In an interview with Newsmax, Dr. Laura Schlessinger continued her efforts to portray herself as a First Amendment martyr, claiming that thanks to the “bullying” of Media Matters, among others, "[w]e're going in the direction of Russia." From the interview:

Where are our First Amendment rights headed if we as Americans are no longer free to speak out on these issues?

Well, when you have Nancy Pelosi saying she's going to investigate the people who feel profoundly, deeply, that a mosque should not be on Ground Zero, I think you can see where the First Amendment rights are going. It's bullying and it's scary. We're going in the direction of Russia, for goodness sake, where if you say the wrong thing you're toast. I find it very alarming. I do not find it as a bipartisan issue, I really don't... I don't see the flip equivalent of Media Matters.

Schlessinger also told Newsmax that in response to the firestorm that followed her racial rant:

I sat down at my desk and said 'I'm done trying to help people in a situation where my First Amendment rights don't exist, where special interest groups and activist groups can make a decision to silence you. It's not American, it's not fair play. I would like for people to just say, 'Hey, I didn't quite understand what you meant by that, let's have a debate at the LA public library.' You know, debating and discussing is kind of gone, attacks are in. You can see that in politics, you can see that everywhere.

As Media Matters' Ari Rabin-Havt noted in response to Schlessinger's outrageous attempt to turn herself into a First Amendment victim, “She has the constitutional right to make her statements, and I have the same right to assemble people to challenge the statements.”