Category: Political violence
The IRS can hit political violence where it hurts: Funding
Political violence in the United States no longer lives in the realm of theory. We are watching it unfold in real time. Assassination attempts, targeted harassment, and violent disruptions have become disturbingly common. The chaos at Berkeley in November offers a bracing reminder.
A majority of Americans now believe a political candidate will be assassinated within the next five years. We have already witnessed two assassination attempts against President Trump, the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk, and a foiled plot to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Increasingly, this violence draws fuel from activist organizations that exploit tax-exempt status to advance their agendas through intimidation rather than debate.
If the government is serious about de-escalating political violence, it must lawfully deploy every available tool.
That exploitation must end. The federal government already has the tools to act. It should use them — starting with the IRS.
We cannot tolerate nonprofits mobilizing radicals under the banner of free speech while trampling the First Amendment rights of others. At Berkeley, activist groups operated as coordinated foot soldiers. One organization, “By Any Means Necessary,” lived up to its name. Protesters circulated flyers depicting Charlie Kirk’s assassination, labeled attendees “fascists,” and openly called for President Trump’s removal.
This is not debate. It is coercion.
Growing numbers of activists no longer seek persuasion but submission. Polling reflects the danger. Roughly one-third of Americans under 45 now say political violence is sometimes justified. Berkeley showed what that belief looks like when put into practice.
The moment demands a firm, whole-of-government response. As a former state criminal prosecutor and Senate chief of staff, I understand that crises require decisive action. Protecting citizens and enforcing the law are core functions of government. The time to act has arrived.
The first step toward dismantling the nonprofit infrastructure that enables political violence is straightforward: The IRS should revoke tax-exempt status from organizations that finance or coordinate violent activity. Cutting off these funding streams deprives radical networks of oxygen.
Critics will claim this amounts to political targeting. That claim collapses under scrutiny.
RELATED: Trump declared war on leftist domestic terror. The IRS didn’t get the memo.
Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
The real problem is that the IRS has lost focus. For years, the agency engaged in overt political targeting — scrutinizing conservative groups while leaving ideologically aligned organizations untouched. That imbalance allowed certain nonprofits to operate with near impunity while exploiting the protections of tax-exempt status.
Restoring evenhanded enforcement does not mean ignoring violations on the left. It means applying the law as written. The IRS has both the authority and the obligation to act when nonprofits facilitate violence. Looking the other way is not neutrality. It is abdication.
Consider Antifa, which has been designated a domestic terrorist organization yet continues to benefit indirectly from nonprofit support structures. That contradiction should not stand.
If the government is serious about de-escalating political violence, it must lawfully deploy every available tool. That includes the IRS. The assassination attempts against President Trump should have been a wake-up call. The murder of Charlie Kirk should have erased any remaining illusions.
Subversive actors are gaming the nonprofit system to tear the country apart — using tax-exempt dollars to silence, intimidate, and physically endanger those exercising their most basic constitutional rights.
We either enforce the law now, or we accept that the violence will escalate.
‘I’m going to get myself in trouble’: Hunter Biden urges Democrats to race to ‘the bottom faster’ after Kirk’s assassination
Hunter Biden emphasized in a recent interview that his allies on the “leaderless” left should not tone down their extreme rhetoric in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination — but rather ramp it up against the MAGA movement.
After Biden suggested to “Wide Awake Podcast” host Joshua Rubin that Kirk was a representative of hate and should not be posthumously honored, the former president’s son was asked whether it was time for the left and right to tone down their rhetoric.
‘We need people to see … it for what it is.’
“Do you think the conversation should be about turning the temperature down completely on both sides?” asked Rubin.
“What I haven’t seen is people going, ‘We need to look at extremism in general and turn down the temperature.'”
“Yeah, no,” said Biden. “That’s not going to happen, Josh.”
Biden — whose father let him off the hook last year for his felony conviction on gun charges, his felony tax offenses, and whatever else he may have been involved in between January 2014 and December 2024 — prefaced his accelerationist proposal with, “I’m going to get myself in trouble for saying this.”
“We need to turn the temperature up,” continued Biden. “We need to turn the temperature up, and we need people to see … it for what it is.”
RELATED: The Antifa mob at Berkeley showed us what evil looks like
Leftists staged mock executions of an effigy of the president at a No Kings rally in Chicago. Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
Recent polling suggests the temperature is sufficiently high on the left, where Democrat politicians such as Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett seem to freely recommend and/or downplay violence against their opponents.
A survey conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab revealed in April that 55% of respondents who identified as left of center said that assassinating Trump would be at least somewhat justified.
When asked by pollsters about the September 2024 attempt on the president’s life at his golf course in Florida, 28% of Democrats told RMG Research it would have been better if Trump had been gunned down.
A recent Marist Poll found that 28% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.”
“I do not believe that we are going to get to the bottom until we get to the bottom,” said Biden, whose father smeared his political opponents as “extremists” and dubbed President Donald Trump’s supporters “garbage.”
Hunter Biden added, “I want to get to the bottom faster rather than through this slow kind of process of just being picked apart, a death by a thousand cuts here.”
After clarifying that he was “100% not saying that it needs to be violence,” Biden castigated liberal talking heads such as CNN’s Jake Tapper for supposedly not being antagonistic enough to the Trump administration.
Biden appeared desperate to suggest that political extremism is predominantly a right-wing issue, casting doubt on whether Charlie Kirk was assassinated because of his beliefs and and whether the assassin was a leftist and suggesting that Kirk’s killer was a disciple of right-wing commentator Nick Fuentes.
A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report indicated that the first half of this year was marked by a significant increase in left-wing terrorist attacks and plots in the United States — and that those attacks are set to hit 30-year highs. While leftist terrorism is on the rise, right-wing incidents have dropped precipitously.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Person tried to ‘confront’ US attorney Alina Habba and destroyed property at her office, Bondi says
Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba was the target of an alleged act of political intimidation according to a statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi revealed few details about the incident from Wednesday evening in a post on social media.
‘Any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period.’
“Last night, an individual attempted to confront one of our U.S. Attorneys — my dear friend @USAttyHabba — destroyed property in her office, and then fled the scene. Thankfully, Alina is ok,” wrote Bondi Thursday.
“Any violence or threats of violence against any federal officer will not be tolerated. Period,” she added. “This is unfortunately becoming a trend as radicals continue to attack law enforcement agents around the country.”
Habba posted a brief but defiant statement about the incident.
“I will not be intimidated by radical lunatics for doing my job,” she wrote.
Bondi vowed to find the alleged culprit and bring them to justice.
“Our federal prosecutors, agents, and law-enforcement partners put their lives on the line every day to protect the American people,” Bondi added, “and this Department will use every legal tool available to ensure their safety and hold violent offenders fully accountable.”
RELATED: Federal judge rules Alina Habba is not lawfully acting as US attorney for NJ
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel reiterated the promise to lead the hunt against those threatening public servants.
He added, “Zero tolerance for these acts of violence.”
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
