The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, including the ability to quote political figures, and government officials who violate these constitutional rights may face legal consequences and financial settlements, as demonstrated by the case of Larry Bushart, a retired Tennessee police officer who was jailed for 37 days and required to post a $2 million bond for posting a meme using Donald Trump's own words, ultimately receiving an $835,000 settlement from the state of Tennessee.
Approfondir
Prérequis
- Pas de données disponibles.
Prochaines étapes
- Pas de données disponibles.
Approfondir
Trump FAILS, Paying BIG Time For Attacking Retired Cop For Posting MemeAjouté :
In September of 2025, a 61-year-old retired police officer named Larry Bushard logged onto Facebook and posted a meme. It's just a meme. The meme had a picture of Donald Trump with a quote underneath it. And the quote was Donald Trump's own words. Words that he spoke in 2024 after a school shooting at Iowa's Perry High School. Quote, "We have to get over it."
Bushart added his own caption above it saying, "This seems relevant today."
And so, normally, I'd expect to get a few likes and some outraged MAGATypes losing what's left of their mind if I posted a meme like that. But for Larry, for posting a Donald Trump quote underneath a Donald Trump picture, Larry spent 37 days in jail.
And on Wednesday of this this week, the state of Tennessee paid him $835,000.
This all happened in the post Charlie Kirk climate in America where Trump quotes and Trump's people will lock you up for simply quoting Donald Trump. Dorito Donald's free speech paradise.
And after Charlie Kirk's death, Larry Bushard, who lives in Tennessee, posted a series of Facebook memes that criticized Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.
And the one that got him arrested was the Trump we have to get over it quote timed to where it essentially applied to the Kurt shooting. And somehow in classic leap in logic, the Perry County Sheriff Nick Williams decided that that meme was a threat to a local school, the Perry County High School in Tennessee, which by the way is a totally different school than the one in Iowa that Donald Trump was originally telling you to get over.
And that sheriff later admitted that he knew that Bushart's meme referred to the Iowa school, not the school in Perry. Yet that sheriff arrested him anyway and set the bail at $2 million for a meme.
Bushart sat in jail for 37 days because he couldn't pay a $2 million bond for posting one of Donald Trump's quotes. He missed his wedding anniversary.
He missed the birth of his granddaughter. He lost his postretirement job. And then predictably, the charge was eventually dropped in October. And I can't stop thinking about this fact here.
Larry Bushart is a retired cop. The Perry County Sheriff threw a fellow cop in jail for 37 days because he dared post Donald Trump's own words next to Donald Trump's own face. They jailed an officer for quoting the president that they pretend to worship. the cognitive dissonance required to to do that should generate enough energy to power Knoxville for an entire month. So, of course, Bushart sued. The case was an obvious First Amendment slam dunk. And Perry County, watching one of the most embarrassing defendant fact patterns in modern court history, settled for $835,000 of taxpayer money. And that taxpayer money is now going to a guy because the sheriff in their county decided that Donald Trump's own words were too dangerous to quote on Facebook.
Larry did say in a statement that he's pleased that his First Amendment rights have been vindicated, that the people's freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy. The the man sounds like a Saturday Evening Post cover story, but wasn't that Charlie Kirk's whole shtick that he was protected by the First Amendment when he disingenuously debated college kids and then he went out to say all that racist stuff.
But that sort of thinking cost the taxpayers in Tennessee 835 grand just to learn that the First Amendment exists. And Bushart, he's not alone. Monica Meeks, a lifelong Tennessee public servant.
She was fired by the state of Tennessee for another Facebook post criticizing Charlie Kirk.
A professor was fired for citing Kirk's own words on gun violence. Not opinions, not commentary, just quoting Charlie Kirk back to Charlie Kirk's fans. Got fired.
Meanwhile, the State Department under Marco Rubio has instructed officials to monitor social media posts that celebrated Charlie Kirk's death. And the government wants to identify the authors.
You have a US government surveillance program against private American free speech about a private American. There is a federal scale speech crackdown happening in this country against people for sharing their opinions about a guy who built his entire brand on saying quote, "Every group has a right to be offensive." There's a reason the First Amendment is first. It's not because our founders thought that hate speech was great. It's because they had just spent an entire war watching a king lock up people for saying mean things about the king. and they said never again.
And yet here we are, 37 days in a Tennessee jail cell because Larry Bushart quoted Donald Trump who wants to be king at a sheriff who loves Donald Trump.
$835,000 later, we've got a reminder. Free speech isn't free if you've got to pay bail to enjoy it.
And Donald Trump and his goons think that that sort of speech is dangerous, just like the algorithm here thinks that some of the things we say are dangerous. That's why I need you to sound off in the comments. Do me a favor and let the algorithm know that we are not going to shut
Vidéos Similaires
BREAKING: Judge Kathleen Issues Emergency Arrest Warrant After Trump Defies Order
Frontora
2K views•2026-05-29
8 Hidden Things About Mackenzie Shirilla Netflix's 'The Crash' Didn't Show You
MarvelousVideos
2K views•2026-05-28
MP Garnett Genuis warns Canada’s MAiD system has ‘gone too far’
WesternStandard
187 views•2026-05-28
Trump Impeachment STORM IGNITES as 29 Judges Vote for Conviction!!
DanielBriefDaily
2K views•2026-06-02
सुप्रीम कोर्ट में 5 जजों का शपथग्रहण समारोह #supremecourt #judges #oathceremony #shorts #ytshorts
Bharat24Liv
4K views•2026-06-02
THE STREISAND EFFECT AT BARBARA STREISAND’S HOUSE! - First Amendment Audit
KULTNEWS
1K views•2026-05-30
EBK Jaaybo Won’t Be Going To Trial?! | Criminal Lawyer Reacts
floridadefenseteam
404 views•2026-05-29
OFFICE HOURS: The Theft of Black Brilliance... AI and Intellectual Property (w/ Lisa E. Davis)
marclamonthillnetwork
2K views•2026-05-29











