Trump has taken a slightly different tack with this latest slamming of negative press, seemingly dropping the gauntlet with his call for review of the nation’s libel laws. It’s big talk, but it’s more bluster than business. First of all, Americans rightly enjoy the free speech protections of the First Amendment, the press included. Second, the law has set the bar high for any one to be found guilty of libel against a public official, and the mere spreading of false information certainly does not meet that standard. Third, Trump has no power to change laws, either federal or state. Finally, it’s a good bet that Trump already knows all this. So what is he aiming at?
Since day one, Trump has been in a battle with the mainstream media. He has regularly called them out for promulgating fake news, while the MSM itself has often accused fake news of having helped Trump win the election. With regularity, Trump has trolled the MSM, and in so doing has helped to expose more of its leftist bias. So it follows that this is merely another salvo in his ongoing war with the MSM. By threatening to send the law after Wolff, Trump is effectively blowing an MSM dog whistle, to which they will respond by jumping to Wolff’s defense. That leaves the MSM caught defending an author widely recognized for his own propensity to engage in stretching the truth. In other words, the MSM has been set up to once again be pilloried by Trump for their defense of fake news. Meanwhile, he has gone a long way in discrediting the book in the eyes of many Americans.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53393
Harris spent six years as California’s attorney general, a position she utilized to crack down on gun ownership. She oversaw Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2013 firearms proscription in which $24 million was set aside for the purpose of impounding guns. According to a Los Angeles Times report at the time, state officials’ justification for doing so was “to clear the backlog of weapons known to be in the hands of about 20,000 people who acquired them legally [emphasis added]. They were later disqualified because of criminal convictions, restraining orders or serious mental illness.”
She also advocated for additional firearm restrictions, writes Reason’s Brian Doherty: “As attorney general, Harris tried to ensure that people couldn’t get carry permits for weapons in California merely for reasons as petty, to her mind, as that they felt they needed one. She has fought in court to ensure that only police officials should be able to decide whether a citizen can defend himself outside his home.”
Harris prefers to use emotional upheaval to advocate policy prescriptions. In reference to the Sandy Hook massacre, she stated: “They should have closed the chambers of Congress, on the House and the Senate side, and said, ‘All you members go in there, only you, and spread out the autopsy photos of those babies,’ and require them to look at those photographs. And then vote your conscience.”
And according to Doherty, “Harris is so uncomfortable with the Second Amendment she’s willing to jab at the First Amendment while hobbling it, as shown by her support as California’s attorney general for a state law restricting how handgun sellers can advertise. She so delights in pettily bedeviling gun owners that her department in California tried to enforce restrictions on how many guns could be purchased per month by those who hold certain special collectors’ licenses even though both the letter of the law and previous practice said they were exempt, and stuck to her lack of principle on the issue until she got sued over it in 2014.”
The role of the Senate Judiciary Committee should be to recommend nominees who abide by the Rule of Law regardless of their personal whims. Harris is completely the opposite — she will support nominees who abuse their roles just like she did in California. Her name is being highlighted as a possible candidate for the 2020 presidential election (as is Booker’s). The only thing that could be worse than elevating her to the Judiciary Committee would be putting her in the nation’s highest office. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/53367
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