Tims fundamental free-speech fail, the West can win and other commentary

Legal beat: Tim’s ‘Fundamental’ Free-Speech FailIn the veep debate, Gov.Tim Walz pulled the proverbial “fire alarm” on free speech, warns Jonathan Turley at USA Today: He cited the 1919 decision in Schenck v.

United States “in which Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said you do not have the right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater.” But that “favorite mantra of the anti-free speech movement” is “fundamentally wrong,” as Schneck was “effectively overturned in 1969.” Not just Walz, but “other Democratic leaders” all “need a class in First Amendment law.” Indeed, Biden-Harris “has proved to be the most anti-free speech administration in two centuries,” and free-speech advocates fear Harris-Walz would be worse.Fact is, “we are living through the most dangerous anti-free speech movement in American history.”Foreign desk: The West Can Win“We should not be ashamed to use and defend words and concepts like nation and patriotism, because they mean more than a physical place,” thunders Italian PM Giorgia Meloni at The Free Press — and “for me, the West is more than a physical place.” It means “a system of values in which the person is central” and “men and women are equal and free.” Yes, “the idea of the inevitable decline of the West” delights tyrants, since “our freedom and our values, and the pride we feel for them, are the weapons our adversaries fear the most.” So “we can surrender to the idea that our civilization has nothing more to say” or fight “to leave our children a better world.

Which is exactly my choice.”Security beat: Joe Punts on Iran’s Nuke Threat“Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel . . .foreshadowed how Iranian nuclear or chemical strikes against Tel Aviv or Jerusalem could be delivered in the not-so-distant future,” warn Mark Toth & Jonathan Sweet at The Hill.

To end Iran’s nuclear threat, “Jerusalem needs President Biden and his n...