It Really is Time to Revisit New York Times v. Sullivan

By Rich Kozlovich 

 Last year Jack Hellner, one of my favorite writers, published this piece asking, Shouldn't most media outlets be sueable?, saying how the media has deliberately and knowingly lied about Russia and Trump, have deliberately "disregarded the truth" for years, have promoted "witch hunts", and supported people like Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell spreading their lies saying:

They disenfranchised the voters that supported Trump by falsely calling him an illegitimate President. The interference in elections by the American media dwarfed anything Russia, China, and Iran have ever done..........

The media (acting as the public relations, propaganda department of the Democrat party) deliberately and collectively decided they needed to destroy Rep. Matt Gaetz.

CNN has breathlessly covered purported allegations of sexual misconduct against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and the FBI investigation into said purported allegations, and now, thanks to Project Veritas, we know that a great deal of that coverage is driven by a desire to destroy Gaetz. CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester said the network is “going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him,” because “He’s a problem for the Democratic Party because he’s so conservative.” 

More  good reasons to revisit Sullivan v New York Times!  Although in this case, I think showing "actual malice" would be easy to prove, but it shouldn't be necessary, and it gets worse:

• How NOT to be a Target of the Left. Hint: Don’t ‘Like’ Matt Gaetz 
  
• MSNBC’s Reid, Kirschner Suggest DeSantis Involved in Gaetz Scandals

And their corruption isn't just attacking individuals they don't like, they defend the indefensible with projection, red herring fallacies, lies of commission and lies of commission. 

• CNN Tech Director Admits Black-on-Asian Violence is a Problem, But Network Focuses on White Criminals to ‘Help BLM’
• A CNN employee continues to give away devastating trade secrets
• CNN 'fesses up: Reporting promotes Black Lives Matter movement

Jurists are coming to the conclusion Sullivan needs fixed as a "Defiant Federal Judge Calls Out the Media-Democrat Complex, saying: 

One D.C. Circuit jurist pulled no punches as he sounded the alarm on ‘one-party control of the press and media.’   The flak only gets heavy when you’re over the target.”.... Judge Laurence Silberman, the formidable senior jurist on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as a result of the dissent he filed in a recent libel case. .........Judge Silberman had the audacity to notice that the mainstream media function as an adjunct of the Democratic Party.......... 

The judge stated emphatically the New York Times v. Sullivan decision, just like the Chevron Deference, was without any constitution justification allowing the court to:

 "supplant the traditional state common law of defamation with a rule, speciously claimed to be mandated by the First Amendment, that requires defamed public figures to prove actual malice — i.e., to prove that any libelous statements were intentionally false or made with reckless disregard for their falsity."  

He went on to say:

This daunting burden makes it virtually impossible for public figures — including private persons who are transmogrified into celebrities by the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence — to sue successfully, even in cases where they have been slandered with false information ........

Justice Clarence Thomas, who I consider the finest jurist to sit on the Supreme court in my 78 years of life, "Calls for Reconsideration of Landmark Libel Ruling", saying:

Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday called for the Supreme Court to reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 ruling interpreting the First Amendment to make it hard for public officials to prevail in libel suits.  He said the decision had no basis in the Constitution as it was understood by the people who drafted and ratified it...... “New York Times and the court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law,”.............

 

It's understandable how this court could twist media corruption into a First Amendment issue when you see who made up the Court that made that unanimous decision:

 

William J. Brennan Jr.,  Hugo L. Black,  Tom C. Clark  William O. Douglas   Arthur J. Goldberg,  John Marshall Harlan, and Earl Warren.

 

Potter Stewart was notorious for insisting it was the Supreme Court who decides what the Constitution means, and in order to come up with the insane decisions they've come up with they created

 

 The Constitution says the Congress determines the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

 

It appears this twisted ruling may change.  Now we're seeing that Trump's lawsuit against Stephanopoulos for defamation can go forward, and rightly so:

  

A federal judge on Wednesday refused to dismiss former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos over the anchor’s assertion that a jury concluded Trump had “raped” E. Jean Carroll....

NBC is being sued fro 30 million big bucks, for making  ‘verifiably false’ statements about physician by Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Chris Hayes.  

Nick Sandmann sued for the Washington Post for $275 million.  The Post capitulated and agreed to an undisclosed settlement, but irrespective of how much was, and based on the reaction of Sandmann's family it was substantial, but the real victory was in the confirmation they lied, and they deliberately lied to promote a false narrative.

Charlie Rose in his recent article, Overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, stated:

....this decision is celebrated as a great victory for the First Amendment and free speech. That’s nonsense. After Sullivan, media corporations filled with professional writers, supposedly dedicated to reporting the truth, were granted government protection to bear false witness against public figures.

This is especially damaging for political figures. As media-propagated lies spread, for example, from the NYT to other established news outlets, our political candidates and leaders are powerless to stop the spread or punish those who broadcast damaging false information. This poisonous discourse opens the floodgates to lies and, dare I say, disinformation, to the point where the Pulitzer Prize Board can confidently award a major news organization for publishing lies.

Sullivan unleashed onto America a corp of corrupt media liars who worked to destroy the lives of people they disapproved of, and it's time to end this insanity and force the media to live by the same standards as the rest of America.  No one should be above the law!  After all, isn't that their unending meme while going after Trump, his allies and the J6 defendants, with lies?