Brian Kemper

You’re not the one going to court. And they aren’t whining about things like you are.

No one is disagreeing that Trump is abusing his powers massively.

But what you fail to realize that it is the. First Amendment and other constitutional rights that are helping them.

What about them?

Comey and James are about to get their cases dismissed because the charges against them are so ridiculous.

Nor are there any legitimate claims against the rest. Trump may yet charge them but due to our Constitutional rights like the First Amendment, they have solid protections.

It has protected ius because if the government did have the power to require “truth,” Trump would be abusibg it against his political opponents like h has with his actual powers.

Plus, courts have relied on 1A to strike down Trump admin actions repeatedly.

individuals.

But if the Doctrine hadn't been repealed in 1987, it likely would have been struck down in the subsequent years due to changes in our media, including the exponential expansion of avenues of viewpoints through cable, satellite, social media and other internet sites, podcasts, etc.

any private entity to carry or utter speech they don't like or want to carry or utter.

The Fairness Doctrine was a very narrow exception to this rule but did entirely due to the issues with that medium which required the gov't to act as a gatekeeper to give "frequency monopolies" to select ...

No one is disputing that.

But government censorship occurs with regard to speech laws even when the law on point doesn't actually provide for "censorship."

Gov'ts can still chill speech without overt censorship, which is why we generally don't allow the gov't to compel the media or ...

will be aware of their own biases but will try to counter them. It's impossible to do so completely.

If your legal suggestion is dependent upon a "bias free court system," you're doomed to failure.

Yeah, a "bias free court system" is a pipe-dream.

It's why we have appeals and other rules regarding judges. But even then, we still don't bar judges for having "biases."

Have a judge without any bias is impossible as long as humans are judges. Humans are biased. Self-aware people ...

movement.

The issue is a very complex one and cannot be solved solely by the law. And in fact, can often be made worse when the law allows for speech to be targeted. Because then the gov't only targets their opponents' speech.

and the media.

Our country hasn't been the only one to face this. Other countries without 1A has stricter speech laws have faced it too.

The UK certainly has had it, which is why Brexit occurred. Germany with very strict hate speech laws is still facing a rising nationalist ....

abused by the Kennedy and Nixon administrations against outlets airing viewpoints opposing their administrations.

Further, as I stated, the history books are filled with times when we lived in "alternate realities." People have always been dumb and vulnerable to manipulation by their leaders ...

FFS, one of Murrow's most well know actions was the expression of his opinion re: Senator McCarthy on the air.

Walter Cronkite had a similar moment with the Vietnam War.

And both individuals were against gov't regulation of the media, including the Fairness Doctrine.

Because it also was ...

courts adjudicating such cases are still the gov't, the First Amendment still applies in civil cases, even between private parties.

lawsuits.

He has several right now against the NYT, Fox News, and others.

And NYT v. Sullivan is a HUGE obstacle in his way. That's why he and other conservatives, including Justice Thomas, want it gone.

Civil lawsuits are almost as much of an issue as gov't actions. And because the ...

go after accurate reporting but to drag the matter in court to create devastating legal fees for the media or speaker.

We see this all the time now. Musk is using it with regard to those exercising boycotts against Twitter.

Trump does it all the time with crappy defamation/media ...

against such figures.

Why?

Because usually the topic was of maximum public interest, and the Court recognized that the lesser standard could stifle free speech about important issues regarding public figures. Without such a standard, such figures could use their considerable resources to ...

adopted widely until the early 20th century.

Your statements re: the court system still don't evade the problem I discussed before.

In the NYT v. Sullivan case, the Court established the "actual malice" standard with regard to alleged public figures to make it harder to prove defamation ...

The First Amendment hasn't been "weaponized" and as I have demonstrated, our media landscape right now has existed in our country before, probably more often than its opposite.

The idea of journalistic ethics and neutral reporting is a relatively modern concept that wasn't ...

don't upcoming mergers be squashed by Trump in retribution.

It's why CBS and ABC settled with him on his private lawsuits against him.

Trump wouldn't care if he ultimately lost a court trial years later on whether the "fake news" was a willful lie or not.

Just by taking action against an outlet with legal gov't power for "lies," he'd chill others for printing such things.

We've seen this already for companies that ...

a war.

If Trump's admin had such powers, he'd be targeting his opponents who print "Fake News" every time they printed facts he doesn't like.

That's why in US v. Alvarez, SCOTUS held that lies are protected by 1A, unless they fall into the very narrow and long-standing 1A exceptions.

We see the problem with this in other countries in the past and now.

For instance, the Nazi government shut down outlets challenging their lies, calling them the "Lying Press."

Or in Hungary or Russia, where in the latter you can be arrested for telling the "lie" that the Ukraine invasion is ...

And SCOTUS has rejected the last because while we know that press lies can be harmful, the greater harm is to give the gov't power to punish lies. This was something directly considered by the drafters of the First Amendment and others supporting 1A.

Further, last summer, in an opinion written by liberal Justice Kagan, SCOTUS held that social media sites had a 1A right to choose what content to display in people's timelines and that attempts to display opposing viewpoints violated the First Amendment.

Oh, that's easy.

It was unanimously ruled a violation of the First Amendment in Miami Herald v. Tornillo, when Florida tried to apply the "personal attack rule" in the Doctrine to newspapers.

Further, the Doctrine never required "back and forth" nor that opposing opinions had to be aired at the same time.

In fact, the broadcast station had discretion to determine when to air the opposing viewpoint and for how long.

They can't under the First Amendment.

The Fairness Doctrine was permitted for over-the-air broadcast stations as an exception to the First Amendment due to "unique" issues with that medium. Every attempt to apply similar requirements to other mediums has been struck down

bsky.app/profile/bwke...

Alex Jones did more that say that the parents, etc. were "liars."

Further, "they got Alex," because he failed to follow court orders on discovery and defaulted. There was never any ruling or verdict that his statements defamed anyone.

We've seen this in other countries such as Nazi Germany where the gov't targeted the "Lying Press" which really was only the opposition or in Russia, where telling the "lie" that the Ukraine invasion is a "war" will get you arrested.

Instead, our bedrock principle is:

As SCOTUS has noted on a number of occasions, including 50 years ago in a unanimous decision, we don't want the gov't regulating the media or being able to require the "truth" is because a corrupt gov't will abuse it.

Trump has more than demonstrated that.