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For anyone living in an alternate universe, Ed Sheeran is a British pop singer. He has been touring with several soloists and groups, including the rapper Macklemore.
At a recent concert, Macklemore made a statement about Gaza from the stage and said the words *free Palestine. *Because this could have happened again in the fascist billionaire (and owner of the NFL football team the New England Patriots) Robert Kraft’s stadium, he and his fellow fascist billionaire NFL owners demanded that Macklemore be dropped from the tour.
I wrote about fascist ownership in professional sports almost a year ago. According to research from The Guardian, owners of professional sports teams gave to Republicans over Democrats by a 86.2%/13.8% split.
Sheeran complied and dropped Macklemore from the tour with a mealy-mouthed, both-sides, I-don’t-do-politics statement (in case you’re looking to jettison some music from your collection.)
The rest of the artists, including Sheeran’s backing band, dropped out of the tour and made statements in support of Macklemore, Gaza, anti-colonialism, anti-genocide, and freedom of artistic speech and expression. Several of the artists were Irish. One specifically compared what’s happening in Gaza to Irish history.
NSPM-7 is the USA Patriot Act on steroids (to quote from our Tuesday conversation. You can watch on YouTube. We also talk about the recent Republican obsession with God’s penis.)
NSPM-7 applies all the tools of the USA Patriot Act to a new, inward-facing category called DOMESTIC TERROR.
It makes the following broad categories of speech and expression DOMESTIC TERROR:
Anti-Americanism
Anti-capitalism
Anti-Christianity
Support for the overthrow of the United States government
Extremism on migration, race, or gender
Hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on the family, religion, and morality
While it doesn’t specifically cite antisemitism as a category, this regime is using NSPM-7’s origin paper, Project Esther, to investigate and prosecute pro-Gaza/free Palestine individuals and groups. I wrote about Project Esther a bunch in 2025.
They could accuse him of being a domestic terrorist for giving money to Palestinian charities, because they claim at least some of these funds support Hamas, a terrorist organization. They’ve already done this to US multi-millionaire Fergie Chambers, who’s sitting in a Spanish prison. I wrote about that
HERE. (Full disclosure: There is evidence that some of Chambers’ support wound up with Hamas.)The regime could freeze his bank accounts and other assets.
It could audit his tax filings.
It could surveil him via various undercover programs whose methods amount to pre-crime investigations. They are warrantless and are often discovered accidentally. and I talked about this yesterday
HERE.It could revoke his US passport.
It could charge him with money laundering.
All because Macklemore exercised his First Amendment right to speech and expression by uttering the words free Palestine.
In the process, it could impact that person’s money, other assets, free movement, tax history, and continued freedom from incarceration.
Much of our media - whether corporate or otherwise - isn’t connecting these dots. *NSPM-7 is wonky and weird and hard-to-remember-and-say, *people whine. We have the First Amendment, Americans exclaim. This isn’t a real law and *they’ll never do that, *shouts the peanut gallery.
This week, it’s fascist billionaire overlords like Robert Kraft and his cohort of fascist NFL owners.
Soon, it could be your White Christian Nationalist neighbor, your racist family member, or your nosy-body work colleague.
I leave you with my earlier rant about this whole episode. Because it is beyond time for Americans to decide they value more than comfort, convenience, and only-news-they-want-to-hear-by-infotainment.
The midterm elections are less than two months from today. Please share this newsletter with every persuadable voter you know.
