House Democrats, Targeting Right-Wing Cable Outlets, Are Assaulting Core Press Freedoms

Not sure that is good comparison to Jan 6th...if anything it shows it's not getting any better.
Sooner or later the danger of leaving things to get worse...
will outweigh the risk of change.
Isn't that how this country came to be?
What will it take for you to say enough is enough...
the lies have gone too far.

 

I'm with Justice Brandeis.
Louis Brandeis | The First Amendment Encyclopedia

". . . According to Brandeis, the founders not only valued free speech as a means to sort out political truths, but they also knew “that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.”

He reiterated that an imminent danger of serious evil is the only justification for suppressing free speech. This was in direct contradiction to the view in Schenck that words could be criminalized on the basis of their possible effect at some distant time. Brandeis also expressed what later became known as the counterspeech doctrine, writing that the best remedy to combat harmful speech is “more speech, not enforced silence.”. . . "

 

Misinformation had nothing to do with Jan 6 -- other than in the fantasy world of some. So, what's your point?

 

Our expectations are the same, but controlling your children is infinitely easier than controlling politicians. For starters you don't need any court.

 

Do you mean like Harris' overt support of rioters, looters, and arsonists, for example?

 

Neither you nor anybody else can prove that anything Trump said was wrong or a lie.

 

That was a mouthful; I hope you don't mind my marking it, to make it easier to digest & comment on.

It seems to me, for all the specific things you are alleging, there should be more corroborating evidence than the scatter-shot of generalized references you make. Let me be more specific:
Your conclusions, you attribute to two basic sources. The 2nd group(B) from which you are gauging the intentions (& extrapolating the future results) of Congress's examining this issue, is simply commentary by media pundits, and political operatives & wags. It should go w/o saying that this is far from, "hard evidence." Much of it may be little more than wishful thinking (on the part of the operatives) or political promoting of ideas (by the wags), along with a bit of speculative prognostication by the pundits (who get much of their inside information from the operatives & wags). While I could understand you being against any particular idea you had heard from one of these non-voting sources (as opposed to from Congressmen on the Committees in question), it seems unreasonable to condemn the whole effort based on opinions & viewpoints of this appendageal circle of, essentially, onlookers.

Your other source, (A), open congressional actions, are an excellent indicator of the lay of the land. However, are you inferring all the unconstitutionally authoritarian motives that you attribute Congressional Democrats, based on nothing more than the fact that some Committees want to investigate something or have other people investigate & prepare them a report? If that is the case, your reaction seems based, more than anything else, on paranoia.

But if you are aware of actual, "actions," including discussions, within one of these Committees-- which I didn't even realize had conducted a single hearing, yet, on any of this-- please, by all means, share it with the rest of us, who are not as deeply plugged-in to the subject as you.

My guess is, though, you are taking the opinions of people on the Left, and the pundits on the Right who hate them, as if they were more than what they are, which is just talk. Weren't the same sources saying, in 2008, that Democrats were going to eliminate private health care & convert it to one, government-run, behemoth? Just as those eulogies for private medicine & health insurance were premature, then, I have yet to see myself, or hear from you, anything to indicate the death of free speech is near at hand.

What action or statement supports a reasonable belief that any of the things you list will be, "eliminated from allowable SPEECH," period? As you know, I believe the focus is on seeing what can be done about presenting unsupported, discredited, and even outrightly provably false information AS NEWS, which people are inclined to believe to be true ("...otherwise they couldn't say it."). That is different than eliminating it from speech.

What leads you to believe that statements: #1-above) in support of, "or even positive commentary about Trump," have a bull's-eye on them for being OUTLAWED-- even on the News? Unless, that is, by support/positive commentary you mean statements that Mr. Trump actually won the election & so is the legitimate president. I'm sure you can see that is quite another thing, entirely, than simply positive commentary. Again, I don't see how Congress even could stop people from saying that; I could see, and think it makes very good sense, to not allow that to be put forth on a, "NEWS," program, or to not allow a program that wants to say that, to call itself News. The same thing goes for your #2, above, about "fraudulent or illegal elections." To be clear, this only applies (in my own opinion) and only should apply (in any Congressional action) until there is ANY CREDIBLE EVIDENCE of the contention. But to allow all these divisive, spurious charges to go on endlessly, under the respectable banner of NEWS, is a ridiculous situation which, in no way I can think of, is supportive of, "freedom of the press." Remember, Donald Trump still maintains that MILLIONS of illegal aliens voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and we are still waiting for that proof.

 

I think your speculation of what the framers had in mind is, first, utterly wrong but, more importantly than simply my (or anyone's) mere opinion, it has nothing tangible to support it. My opinion, on the other hand, relies on and is derived from, solely the Constitution, itself, which I quoted in post #73.

What is unclear about that? In ALL CASES which are Controversies involving the United States ("to which the U.S. shall be Party"), and also in all CONTROVERSIES BETWEEN TWO OR MORE STATES, the Judiciary was chosen, by the constitution's framers, to be the arbiter. How can the desire of a state, or states, to leave the Union, against the will of the central government that they remain, not be considered a controversy involving the U.S., as well as a controversy between two or more states: the constitution actually delegates secession to the courts through two different pathways! And it also, in a quote a little further down, singles out the SUPREME COURT as the one with jurisdiction over inter-state disputes:

"...In ALL CASES affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those IN WHICH A STATE SHALL BE PARTY the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction..."

Argue all you want, Rod; I don't need to worry about being verbally out-finessed by you on this one: the Constitution is so plain, it can do all the talking for me.

 

If you say so.

 

My first, obvious, comment is that this is dated 1869, which is after the Civil War, so it was, of course, not a precedent that could have been used; though, my point has been that the Supreme Court should have heard the case, at the time. Just to be clear, are you trying to assert that this later case proves that a similar case should NOT have gone forward, before the dispute between the states led to open hostilities? If so, that is some really convoluted logic.

You did not give any background on the specific issue at hand, in the case (but thank you for the link). Yet if, as it seems from the quotes you offer, the case was specifically about whether Texas had the right to leave the Union, how does that not prove MY assertion, that the same type of case COULD HAVE, and the Supreme Court WAS the APPROPRIATE PLACE where it SHOULD HAVE, TAKEN PLACE, AT THE ONSET OF THE ATTEMPTED SECESSION?

I'd like to continue more, discussing this case with you, but I think just that first question is enough to give you, for now.

 

The point of the Texas v White ruling was that the Confederacy never had legitimate standing, just as Lincoln had determined.

 

A) IT WAS NOT FOR LINCOLN TO DETERMINE (in a legal sense)!!
But he sure DID, "determine it," though.

B) The Civil War was, BY FAR, THE MOST TRAUMATIC event our country had ever experienced to that point; so much so that I would say it still rates #1 on that scale, even if the last pandemic, beginning in 1918, edged it out in the death toll. (Approx. 675k from, "Spanish Flu," 620k from Civil War, 644k from ALL OTHER WARS, COMBINED, including almost 417k military deaths/418+k total U.S. deaths from WWII). Remember that deaths was only part of the scarring: there were all sorts of debilitating injuries, & much more destruction to our country than any other trouble we've faced, to this day. And this huge death toll came when our population was much smaller, even than it would be by the time of the First World War. So, proportionally speaking, it was a more catastrophic experience than the 1918 Pandemic & 2nd World War, put together.

And right AFTER going through something like that, comes a verdict that would certainly be seen as answering the questions, "Did we do the right thing? Was all the hardship & calamity worth it?" Yet you don't feel that would, in the slightest, influence the Justices in their decision? Did you not need to know anything about psychology, particularly group psychology, to work in the Intelligence field (you weren't actually an analyst, were you)?

Well, I'll tell you, the chances that any federal court in 1869 was going to come back with a verdict that said, in effect, that the hell we'd just suffered through, as a country, was all just a big mistake-- and, by the way, the Confederate States DO have the right, if they would still like to leave NOW, to do so-- are zero. A group of Japanese Americans would've had exponentially better chances of getting a permit for a mass march in Washington, D.C., the week after the Pearl Harbor attack. If you cannot see how automatically tainted that Texas v. White verdict is, I don't know what to tell you.

 

The entirety of Article 3 is about day to day disputes over law and equity. It has nothing to do with dissolving the union itself.

 

Chief Justice Chase was Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury.
Texas v White affirms that Lincoln acted in accordance with principle and took the necessary action to preserve the Union. Any argument that he should have negotiated is merely advocacy for disunion, treason and slavery.

 

And it says that where, Rod? 'Cause I think that is nothing more than your, no offense, non-expert opinion. The Constitution says, "in ALL CASES" in which the U.S. Government is a Party, and, "in ALL CASES," of controversies between 2 or more states; it does NOT SAY, only in day to day cases of law & equity, whatever you mean by, "day to day;" there is no such limitation in the language of the constitution. That is completely your own idea that you are inserting.

 

EVASION of responding to ANYTHING in my post, noted, including still failing to answer the direct question from my previous post-- "Just to be clear, are you trying to assert that this later case proves that a similar case should NOT have gone forward, before the dispute between the states led to open hostilities?"-- as to your position with regard to the Constitutionally prescribed role of the Judiciary, as I have quoted it for you. A later ruling cannot change the fact of what was supposed to happen at an earlier juncture.

 

The answer to your question is an emphatic Yes. I thought that was clear.

 

Lol...since you people think that the media is all fake news, why do you care?
Did you complain when trump spent 4 years trying to cancel journalists and the media with his lies?

 

Well that at least can get us back to the thread's topic. And it is now clear how all your concerns about unconstitutional limitations on the press & free speech can be eliminated. All the Sebate need do, at some point, is eliminate the filibuster & give Biden the ability to add more SCOTUS justices. Then they can pass a judgement, after the fact, that says any censorship enacted by Congress was completely Constitutional, as well as that in Biden's loading of the judiciary, he, "acted in accordance with principle, and took the necessary action to preserve our nation." And you will then accept it, right?

Why am I 100% certain your answer will be diametrically inconsistent with your view of Lincoln?

 

The OP by @Jack Hays said, "The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday announced a February 24 hearing, convened by one of its sub-committees, entitled “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media.” Claiming that “the spread of disinformation and extremism by traditional news media presents a tangible and destabilizing threat,” the Committee argues:........” First, you argue that it is not real and that congress is just talking. I submit the best way to stop an arsonist group from burning down a city is when you first discover he is thinking about it, not as they are about to launch a legion of molotov cocktails. More so congress is officially talking about it, not just thinking about it. Secondly, they are openly and blatantly discriminatory about what constitutes "disinformation and extremism." It is anything to do with positive media about Trump. They have no concern or even interest in disinformation or extremism with negative media about Trump such as all that surrounding the Jan 6 riot at the capitol. Hell's bells, the same House impeached Trump over that nonsense. Thirdly, there is no doubt what they are trying to do, and that is prohibit media carriers from purveying information that they do not like -- precisely what the 1st amendment was designed to protect.

You claim that unless someone can prove their allegations it can be defined as disinformation. Forgetting that this would outlaw virtually all campaign speech, why not the other way around? Unless someone can prove the assertions are wrong, then the assertions stand (and ignoring for the sake of discussion that this too would violate the 1st amendment). For instance, as I posted elsewhere, nobody can prove that anything Trump or his supporters said about the election is false. So Trump (or anyone) claiming there was fraud or illegalities could not be outlawed, precisely the opposite of what the proponents want to do.

You evidently didn't know or forgot that Obama was quite open about wanting complete government run single payer health care, but that it probably couldn't happen all at once. Hence ACA was simply the first step of the plan.

 

You have made my point. Thanks.

 

So just because you say spreading lies had nothing to do with it....
that makes it so.....that's my point.
Trump and his supporters make things up...and insist it is truth.
They feel they don't need to provide anything to support their claims...
if Trump loses...they claim he won...no question about it.

 

You are making too many assumptions. I voted against Trump twice.

 

Wrong again. Lincoln made an executive decision as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive. The principles on which that decision was made were later affirmed by the judicial branch in the SCOTUS decision Texas v White.
The short version is that the Confederates had no standing to negotiate or represent anything.

 

I don't follow your logic, but have it as you wish.