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A Hanover County supervisors lawyer accused Style Weekly of publishing fake news while an attorney for the Richmond newspaper called on jurors to defend the First Amendment at the start of a defamation trial that began Friday.

County Supervisor Sean Davis sued the publication after Style Weekly published articles in 2015 by Peter Galuszka suggesting Davis improperly used his position on the Board of Supervisors to influence Hanover schools.

Davis complaint arose from a Dec. 8 article titled Are Politics Threatening an Open Educational Environment in Hanover?

The article suggests Davis interfered with classroom instruction at Hanover High School and had teachers suspended or disciplined if they present ideas or images that Davis considers too liberal.

The article cited a letter submitted to Attorney General Mark Herring from a parent that asked state police to investigate Davis for intimidation of teachers and staff.

The letter, according to the article, pointed to an instance involving a popular English teacher whom Davis took issue with because of what he said in class and because of a wall of photographs, and drawings kept in a student newspaper activities office.

The article, citing the letter, goes on to state that the English teacher was given a three-day suspension that was dropped after the teacher hired a lawyer.

Davis lawsuit also cites another passage from the article in which a Hanover High School parent expressed worry that school officials wont confront Davis.

Davis attorney Steven Biss, told jurors the articles in question contain false accusations of Davis based on unreliable sources and were a reckless disregard for the truth. Biss characterized the articles as a false narrative, fake news.

There are so many false statements, Biss told jurors.Mr. Davis does not become involved in School Board matters.

Attorney Conrad Shumadine, representing Galuszka and Style Weekly publisher Lori Collier Waran, told jurors the articles served the public interest and emphasized the importance of free speech.

The people of Hanover County needed to know, Shumadine said,.

Shumadine said Galuszka thought the issues of alleged censorship in Hanover were serious and that his sources were credible and appropriately vetted. Galuszka tried to speak to school officials but the school division would not comment.

Shumadine said Galuszkas questions for Davis were a chance to have his perspective represented, but that Davis did not answer specific questions. Later, after the first article was published, a lawyer for Davis called Style Weekly.

The newspaper offered to have the story corrected if anything was false, have a letter to the editor published or have Davis do an interview with Galuszka, Shumadine said.

Their response was to file a lawsuit, Shumadine said.

Public officials typically must prove a publication printed false material and in doing so acted with actual malice, which would mean knowingly publishing false information or acting with reckless disregard for the facts.

Biss said the questions Galuszka emailed Davis were loaded. Biss said Galuszka based his reporting off unreliable sources and Style Weekly published the articles because it felt they were salacious and would sell well.

The motive was money, Biss said.

Shumadine said the issue of censorship in Hanover started a year prior to the articles publication when Davis allegedly tried to ban the documentary Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: Searching for the Roots of 9/11 from Hanover schools. The documentary delves into Muslim perspectives of the Sept. 11 attacks and the rise of terrorist groups.

Biss said accusations that Davis had teachers suspended and materials banned in Hanover schools were false. When Davis heard from hundreds of people concerned about the showing in 2014 of the documentary to Hanover High School students, the supervisor brought up those concerns to Hanovers joint education committee, Biss said.

Davis expressed concerns about the documentary at a Board of Supervisors meeting in 2014, calling a showing of the video disrespectful and un-American.

He had concerns about the 9/11 video because hes a Marine, Biss said of Davis.

Shumadine told jurors that Davis did intervene to have Hanover teachers disciplined, and that a student organization eventually formed to protest against what it felt like was unfair handling of teachers and curriculum.

Shumadine cited a letter from Davis sent to County Attorney Sterling Rives communicating that Davis expected the concerns of Hanover residents about an education matter be investigated.

Rives was the first and only witness to be called to the stand by Biss on Friday. Biss line of questioning focused on how Davis handling of complaints about education matters was appropriate and followed standard procedures.

Attorney Brett Spain, on cross-examination, asked Rives about whether Davis calling for the investigation into the concerns of Hanover residents about a teacher was extraordinary. Rives couldnt think of any other supervisor who had made such a request.

Before the opening arguments, a jury was narrowed down from more than 70 people. The judge in the trial, which is scheduled to last six days, is Michael Levy from Stafford County.

The Style Weekly lawsuit isnt the only one Davis is involved with. In January, Davis sued his former employer, the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association, along with the lobbying groups president and CEO Donald Hall over allegations of fraud and defamation. A jury trial for the complaint is scheduled for April in Richmond Circuit Court.

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Fake news or First Amendment? Defamation trial begins in case of ... - Richmond.com

We've been covering a recent First Amendment lawsuit targeting President Donald Trumpa novel legal argumentin which Twitter users claim their constitutional rights were violated because the commander-in-chief blocked them from his personal @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle.

To be sure, it's a digital-age-basedconstitutional theory about social media rights in a day and age when politicians, from the president on down, are using their private accounts to discuss public affairs.

Now there's some legal precedent on the matter. It comes from a federal judge in Virginia who said that a local politician had violated the First Amendment rights of a constituent because the politician briefly banned the constituent from the politician'spersonal Facebook account.

"The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards," US District Judge James Cacheris wrote Tuesday in a suit brought by a constituent against Phyllis Randall, the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in Virginia.

The judge didn't issue any punishment against Randall, as the Facebook ban for constituent Brian Davison only lasted about 12 hours. That said, the judge noted Randall committed "a cardinal sin under the First Amendment" by barring the constituent who posted about county corruption. What's more, the judge pointed out from the first sentence of the ruling that "this case raises important questions about the constitutional limitations applicable to social media accounts maintained by elected officials."

Randall's Facebook page, the judge ruled, "operates as a forum for speech under the First Amendment to the US Constitution."

This suit, at its most basic level, is nearly identical to the one lodged against Trump two weeks ago. Like the Virginia suit, the lawsuit against Trump names the chief executive's private account, which Trump uses on an almost daily basis as his political mouthpiece to the world.

"The @realDonaldTrump [Twitter] account is a kind of digital town hall in which the president and his aides use the tweet function to communicate news and information to the public, and members of the public use the reply function to respond to the president and his aides and exchange views with one another," according to the lawsuit (PDF) filed in New York federal court.

The Trump suit was brought by a handful of Twitter users Trump blocked after they posted critical comments. The lawsuit, to which Trump has yet to respond in court, seeks a ruling that the president's actions were unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, Judge Cacheris noted that Randall still had the right to moderate Facebook comments and that it's not always unconstitutional to block commenters.

"Finally, government officials have at least a reasonably strong interest in moderating discussion on their Facebook pages in an expeditious manner. By permitting a commenter to repeatedly post inappropriate content pending a review process, a government official could easily fail to preserve their online forum for its intended purpose," the judge wrote.

What's more, the judge said that allowing online speakers to hijack or filibuster online conversations would "impinge on the First Amendment rights" of other forum participants.

"Given the prevalence of online 'trolls,' this is no mere hypothetical risk," the judge said.

Judge Cacherishad recently tossed a similar lawsuit from Davison, a software consultant. In that suit, Davisonclaimed his First Amendment rights were breached because a prosecutor had removed hiscomments from the prosecutor's official Facebook page. The judge noted that the deletion of the comments was acceptable because they were "clearly off-topic" comments.

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Politicians' social media pages can be 1st Amendment forums, judge says - Ars Technica

Dear Editor:

Re LETTER: Ill take separation of church and state, by Eileen D. Minogue, July 20, 2017: I recently read an article by Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, which I found most enlightening, including the following paragraphs:

The First Amendment, which places freedom of religion as number one, protects the churches from intrusion by the government, not the government from religion.

[Alexis de] Tocqueville asked himself how a country so vast, so diverse, so open to everybody, so bold, under a constitution so daring and unprecedented could ever survive. His answer? Because the American people are religious!

Id like to hope our country has not strayed so far that its people no longer profess what early Americans professed in their Pledge of Allegiance one nation, under God.

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Those who object have the freedom to eliminate what they feel objectionable, but not impose their views on the majority.

Joan Saehloff

Port Ewen, N.Y.

Editors note: The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted by Congress in 1942. The words under God were added to the pledge in 1954.

Original post:
LETTER: First Amendment is a one-way protection for religion - The Daily Freeman

Dear Editor: There have been issues on campuses across the U.S. on free speech. As the argument of hate speech versus free speech continues, many speculate that public campuses have liberal biases. This is due to disproportionate numbers of conservative speakers getting rejected to speak on campuses compared to liberal speakers. A CNN article titled War on campus: The escalating battle over college free speech suggests that these speculations are true: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education maintains an incomprehensive database of more than 300 attempts to disinvite campus speakers since 2000. About three-quarters of the attempts involved pressure from liberals.

In Wisconsin, GOP representatives have responded to these issues by proposing free speech policies on the UW System. These policies are suggested as precautionary, threatening future speech disrupters with suspension and/or expulsion. But such policies are criticized as damaging the rights of those who oppose the views of speakers and minorities.

The relationship between Americas future leaders and the United States First Amendment must continually be closely observed.

Currently on the Press Freedom Index, the United States is ranked at the 43rd position. Obamas onslaught on whistleblowers and Trumps attempts to thwart press coverage are listed as problems that contribute to the United States position.

Media conglomerates are an obstacle to press freedom. A statistic from morriscreative.com shows that in 2012, six media companies owned 90 percent of American media, compared to 50 companies that owned 90 percent of American media back in 1983.

These attacks on freedom of speech and press threaten one of our most sacred rights. People should care more about free speech.

Michael Flores

Madison

Send your letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.

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Michael Flores: Attacks on our First Amendment need more attention - Madison.com

Weve been gorging on the travails of Donald Trump and the Republicans. When a president and his own governing party step in so many cowpats in so brief a period of time, its hard to avert your gaze. Whats next? Mitch McConnells drops his trousers on the steps of Congress?

That happened already, of course. The humiliation that was the Senate rebuke in the wee hours of Friday to McConnells last-gasp effort to kill the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare cant be overstated. A majority leader just doesnt ask for a floor vote unless he knows how it will turn out. Not at 1.30am. Not when half the land has stayed awake to watch. Not when the thing youre trying to do has been the sole obsession of your party for nigh on eight years.

But lets give some due to the Democrats, who have almost been forgotten in all of this. Its been a long, long road. I suggest we turn the page, Chuck Schumer, the Minority leader, offered minutes after McConnells so-called Skinny Bill at least to unwind parts of Obamacare fell to defeat. If the senator from New York was looking smug, you could hardly blame him.

Hillary Clinton wins! That was the headline we thought we were going to be reading last November. But maybe now she does. The one thing that most terrified her supporters about the unthinkable occurring complete Republican control of Washington was that the only really big thing Democrats had done in eight years with Barack Obama at the top would be destroyed.

Obamacare, an attempt at last to bring a kind of universal health coverage to the last country in the developed world not to have it, was, Clinton declared, one of the great accomplishments not only of this president, but of the Democratic Party going back to Harry Truman.

Call it a vicarious victory for Clinton, at least. It comes thanks to Schumer who warned colleagues in January that Republicans would try to pick them off one by one in their quest to kill the health law. Only by sticking together would they thwart them. This wasnt going to be easy. The Democrats are no more ideologically homogeneous than the Republicans are, ranging from Bernie Sanders on the left to Joe Manchin of West Virginia to the centre. But they did it.

They also coordinated with a fearsome army of grass-roots resisters, including groups like MoveOn.org, Indivisible and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Relations were sometimes tense, the anti-Trump factions not always convinced the Senate Democrats would stay strong. Indeed, Schumer was not always as obstructive on the Hill as they wanted. But his strategy of more constructive resistance he allowed members to talk to Republicans about improving Obamacare but never, ever about repealing it outright worked. Instead of Republicans exploiting Democrat disunity, it was Democrats who exploited theirs.

All the while, a group of former Obama aides who had been at ground zero of passing the Affordable Care Act and then shielding it from various assaults had come quietly come out of retirement to form a third front. Called Protect Our Care, the group included Kathleen Sebelius, Obamas Secretary of Health and Human Services, who was plotting a month-long, nationwide bus tour to pressure Republicans not to dump Obamacare. That wont be necessary now. As the New York Times reported this week, Leslie Dach, one of Obamas top health care officials, meanwhile ran a war room in Washington also helping to coordinate the grass-roots resistance.

What they did was win the propaganda war. The White House and congressional Republicans continued to pedal the notion that Obamacare was a catastrophe. Americans couldnt use the doctors they wanted, faced stiff fines if they ignored the laws requirement that every America buy insurance and sometimes lost coverage anyway because of soaring premiums. Elements of the message were true - premiums are rising fast. But the momentum was shifting to the Democrats. The greatest of ironies is this: Obamacare was never as popular when Obama was president as it is now, with more than 50 per cent of Americans now saying theyd like to keep it. It didnt hurt that with every new Republican proposal so came a new forecast from the Congressional Budget Office of how many Americans would lose coverage as a result. 26 million. 23 million. 16 million.

Republicans sometimes have the easier job of getting their message across just because it is so simple: government intrusion is bad. Taxes are bad. Freedom to choose is good, and so forth. But all that is only so much ideological guff when policy decisions actually impact directly on peoples lives. Even Trump voters started to see through it. If you are poor and live in one of the 33 states that accepted a massive expansion of Medicaid benefits that was allowable under Obamacare, they were always going to ask what will happen to them if those benefits are erased.

Republicans should have grasped that once new benefits are given, there is no taking them away. The watered-down Skinny Bill was a nonsense, because it sought to leave the good bits of Obamacare intact while taking away the bad bits like the mandate that said you must have health insurance just as you must have car insurance. You cant have one without the other; the system would simply collapse. Its why Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina publicly called it a fraud and why, in the most dramatic moment of his career, the ailing Senator John McCain killed it by voting "no" alongside Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

Clinton is putting the final touches to a book about her failed 2016 run due out in September called What Happened. She might indulge now in writing an epilogue. Maybe We Won After All.

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Did Hillary Clinton win after all? The collapse of Trumpcare has turned her defeat into unexpected victory - The Independent