Branch 70 in Their Own Words (Part 2) - The Response to Michael Rivera

Branch 70 in Their Own Words (Part 2) - The Response to Michael Rivera

July 15, 2026 · 1h 12m · Season 6 · Episode 54

About this episode

This episode discusses the response of Branch 70 to Michael Rivera's election appeal and the implications of free speech.

"If the law is on your side, pound the law. If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If neither are on your side, pound the table." You're going to hear a lot of table pounding in this episode out of Branch 70. I want you to think about something as you listen to this episode. What are the damages? The Branch 70 president compared Rivera's sharing of an election appeal to "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater." The reason such speech is not protected is because of the obvious harm: loss of revenue, people get trampled, people can get killed. Compare that to the harm Branch 70 has suffered because people who read the appeal might have thought there was only supposed to be one microphone for nominations. 4.5 years of suspensions, for a harm that Branch 70 doesn't even articulate.

People in this episode

Host: Alan Gegax

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Branch 70

More episodes of Classes of Mail

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Classes of Mail podcast page.