President Trump frequently refers to the liberal media as “fake news” mostly on account of the fact that they print and broadcast lies that have to be retracted. The liberal media doesn’t like being called “fake news” and the obvious solution is for them to start reporting the truth, but that’s not how they roll. A group of lefty journalists has decided instead that the best course of action is to sue the President for calling them what they are.
Suzanne Nossel is some kind of liberal journalist and she wrote a piece for Politico laying out her case against Donald Trump:
President Donald J. Trump’s frequent threats and hostile acts directed toward journalists and the media are not only offensive and unbecoming of a democratic leader; they are also illegal. In the Trump era, nasty rhetoric, insults and even threats of violence have become an occupational hazard for political reporters and commentators. To be sure, a good portion of President Trump’s verbal attacks on journalists and news organizations might be considered fair game in this bare-knuckled political moment. The president has free-speech rights just like the rest of us, and deeming the news media “the enemy of the American people” and dismissing accurate reports as “fake news” are permissible under the First Amendment.
At first glance it seems like this liberal is acknowledging a Republican’s right to free speech, which they don’t usually do, but she also claims that Trump is breaking the law by exercising his 1st Amendment rights. How does that work? Here’s Nossel to explain:
But the First Amendment does not protect all speech. Although the president can launch verbal tirades against the press, he cannot use the powers of his office to suppress or punish speech he doesn’t like. When President Trump proposes government retribution against news outlets and reporters, his statements cross the line. Worse still, in several cases it appears that the bureaucracy he controls has acted on his demands, making other threats he issues to use his governmental powers more credible. Using the force of the presidency to punish or suppress legally protected speech strikes at the heart of the First Amendment, contravening the Constitution. Presidents are free to mock, needle, evade and even demean the press, but not to use the power of government to stifle it.
Can we have some examples or proof that Trump has used the power of the presidency to attack journalists? Nossel says “it appears” that Trump has done this, but doesn’t even list what this appearance of abuse of power is. We can list several examples of former president Barack Obama arresting and prosecuting journalists and their sources, but the only thing Trump has done is call out the fake news industry for being fake.
While the liberal media never sued Obama for violating freedom of the press rights, they are going after Trump because he’s Trump:
That is why this week PEN America, an organization of writers that defends free expression, together with the nonprofit organization Protect Democracy and the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Clinic, is filing suit in federal court seeking an order directing the president not to use the force of his office to exact reprisals against the press.
So this lawsuit is trying to stop Trump from doing something he isn’t doing? Making this even more worthless, it doesn’t appear that anyone involved in the lawsuit is actually an aggrieved party. This is as dumb as me suing the Skipper because I don’t like the way he treats Gilligan. Then again…I wonder if Michael Avenatti would take my case.
Speaking of which, Avenatti’s client Stormy Daniels just had her frivolous lawsuit against Donald Trump thrown out of court and she was ordered to pay the President’s legal bills. Maybe Nossel and her band of butt-hurt journalist should consider that before filing an even worse lawsuit against Trump.
