical weapons. As a consequence, the roles of victims and assailants get reversed. Legal vigilantism forces people out of specific jobs and pro-fessions, compromises the physical and emotional health of patients and students, limits educational lessons and opportunities, and drives families to relocate out of vigilante jurisdictions. 5
August 12, 2025 at 9:39 PM
david.noll.org
How did we end up in a world where ICE agents are indistinguishable from the Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on January 6?

VIGILANTE NATION tells the story of the insidious state laws behind MAGA's return to power, and it's out in paperback today.

www.simonandschuster.com/books/Vigila...
My left hand holding a paperback copy of Vigilante Nation in front of a bookcase. The cover reads: "The electrifying story of American democracy and its enemies" -- U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin Vigilante Nation How State-Sponsor3ed Terror Threatens Our Democracy Jon Michaels David Noll
August 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM