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Mark Alexander Jun. 28, 2017

But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth. Thomas Jefferson (1805)

Why we do what we do

Our Founders rightly asserted that the First Amendment protection of a free press would be a powerful check on statist usurpation that a free press was the most promising assurance for extending Liberty to future generations.

Consistent with the views of other Founders, Thomas Jefferson wrote, Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it. He also noted, No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.

Indeed.

However, after his first term in office, in his 1805 second inaugural address, Jefferson wrote: During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.

A free press was and remains essential to the protection and advancement of Liberty. But as Jefferson noted, the disingenuous adulteration of that sacred First Amendment trust, in which the media abandons its responsibility and colludes with partisans to become an instrument of their bidding, perilously endangers the future of Liberty.

In principle, our Founders advocacy for a free press was correct. In practice today, however, the collusion between the statist Democrat Party and its press outlets the Demo/MSM propaganda machine, which now encompasses most of the mainstream media has devolved into the most significant self-inflicted threat to Liberty today.

To counter that threat, our team launched The Patriot Post two decades ago, when the Internet was a lonely and largely uncharted medium. But we believed it would be, long term, the most effective medium to reach the largest number of grassroots Americans with a genuine conservative message. Today, The Patriot Post is the oldest news, policy and opinion digest on the Web, and a highly acclaimed touchstone of Liberty for Americans from all walks of life.

We didnt attain that status on our own merits, however. When others observed that he was a great communicator, my mentor, Ronald Reagan, said humbly, I communicated great things, and they didnt spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. Any success we have experienced comes solely from our steadfast devotion to and advocacy for the principles that have guided us for two centuries.

From day one, we have remained sharply focused on our original objective to counter the mainstream media (MSM) stranglehold on public opinion and to expose their corrupt collusion and obstructionist objectives. It was critical then, and now more than ever, that we effectively counter their statist rhetoric with our genuine conservative message to Support and Defend the inalienable Rights of Man outlined in our Declaration of Independence, and the Liberty and Rule of Law enshrined in our Constitution.

The alternative, if we do not all lock arms in opposition to this growing menace, is, irrevocably, tyranny.

A recent Harvard study evaluating media reporting on President Donald Trump or, more accurately, their echo chamber parroting of Democrat talking points makes clear their Leftmedia prejudice.

Of course, that bias has been well documented for years, as repeated surveys find that more than 90% of journalists support Democrats most of them leftist Democrats.

In 2014, The Washington Post noted the findings of an academic study, American Journalists in the Digital Age, that only seven percent of journalists are Republicans fewer than a decade ago.

In 2015, The Washington Times affirmed the findings of a book on media bias, entitled Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, that more than 90 percent of D.C. journalists vote for Democrats.

In 2016, it was no surprise when the Washington Examiner reported the results of a Center for Public Integrity media study finding, Of the 430 people CPI identified as journalists, reporters, news editors or television news anchors as well as other donors known to be working in journalism, 96 percent gave money to Clinton, according to federal campaign finance filings.

Of far more value to Hillary Clintons campaign were the in-kind contributions of her sycophantic media pool who tailored their reports to favor her election.

And note that, just prior to Trumps election, The Washington Free Beacon reported survey results that found, Not a single White House reporter is a Republican. (I know, youre shocked SHOCKED.)

Again, the leftward mainstream media trend has tracked with the leftward trend in the Democrat Party for three decades but that trend has accelerated dramatically in the past year to the point of raw collusion. The consequence is an accelerated decline in journalistic standards.

The purpose of this collusion was, originally, to ensure Clintons election last year. But after the shocking election of Donald Trump, the Left and its media partners transitioned from election-rigging to bald-faced obstruction and sabotage of Trumps agenda which is wholly antithetical to their own. (Regrettably, on occasion he fuels their diversionary schemes with his own unforced communication errors.)

Since the earliest days of his campaign, Trump has condemned the fake news obstructionists and their deceptive trial by media tactics, including the use of media polling to reflect the bias they promote.

A week after his inauguration, he opined, The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

Trump took a lot of heat for suggesting the news media is the enemy of the American People. But Trump wrote that FAKE NEWS is the enemy, and he is absolutely correct on that point. As noted above, our Founders would agree that abandoning truth for licentious partisanship is a grave threat to Liberty.

A case study of what has now become an epidemic of fake news propagation by the Democrats MSM outlets would be CNNs most recent credibility crisis. The cable network, which sets the bar for Demo/MSM collusion (93% negative reporting on Trump and Republicans according to the aforementioned Harvard study), was caught in yet another counterfeit anonymously sourced report to further the Democrat Partys phony Trump/Putin conspiracy theory. Three senior CNN journalists from the investigative unit, including one Pulitzer recipient, resigned over this latest incident.

Its notable that right in CNNs back yard, just one day before that fake news report was published, voters in Georgias 6th District handed a hotly contested victory to a Republican in a special election to fill the seat of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. It was the most expensive congressional election in history, and the Democrat outspent the Republican 7-1. But even with the full force and fury of the Demo/MSM machine, they still came up short. The Democrat brand is indeed toxic.

Conservatives, however, should take little comfort in this victory, because the Demo/MSM propaganda machine is gearing up and redoubling its efforts. In fact, in the declining cable news marketplace, MSNBC, the most abjectly biased of the news outlets, has just overtaken CNN and Fox News in the 25-54 demo for its weekday prime time lineup.

In 1822, Thomas Jefferson wrote of those who subscribe to such blather, Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.

All that said, theres another factor that has an enormous influence on mainstream media bias, regardless of where on the political spectrum a media outlets editorial influence falls.

The least visible factor corrupting the free press is its dependence on paid advertising, which is the life blood of the print and cable MSM. Ad revenues thus dictate editorial policies what news will be covered and how, and what news will not be covered. Dependence on ad revenue is also the reason the cable outlets run their ubiquitous shock alert banners 24/7, most often about news that isnt worth a report, much less the shock banner.

The insidious ad-influence factor is constantly running silent in the background, unless it manifests in a threat to boycott advertisers for networks most influential ratings generator like Bill O'Reilly, who was fired by Fox News to prevent loss of ad revenue.

And thats precisely why we made another critical decision when we started publishing in 1996 to accept no advertising in our online or email publications or to our lists of Patriot readers. Youll never have your senses assaulted on our website by pop-ups, browser hijacks or glittering unicorns, nor will you ever receive third-party advertising to your inbox because of us.

Our refusal to accept advertising is precisely why we note when asking for your support, We are not sustained by any political, special interest or parent organization, and we do not accept advertising to ensure our advocacy is not restrained by commercial influence. Our mission and operation budget is made possible by the voluntary financial support of Patriots meaning you!

Rest assured that the invisible advertising influence, which inevitably shapes what other websites report and how they report it, has absolutely zero editorial influence on The Patriot Post.

Of course, we also chose a donor-based revenue model in order that our message could reach a wider audience particularly young people on college and university campuses, and military personnel. (Notably, 100% of proceeds from the occasional Patriot Post Shop messages we send you supports our mission of service to military personnel and their families.)

Your Patriot team starts every day resolute in our mission to extend Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.

The only thing that influences our editorial content is that mission in support and defense of Liberty.

Please join us in that mission by supporting The Patriot Fund today, so that we can recruit thousands of new Patriots to our ranks.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis Pro Deo et Libertate 1776

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Democrat/MSM Collusion v the First Amendment and Liberty - Patriot Post

Sacramento Bee

Americans take the First Amendment for granted. They shouldn't under Trump Sacramento Bee The words of the First Amendment may be 45 of the the most important ever written. Those who doubt the value of those freedoms of religion, speech, the press, assembly and petitioning for redress of grievances might look to Asia, where I work, and ...

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Americans take the First Amendment for granted. They shouldn't under Trump - Sacramento Bee

Officials were on notice they were flouting decades of precedent

It was a new day, but same result for Iowa State University.

After asking a federal appeals court to reconsider its February ruling that the public university violated the First Amendment rights of pro-marijuana activists on campus, ISU got an even worse ruling earlier this month.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals doubled down on its original decision in Gerlich v. Leath that ISU singled out the campus chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) by not letting it use the university logo on its T-shirts.

In a finding that could endanger college officials across the 8th Circuits jurisdiction of Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota, the appeals court refused to shield individual administrators from liability.

The case had united a broad coalition of national college groups, from pro-life activists to press freedom defenders and libertarians, in favor of NORML ISU leaders Paul Gerlich and Erin Furleigh.

We wanted the court to be aware that discrimination against speakers on campus is a common occurrence and a real problem, Casey Mattox, director of the Alliance Defending Freedoms Center for Academic Freedom, told The College Fix in a phone interview.

The alliance, which represented several of the friend-of-the-court filers, conveyed to the judges that viewpoint discrimination on campus, particularly against conservative speakers on university campuses, has a long track record and needs to be addressed, said Mattox.

No reasonable university official can think this is government speech

In an opinion for the three-judge panel, Judge Diane Murphy wrote that ISU had discriminated against Gerlich and Furleigh because of their viewpoints and political pushback from Iowa politicians.

In addition, the court found ISU did not engage in government speech by letting campus groups use its trademarks: Rather, it provided a limited public forum that facilitated the speech of private persons.

NORML ISU also did not violate the terms of the limited public forum, because the organization advocates for reform to marijuana laws, not the illegal use of marijuana, according to the panel.

MORE: Potheads, press and pro-lifers unite for student speech

The judges split, however, on the issue of qualified immunity, which excludes government officials acting in their official capacity from civil lawsuits unless they violate a clearly established constitutional or statutory right.

Murphy and Judge Jane Kelly said ISU administrators, including then-President Steven Leath, should have been aware of legal precedents going back decades that ban universities from using viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum.

It was clearly established when administrators singled out NORML ISU in rejecting a series of T-shirt designs the chapter had submitted, according to the judges.

Judge James Loken wrote a dissent specifically on the qualified-immunity issue, saying administrators were neither plainly incompetent nor knowing lawbreakers when they rejected a string of proposed T-shirt designs.

The court cites no case in which school officials administering a trademark licensing program violated, or were even accused of violating, the First Amendment by denying proposed uses of the schools registered trademark, Loken wrote.

Its trademark licensing policy already prohibited products causing potential health risks such as tobacco: Based on these undisputed program policies, it was far from clear prior to this litigation that ISUs trademark licensing program was not a form of government speech.

Loken blamed Gerlich, then the president of NORML ISU, for publicly suggesting the university gave its stamp of approval to pro-marijuana advocacy. Gerlich bragged in the media that the original approval of the clubs T-shirt reflected nothing but support from the university, support for the group that was blowing our minds.

MORE: Court tells ISU to stop suppressing pro-weed activists

Judge Kelly challenged Lokens dissent in a concurrence, saying qualified immunity does not require a case directly on point nor a previous ruling that the action was explicitly unlawful:

At the time of the challenged actions in fall 2012, the defendants were on notice of several cases that clearly established that their conduct violated plaintiffs First Amendment rights. In at least four cases, the Supreme Court has held that a university creates a limited public forum when it distributes benefits to recognized student groups.

Here, it is undisputed that ISU granted recognized status to NORML ISU as a student organization. ISU concluded that NORML ISUs purpose was consistent with the broad educational mission of the university, but it made clear that it does not support or endorse the purposes of any registered organizations, including NORML ISU.

Kelly said the university only claimed its trademarks were government speech because of the purported confusion around the NORML shirt: No reasonable university official could have relied on this single example of confusion, in a field of at least 2,195 student organization uses of ISU marks, to convert a historic forum for student speech into government speech.

Iowa State rebuked more severely by 8th Circuit in second ruling on First Amendment and marijuana by The College Fix on Scribd

Free speech has impacts on other people, and ISU must recognize that

We are very happy the 8th U.S. Circuit Court reaffirmed its earlier finding that Iowa State had violated our clients First Amendment rights, Robert Corn-Revere, head counsel for the plaintiffs and prominent First Amendment lawyer, told The College Fix in a phone interview.

Simply using the label trademark doesnt make government action immune from the First Amendment. College administrators need to be aware that if they violate students First Amendment rights there can be consequences, he said.

NORMLs national office referred The Fix to Dan Viets, the head of its Missouri affiliate, for comment. Iowa State was clearly discriminating against the NORML chapter because they did not agree with their message, Viets said in a phone interview, calling the incident an unusual occurrence for a NORML campus chapter.

ISU hasnt decided what its next steps will be, lead counsel Mike Norton told The Fix in a phone interview.

He said the 8th Circuits new ruling wont have much effect on how the university handles First Amendment issues: In the near term I dont think the ruling will have an impact except those directly related to trademark use.

While Iowa State is committed to the protections of the First Amendment, it cant ignore the impact that speech has on other people, Norton said.

MORE: Judge says students can sue president for t-shirt censorship

The case was reopened in March after the appeals court granted ISUs petition, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which sponsored the case through its three-year-old Stand Up for Speech litigation project.

The NORML ISU case was part of the first group of cases to be litigated under the project, and its the only one that has made it to an appeals court.

Iowa State has consistently lost in court. It lost its motion to dismiss more than two years ago, and a year later the district court issued a permanent injunction preventing the university from using the trademark policy to prohibit NORML ISU from making shirts containing marijuana symbols. It also lost on qualified immunity then.

Groups that joined the Alliance Defending Freedom brief in support of NORML ISU were Students for Life of America, Young Americas Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty, Ratio Christi and Christian Legal Society.

MORE: How license plates are like campus speech

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IMAGE: Africa Studio/Shutterstock, NORML ISU

About the Author

Zachery Schmidt is a senior at Western Washington University where he is majoring in political science and public relations. In his free time, Zach enjoys exercising, reading and writing.

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Iowa State officials knowingly violated students' First Amendment rights, appeals court says - The College Fix

For example, Facebook generally allows the sharing of animal abuse, a category of speech the Supreme Court deemed protected in 2010. But diverging from First Amendment law, Facebook will remove that same imagery if a user shows sadism, defined as the enjoyment of suffering.

Similarly, Facebooks manual on credible threats of violence echoes First Amendment law on incitement and true threats by focusing on the imminence of violence, the likelihood that it will actually occur, and an intent to credibly threaten a particular living victim.

But there are also crucial distinctions. Where First Amendment law protects speech about public figures more than speech about private individuals, Facebook does the opposite. If a user calls for violence, however generic, against a head of state, Facebook deems that a credible threat against a vulnerable person. Its fine to say, I hope someone kills you. It is not fine to say, Somebody shoot Trump. While the government cannot arrest you for saying it, Facebook will remove the post.

These differences are to be expected. Courts protect speech about public officials because the Constitution gives them the job of protecting fundamental individual rights in the name of social values like autonomy or democratic self-governance. Facebook probably constrains speech about public officials because as a large corporate actor with meaningful assets, it and other sites can be pressured into cooperation with governments.

Unlike in the American court system, theres no due process on these sites. Facebook users dont have a way to easily appeal if their speech gets taken down. And unlike a government, Facebook doesnt respond to elections or voters. Instead, it acts in response to bad press, powerful users, government requests and civil society organizations.

Thats why the transparency provided by the Guardian leak is important. If theres any hope for individual users to influence Facebooks speech governance, theyll have to know how this system works in the same way citizens understand what the Constitution protects and leverage that knowledge.

For example, before the Guardian leak, a private Facebook group, Marines United, circulated nude photos of female Marines and other women. This prompted a group called Not in My Marine Corps to pressure Facebook to remove related pages, groups and users. Facebook announced in April that it would increase its attempts to remove nonconsensual nude pictures. But the Guardian leaks revealed that the pictures circulated by Marines United were largely not covered by Facebooks substantive revenge porn policy. Advocates using information from the leaks have begun to pressure Facebook to do more to prevent the nonconsensual distribution of private photos.

Civil liberties groups and user rights groups should do just this: Take advantage of the increased transparency to pressure these sites to create policies advocates think are best for the users they represent.

Today, as social media sites are accused of spreading false news, influencing elections and allowing horrific speech, they may respond by increasing their policing of content. Clarity about their internal speech regulation is more important now than ever. The ways in which this newfound transparency is harnessed by the public could be as meaningful for online speech as any case decided in a United States court.

Margot E. Kaminski is an assistant professor at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Kate Klonick is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale Law School.

Margot E. Kaminski and Kate Klonick

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 27, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Speech in the Social Public Square.

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Facebook, Free Expression and the Power of a Leak - New York Times

A state District Court hands independent ranchers a long-awaited win.

Last week, the United States District Court for the District of Montana issued a decision that could have major implications for the beef industry inside the state and beyond. Judge Brian Morris upheld a lower courts decision that the beef checkoff program, as currently operated, violates the First Amendment rights of the states cattle ranchers. As as result, the Montana Beef Council (MBC) will only be allowed to collect funds from producers who voluntarily opt in to the program.

Quick refresher: checkoff programs are a mandatory tax the federal government collects on certain agricultural commodities, money farmers are compelled to pay to fund industry research and promotion. Over the years, checkoffs have raised billions of dollarsand have paid for some iconic advertising, from Got Milk? to Beef: Its Whats for Dinner. But theyve also been a sore spot for farmers who claim they dont have enough say over the way the funds are being used, yet are forced to pay even when they feel the message doesnt serve their interests.

To understand why the Montana case could be such a big deal, heres what you need to know: In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that, in order to be constitutionally viable, checkoff programs must be overseen directly by the federal government. The government, after all, can compel certain forms of speech: I have to fund the military through my taxes, for instance, even if I dont like its actions. Legally, the government is granted that exception only because its supposed to be an extension of the peoples voice already (thanks to our democratically elected representatives). If you dont like a policy paid for by your taxes, the logic goes, you can always vote to change the government. (For more on this, see my piece on the fraught legal history of checkoffs.)

But private entities cannot compel speech, and thats where the Montana case comes in. Beef checkoff money is split evenly between the federal Cattlemens Beef Board and smaller, state-level organizations like the Montana Beef Councilprivate entities not subject to the same level federal oversight. Thats why the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) filed suit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), arguing that compelling payments to a private organization amounts to an unconstitutional first amendment violation.

The USDA lacks the authority to appoint or remove any of the Montana Beef Councils members. The USDA does not control how the Montana Beef Council spends the checkoff assessments, Judge Morris agreed, in his decision. Defendants claim that it effectively can control the Montana Beef Council through the Beef Board proves incorrect. The Beef Board is not a democratic[ally] accountab[le] body that is mandated to respond to and implement citizenss concerns.

The suits unwitting catalyst was a famous fast food chain: advertisements ran put out byWendys that promoting the companys use of fresh, North American beef in its four-cornered burgers. Since the ads were funded, in part, by the Montana Beef Council, some of the states ranchers felt their checkoff dollars were being used against them. Why were they being forced to fund the promotion of beef that came not just from the U.S., but alsoMexico and Canada?

Thats what I think made the case unique: It was a clear, in-your-face insult to U.S. cattlemen that were paying into the Montana beef checkoff, says Mike Callicrate, a Kansas rancher and activist whos been a longtime critic of the beef checkoff.

Where some saw an insult,R-CALF, another vocal opponent, saw opportunity.

After the Supreme Court ruling that said that the checkoff was government speech, we knew we had to find another avenue, Bill Bullard, R-CALFs CEO, tells me. Thats why we focused on money taken by the states.

The states cattle ranchers will still have to pay into the checkoff program$1 per head of cattle. But the Montana Beef Council will only receive its fifty percent share of that money when a rancher opts in. In Bullards view, state funds like Montanas have long been used to suit the interests of politically powerful meat packers. He thinksthe ruling will deprive them of a crucial source of income, and may help level the playing field between beef producers and processors. (Again,you can read more inmy history of the beef checkoff and its discontents.)

Our industry has been dominated by multinational meatpackers that have been working to vertically integrate and control the supply chain of the U.S. cattle industry, Bullard says. Now, this case gives us hope that were able to pull further away from the integration that the packers have already accomplished, ensuring that we can maintain a widely dispersed family farm system of cattle production in America.

Weve found a court that was willing to take our concerns seriously and act on them. Thats huge.

Its not a done deal yet: USDA may decide to appeal. But it also has the opportunity to respect the ruling, or even play an active role in rolling out voluntary state-level checkoff participation in other statesheading off a raft of potential lawsuits elsewhere. No ones quite sure what will happen, but Dudley Butler of Butler Farm & Ranch Law, which represented the plaintiff, feels that future arguments against this decision would face a tough legal battle.

People look at the constitution sometimes like they look at the Bible, they pick and choose what parts they want to use, he tells me. But the First Amendment right is extremely important. Under our system of government, you just cannot force speech on someoneunless it passes the rigors of being determined by a court it is government speech.

For its part, the Montana Beef Councilwhich was not named in the suitis taking a hard look at its post-ruling future.

As a result of the preliminary injunction, after assessments are collected from Montana beef producers, if they do not provide prior affirmative consent to the Montana Beef Council, their full assessment will be forwarded to the Cattlemens Beef Board for general use on national programs and projects, it says, in a statement. MBC is working through the details to develop a process for this Court Order and a way for producers to provide consent.

It could be an onerous task.And complaints about the federal checkoff program are likely to remain. But for now, the victors are celebrating as they look ahead.

Its probably the biggest thing that independent producers have achieved in trying to get their interests represented by the government, Bullard says. Weve failed to convince Congress to listen to the producers. Weve failed to convince the USDA to listen to the concerns of the producer. But here, in our third branch of government, weve found a court that was willing to take our concerns seriously and act on them. Thats huge.

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Does "Beef: It's What's For Dinner" violate the First Amendment? In ... - The New Food Economy