What millions of Americans are about to witness as they sit down for wings, football, and cold beers “might be the most political Super Bowl ever,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere warns on “Stu Does America.”

An article from the Associated Press explained that “the NFL is facing pressure ahead of Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots to take a more explicit stance against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.”

“More than 184,000 people have signed a petition calling on the league to denounce the potential presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Super Bowl, which is being held at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area. The liberal group MoveOn plans to deliver the petition to the NFL’s New York City headquarters on Tuesday,” it continued.

“Anway, no plans for ICE immigration enforcement at the Super Bowl, sources say. So, once again, this is a totally manufactured controversy,” Stu comments.

And the Super Bowl’s half-time performer, Bad Bunny, has been very vocally anti-ICE — which Roger Goodell was questioned about in a recent press conference.

“Bad Bunny made a pretty clear anti-ICE statement at the Grammys last night. What are you expecting in terms of political statement, whether that’s from Bad Bunny or Green Day or any of the other performers?” a reporter asked Goodell.

“Listen, Bad Bunny is, and I think that was demonstrated last night, one of the great artists in the world. And that’s one of the reasons we chose him. But the other reason is, he understood the platform he was on and that this platform is used to unite people and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that,” Goodell responded.

“I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance,” he added.

“It’s such a funny thing to watch theoretically serious people have a serious conversation about someone named Bad Bunny. It’s just such a strange world we live in,” Stu laughs, before pointing out that at the Grammys, Bad Bunny used the win to protest ICE.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m gonna say: ICE out,” Bad Bunny said as he accepted the award for best musica urbana album.

The beloved alternative band Green Day is also performing at the Super Bowl — and Stu believes they’ll be political as well.

“Their opinions might be dumb, but they really think they’re important,” Stu says. “So, I will be shocked if at the very least we don’t have anti-ICE pins or something like that, but probably more than that from Green Day.”

Want more from Stu?

To enjoy more of Stu’s lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Video, Free, Sharing, Video phone, Camera phone, Upload, Youtube.com, Stu does america, Stu burguiere, The blaze, Blazetv, Blaze news, Blaze podcasts, Blaze podcast network, Blaze media, Blaze online, Blaze originals, Super bowl 60, Super bowl political, Ice, Bad bunny, Green day, Bad bunny ice, Bad bunny grammys, Green day politics, American idiot 

General Motors’ fourth-quarter earnings were widely framed as a show of confidence in an electric future. The company absorbed billions in losses and reaffirmed its strategy, and analysts largely applauded its resolve.

Beneath the optimistic headlines, however, was a less reassuring reality: The all-electric transition is proving significantly more expensive, more fragile, and more politically exposed than automakers originally promised.

What stands out most is GM’s refusal to abandon the all-electric narrative, even after acknowledging the scale of the financial setback.

EV shock

In the report, released January 27, GM disclosed $7.1 billion in EV-related losses tied primarily to reshaping its electric-vehicle production plans. While much of the charge is non-cash, it represents real losses on capital GM invested in EV plans that are now being abandoned or restructured.

These figures are not a minor course correction. They are an acknowledgment that even the industry’s most experienced players misjudged the pace, cost, and risk of electrification.

The disclosure followed Ford’s admission that its EV push has resulted in roughly $20 billion in losses. The contrast between the two companies is not the size of the miscalculation but the response. Ford has slowed timelines and reset expectations. General Motors, under CEO Mary Barra, has chosen to absorb the hit and continue forward.

According to GM, roughly $6 billion stems from changes to its EV manufacturing strategy, including canceled supplier contracts and unused equipment originally intended for electric-vehicle production.

Another $1.1 billion reflects the restructuring of its China joint venture. Combined with an October 2025 filing tied to abandoned EV plans, GM has now recognized approximately $7.6 billion tied to its EV strategy in 2025 alone.

Full speed ahead?

Despite those numbers, coverage of GM’s earnings leaned positive. Reports emphasized the company’s balance-sheet strength, its ability to manage the charges, and its position as a leading EV seller in the United States. In that framing, the financial setback was treated as a painful but manageable step toward an inevitable electric future.

CEO Mary Barra reinforced that narrative, saying she has no regrets about GM’s EV strategy, which remains the automaker’s “north star.” She cited regulatory changes in 2025 as more disruptive than tariffs and argued that GM’s rapid production reorganization limited the damage.

That explanation is telling. It underscores how policy-driven the EV transition has become, with automakers increasingly responding to regulations, incentives, and geopolitical shifts rather than consumer demand alone.

Facing facts

While GM’s long-term direction may remain the same, what has changed is the implicit acknowledgment that the transition will take longer and cost more than originally forecast, particularly as incentives fade and infrastructure gaps remain unresolved.

That tension is visible in the sales data. GM’s fourth-quarter EV sales fell 43% year over year, totaling just 25,219 vehicles. That decline complicates claims that the financial hit reflects only temporary turbulence. It points instead to continued consumer hesitation driven by price, charging access, and concerns over long-term ownership costs.

The full-year picture is more mixed. GM’s EV sales for 2025 rose 48% to 169,887 vehicles, making it the second-largest EV seller in the U.S. behind Tesla. Those figures support claims of progress, but they also highlight how uneven adoption remains — often buoyed by incentives and fleet purchases rather than steady, organic demand.

China adds another layer of uncertainty. Once expected to anchor global EV growth, the market has become far less predictable due to regulatory shifts, fierce local competition, and rising geopolitical tension. GM’s decision to restructure its joint venture there reflects a broader reassessment of international exposure, not simply EV headwinds.

RELATED: Test drive: 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack Plus

Stellantis

Stand by your plan

What stands out most is GM’s refusal to abandon the all-electric narrative, even after acknowledging the scale of the financial setback. Barra has argued that adoption will accelerate as charging infrastructure improves. That may prove true, but it assumes infrastructure expansion will continue without the level of government support that initially fueled growth — and that consumers will remain patient as prices stay high and technology continues to evolve.

From an industry standpoint, GM’s experience is less about failure than timing. Automakers were pushed — politically and culturally — to commit early and publicly to electrification. Those that hesitated were criticized. Now, the cost of being first is coming into focus. Retooling factories, securing battery supply chains, retraining workers, and complying with shifting regulations require enormous capital, and those investments do not disappear when demand softens.

There is also a credibility question. When executives express no regrets after multibillion-dollar setbacks, investors and consumers are justified in asking whether earlier forecasts were grounded in market realities — or shaped more by political alignment than consumer readiness.

Cautionary tale

GM’s experience should also serve as a cautionary tale for policymakers. Mandates and incentives can accelerate innovation, but they cannot force consumer acceptance on a fixed timetable. The EV transition will happen, but not on command and not without detours.

For General Motors, the challenge now is alignment. The company has the scale, engineering talent, and brand equity to compete in an electrified future. What it cannot afford is a prolonged mismatch between production plans and real-world demand. The $7 billion reckoning is more than an accounting event. It is a reminder that the road to an all-electric future is longer, bumpier, and far more expensive than advertised.

Consumers are watching closely. They are not rejecting electric vehicles outright — but they are demanding better value, better infrastructure, and more honest timelines. If those signals are ignored, this reckoning may be only the beginning.

​Auto industry, Lifestyle, Evs, Mary barra, General motors, Align cars 

Nothing confuses a sports fan’s heart like finding out his favorite TV character supports the other team. Or worse — when it turns that out a lecturing, woke celebrity is on the same side.

For the big game in Santa Clara, California, on Sunday, two big names have already been tapped for the start of the event.

‘I have officially declared Super Bowl Sunday as “New England Patriots Appreciation Day.”‘

Singer Jon Bon Jovi was called on to introduce the New England Patriots before the game. He has supported the team since his favorite coaches went from the New York Giants to New England in the 1990s, according to Yahoo. Meanwhile, actor Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Jurassic World”) will introduce the Seattle Seahawks. Pratt grew up a Seahawks fan after moving to Seattle around the age of 6.

Here is where the rest of the singers, actors, and politicians stand so that fans know exactly who to embrace and who to disavow.

New England Patriots

It should come as no surprise that Boston natives Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are huge Patriots fans, but Mark Wahlberg is too. “Marky” Mark has not only voiced his support for the team but appeared in an episode of HBO’s “Entourage” alongside legendary quarterback Tom Brady in 2009.

Celebrity reporter Maria Menounos is well known for wearing Patriots outfits over the years and has even appeared in photos with the team’s ownership group.

Noted superhero actor Chris Evans reportedly loves the Patriots, while Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler and iconic English musician Elton John round off the celebrity list, per CBS Sports.

RELATED: Olympic boxer Imane Khelif admits to having male genes, but sends message to Trump: ‘I’m not trans’

Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images

On the politics side, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (D) is cheering for the Pats, obviously, but so is Maine Governor Janet Mills (D).

“I have officially declared Super Bowl Sunday as ‘New England Patriots Appreciation Day’ throughout the State of Maine. Go Pats!” Mills wrote on X.

Democrat Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee has shown plenty of support for the Patriots over the years, while White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, from New Hampshire, recently declared her support for the Patriots too.

Seattle Seahawks

According to Yahoo! Sports, actors Rainn Wilson (“The Office”) and Will Ferrell (“Old School,” “Anchorman”) are big Seahawks fans. Wilson was born in Seattle, while Ferrell has dropped in on Seahawks team meetings.

On the musical side, “Baby Got Back” rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot is an avid Seahawks fan, while rapper Macklemore could also be considered a die-hard.

USA Today listed singer Ariana Grande as a fan, too; she sang the national anthem in Seattle in 2014.

All-time “Jeopardy!” champion turned host Ken Jennings also flies a Seahawks flag, claiming that being a fan of the team “made me a better person.”

“Walking Dead” fan favorite Jeffrey Dean Morgan has shown that his true colors include fluorescent green, vehemently supporting the team over the years. Morgan was born in Seattle.

FEATURED: Olympic ski jumpers may be injecting their penises with acid to jump farther

Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson (D) is a shoe-in for Seahawks support, but few may expect that some Virginia politicians are sneaking around supporting the Seahawks at the same time.

State senator and former NFL player Aaron Rouse and Virginia Speaker of the House Don Scott, both Democrats, admitted to rooting for the Seahawks on Sunday.

Local reporter Tyler Englander seemingly caught the politicians by surprise on Friday morning and acquired both their predictions.

Interestingly enough, Rouse never played for the Seahawks. He was born in Norfolk, Virginia, played college ball at Virginia Tech, and was a pro player for the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants.

For those wondering who President Trump has sided with, he recently told reporters, “I can’t say that. But they are really two good teams.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Fearless, Celebrities, Athletes, Super bowl, Football, Fans, Super bowl lx, New england, Seattle, Sports 

When HBO debuted “Euphoria” in 2019, it was hyped as the ne plus ultra of the ever-popular “the shocking and terrible things kids these days are up to” genre.

Accurate or not, viewers responded. By the time season two of “Euphoria” ended three years ago, it was HBO’s second-most-watched show since 2004, right behind “Game of Thrones.”

Hey there, kids! Here are all the worst things you can do. We’ve made a list. And then we built a TV show around it!

And last month, the trailer for season three — which debuts in April — got 100 million views in two days.

I had been wondering what all the fuss is about. In my day, we had “Less Than Zero,” “Kids,” and “River’s Edge.” Teenagers in those movies gave each other AIDS, prostituted themselves for drugs, shoplifted, and even murdered out of boredom.

Did “Euphoria” really try to out-extreme that?

Even if it did, I suspected that “Euphoria” might be the last gasp of the “terrible teens trauma” genre,” as real-life teenagers are apparently moving in the opposite direction.

Gen Z is taking drugs less, is having sex less, and is generally less licentious than previous generations. It appears that the classic forms of teenage defiance and debauchery have become so routine and overdone that the kids have rebelled against the rebellion.

Into the void

With this in mind, I began the first season of “Euphoria.” I can’t say I was impressed. “Euphoria” was not good. But it was shocking.

What I thought was going to be a glimpse into the lives of contemporary teenagers was instead a pornographic recovery story in which the main character — a teenage trans substance abuser — never manages to get clean and sober.

But that’s not the notable part. The notable part is the porn.

Take the early scene where a 50-ish pervert dad matches with the trans teen on a dating app and meets him in a dark, filthy hotel room. The teen shows up, the adult says creepy things to him, and then … well, you get to see it all in graphic detail, from multiple angles.

Is that a glimpse into the lives of contemporary teens? Or is it an assault on the senses, a forced introduction — for me, anyway — into a disturbingly specific genre of smut?

The whole show is like that. Scene after scene of activities, characters, and conversations you really, really, really don’t want to see.

I kept waiting for the appearance of a single semi-sympathetic character in the show. Someone I cared about even a tiny bit. There were no such characters.

Another thing I really didn’t want to see: an overweight, not-so-bright 16-year-old girl, setting up a pay website where she can take half-naked videos of her butt in order to extract money from creepy old men.

One of her first customers is a pathetic fat guy who wants to be humiliated. She mocks him as he squeals like a pig. Nothing is left to the imagination, as if the show wants to debase the viewer as well.

Gen Z to the rescue

This, I assume, is why current teenagers are rebelling against the ritualized degeneracy of our times.

Because this idea that it’s fun and exciting to be a prostitute/drug addict/rapist/psychopath has been crammed down their throats by the creepy, perverted “entertainment” industry for as long as they’ve been alive. And they’re sick of it. And I don’t blame them.

“Euphoria” was one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen. Ultimately, it is just an episodic catalogue of every soul-destroying activity a teenager might indulge in.

Hey there, kids! Here are all the worst things you can do. We’ve made a list. And then we built a TV show around it!

That list would include: OnlyFans. Sexual abuse. Psychopaths beating people half to death. Drug dealers. Extortion. All manner of rape. Psych ward imprisonment. Guys with face tattoos force-feeding fentanyl to teenage girls from the edge of their knives.

The show did give me new sympathy for today’s young women, subjected as they are to certain crude digital courtship rituals. Never before have I been induced to look at so many male members, in all their depressing variety.

RELATED: Why does Hollywood have to make everything gay?

John Shearer/Theo Wargo/Rosediana Ciaravolo/Getty Images

All things considered

But enough about my opinions of “Euphoria.” What did that bastion of propriety and moral certitude National Public Radio think? Let’s start with the headline of an article from 2022: “HBO’s ‘Euphoria’ is more than a parent’s worst nightmare. It’s a creative triumph.”

I would be curious in what way it is “a creative triumph.” It’s badly written. None of the characters seems remotely human. It uses all the cinematic techniques of a bad horror film.

NPR continues: “Creator/executive producer Sam Levinson has built a storytelling style that transcends the titillation of its surface-level story, finding new ways to stitch together the tales of characters seemingly trapped in a web of tragedies and missteps.”

The storytelling is perfunctory. The characters are paper-thin. And as usual, the most evil people on earth are white male high school athletes.

More from NPR: “That daring, creative vision only deepens now, as the show’s long-delayed second season takes flight on HBO.”

The only thing that deepens when you watch “Euphoria” is your gag reflex.

And finally:

That “Euphoria” somehow manages to make you keep caring about often-unlikeable folks on such brutal and dark journeys, is a testament to the uniquely creative voice distilled in each episode. It is thrilling, daring, disquieting and compelling — a triumph at a time when truly unique storytelling remains unsettlingly rare.

Wait, wait, don’t tell me

It’s amazing that we’ve reached a point in our society where NPR is promoting and advocating for what once would have been universally understood as the sexual exploitation of minors.

That’s really what “Euphoria” is. It even tells on itself during a scene in which a 10-year-old boy sneaks into his father’s office and watches a video from his father’s porn collection.

We get a shot from behind the boy, so that we’re effectively invited to watch the video with him.

In this way, we get to participate in the destruction of the child’s innocence. Which, I guess, is the whole point of this show.

NPR’s praise and support for this television show are utterly damning. Thank God NPR has been defunded. Now put them all in jail for being part of this wicked demoralization project. “Euphoria” is an assault on our senses, our morals, and the innocence of our children.

​Culture, Entertainment, Euphoria, Hbo, Movies, Exploitation, Blake’s progress 

On Sept. 30, 2023, shots rang out after a football game in Georgia, WSB-TV reported.

Emmanuel Dorsey — just 14 years old — was killed outside the Griffin-Spalding game, the station said.

‘Jurors are just fed up.’

The suspect was 17-year-old Kaomarion Kendrick.

Arrest warrants stated that Kendrick had a gun with him at the game, WXIA-TV reported, adding that when the game was over, a fight broke out between “two rival cliques.”

During that fight, officers said Kendrick pulled out the gun, after which Dorsey and others fled, WXIA said, adding that warrants indicate Dorsey was shot in the neck and face.

The documents also note that while both teens were not gang members, the two groups they were hanging around were rival gangs, WXIA noted.

RELATED: ‘Hellhounds coming for you’: Loved ones of grandmother murdered in carjacking blast her ‘demon’ teen killer at his sentencing

Kaomarion KendrickImage source: Spalding County (Ga.) Sheriff’s Office

WSB said Kendrick spent eight days on the run before being captured in Henry County.

Officials said at the time of his arrest that Kendrick was armed with a Glock handgun modified with a full-auto switch, WXIA said.

WSB reported that a Spalding County jury last week convicted Kendrick of a long list of charges, including felony murder and three counts of violation of the RICO Act.

With that, Kendrick was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — followed by another 85 years, WSB said.

RELATED: Teen Islam convert, an ISIS backer, carried out deadly stabbing after kid mocked his faith: Police

A WAGA-TV video report about Kendrick’s sentence indicated that prosecutors depicted him as a “stone-cold killer,” “unrepentant,” and “unremorseful, even at trial.”

David Studdard, acting district attorney, told WAGA that “jurors are just fed up” with the deadly violence and “hear this over and over and over, and they’ve just had it with this kind of thing.”

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

​Murder conviction, Teen, Georgia, Life sentence, Fatal shooting, Boy killed, Kaomarion kendrick, Crime 

Fake constitutionalism is increasingly becoming a problem in America. There is a marked tendency among public officials, political commentators, and media figures to invoke bogus constitutional principles or bogus interpretations of genuine constitutional principles. They do this mainly to shift blame to their political opponents or to shield the otherwise unacceptable behavior of their political allies.

Fake constitutionalism undermines constitutional government by spreading misconceptions about what our Constitution means.

The First Amendment certainly protects a reporter’s right to publish information. But it does not protect unlawful activity in pursuit of information.

Regrettably the First Amendment has become one of the most fruitful areas in which fake constitutionalism thrives. It is now commonplace for Americans — even constitutional lawyers — to make inflated claims about the protections afforded by the First Amendment, extending its scope far beyond the safeguards America’s founders had in mind when they debated and wrote this essential provision of our Constitution.

The most recent case in point is the misplaced outrage over the supposed violations of the First Amendment involved in the arrest of Don Lemon.

Lemon, formerly of CNN, was taken into custody on Jan. 30 for his part in disrupting a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lemon accompanied and filmed protesters who stormed the service to express their disapproval of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis. (An elder of the church is reportedly an ICE agent.) The Department of Justice has charged a number of the disruptors, including Lemon, with violating the FACE Act and conspiracy to deprive others of their civil rights — in this case, their right to gather and worship God in peace in their own church.

In his statement to the media, Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, characterized his client’s arrest and the filing of federal charges against Lemon as an “unprecedented attack on the First Amendment.”

“Don has been a journalist for 30 years,” Lowell continued, “and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.” Arguments to this effect have also been made by countless journalists and commentators incensed by the idea that a journalist might be held to account for his unlawful behavior.

Contrary to Lowell, the First Amendment does not afford any protection to journalism as an activity or to journalists as a class. Instead it protects certain more narrowly defined activities, namely speech and publication. This is evident from the language the framers of the amendment chose to express their meaning: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”

RELATED: Unsealed indictment against Don Lemon cites his own comments on livestream from ‘takeover’ at church

Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images

The scope of the First Amendment’s protection is also indicated by the early controversies over its meaning, most notably the debates over the Sedition Act of 1798. Celebrated American statesmen and jurists like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison condemned the act, while others of equal stature, such as Alexander Hamilton and Supreme Court Justice James Iredell, defended it.

The argument concerned the extent to which the government could punish certain kinds of publications. No one at the time, however, suggested that the First Amendment protected otherwise unlawful acts done in the pursuit of publishing information.

The narrow — and reasonable — original understanding of the First Amendment is also evident in the works of the great early American legal commentators such as Justice Joseph Story. In his celebrated “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” Story wrote:

It is plain … that the language of [the First Amendment] imports no more, than that every man shall have a right to speak, write, and print his opinions upon any subject whatever, without any prior restraint, so always, that he does not injure any other person in his rights, person, or property, or reputation; and so always, that he does not thereby disturb the public peace.

As Story’s remarks make clear, even the right to speak and publish is limited by certain principles necessary to a just public order and the protection of other essential rights. Even more to the present purpose is Story’s argument that the First Amendment protects only the right to speak and publish — that is, rights that belong to every man, not just to journalists.

Rejecting this traditional understanding of the First Amendment and accepting the Abbe Lowell version would lead to ridiculous and unacceptable consequences. It would mean that professional journalists must be treated as a privileged class and must be allowed to break the law in the pursuit of a story.

But practically nobody thinks this should be the case, and it is certainly not how the law operates in its ordinary course.

If a reporter is speeding at 100 miles per hour through a town to get to the scene of an important story, he will be stopped by the police and charged with violating the speed limit and reckless driving. If this reporter were to cause an accident and kill someone, he would be charged with negligent homicide or manslaughter — and the fact that he committed the crime in connection with his desire to engage in activities that the First Amendment protects would be totally irrelevant to his defense.

The First Amendment certainly protects a reporter’s right to publish information. It does not, however, protect unlawful activity undertaken in pursuit of information, which is often protected by principles of privacy and ownership recognized in law.

Lemon and the protesters are guilty of the same misconduct, and the First Amendment is of no help to either.

It is undoubtedly a news event when a potential candidate for public office meets with advisers at his home to decide whether to launch a campaign. But this would not give someone like Don Lemon the right to barge into the home over the objections of those who live there and “cover” the event. He would be guilty of trespassing or home invasion and liable to legal punishment.

This example points to the inadequacy of the arguments made by those who have condemned the disruption of the church service but claimed that Lemon, as a journalist, should not be among those charged.

Such defenders seem to think that the other disruptors did something unlawful but that Lemon was merely there to report on the event. But his relevant actions were the same as those of the others involved. They came into the church uninvited during a service at which the worshipers had been peacefully conducting their own business — and in fact exercising a constitutional right clearly stated in the First Amendment. This disruption, of which Lemon was a part, prevented the congregants from carrying on the activities they had a right to pursue.

Charging the other protesters but not Lemon would treat him as a member of a privileged class that has a right to break the law.

This would introduce an unacceptable incoherence into our constitutional law. To the extent that the protesters wanted to make a political point, they also held views protected by the First Amendment. They erred, however, in choosing an unlawful method by which to make their complaints heard — just as Lemon erred in the method by which he tried to get his story.

Lemon and the protesters are guilty of the same misconduct, and the First Amendment is of no help to either.

Suppose a case in which the legal and constitutional issues are the same, but the actors’ political identities are different. Suppose, for example, a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, outraged by federal civil rights enforcement, decides to disrupt the service at a predominantly African-American church, of which a federal civil rights lawyer is a member.

Suppose further that the Klan brings along a sympathetic reporter and storms the church, shouting insults, while the reporter films the whole shameful episode. Would any decent American think this action was a legitimate form of First Amendment-protected “protest”? Or that the reporter who tagged along should be immune to the charges that would properly be filed against the other participants?

Of course not.

RELATED: When worship is interrupted, neutrality is no longer an option

Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Recall further Justice Story’s observation that the First Amendment’s protection of the right to speak and publish belongs to “every man.” This is a key principle affirmed by the Supreme Court in modern times. The great liberal Justice William Brennan, on more than one occasion, remarked that the First Amendment protects all Americans equally, not just the members of the professional, credentialed press. A blogger or a concerned citizen who circulates a newsletter has all the same First Amendment rights as someone who works for the New York Times or CNN.

This point is essential to further clarifying the unacceptable consequences that would result if we accepted the First Amendment defense of Don Lemon’s role in the Minnesota church disruption.

Because the amendment protects all Americans, and not only professional journalists, defending Lemon’s conduct as an activity protected by the First Amendment would mean that everybody could break the law and then claim to be engaged in “reporting.” Any concerned citizen with a recording device or a pad of paper could walk into a neighbor’s home, a local church, or, for that matter, the offices of CNN and then claim First Amendment immunity for disrupting the lives of other Americans pursuing legitimate activities.

No sensible person would embrace such a chaotic standard, which is certainly not required by the First Amendment.

Justice Story observed in his account of the First Amendment that “the exercise of a right is essentially different from an abuse of it. The one is no legitimate inference from the other.”

Story continued, “Common sense here promulgates the broad doctrine: so exercise your freedom, as not to infringe the rights of others, or the public peace and safety.” This is the way the founders thought about the rights they enshrined in the Constitution, and it is the only way to think about them that is consistent with a decent public order in which the rights of all are safe.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

​Don lemon, First amendment, Cities church, Constitution, Journalism, Face act, Opinion & analysis, Reporting, Freedom of speech, Free exercise, Religion, Leftism, Arrested