(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . SCOTUS Tosses Blankenship, Clarence Tosses MSM poison Bone, Stare Deceases [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-10 I know, its decesis. Doesnt really matter now anyway, it appears deceased either way. Just caught an article by Reuters’ Andrew Chung about SCOTUS tossing out Donald Blankenship’s suit against several media outlets and reporters for defamation in a 2015 case where he accused both Fox AND MSNBC among others of mischaracterizing him as a “felon” though he was only convicted of a misdemeanor for responsibilty in an explosion that killed 29 of his employees in 2010 in his West VA mine while running to unseat Joe Manchin and served a year in prison for it, no doubt completely consoling the families of the 29 lost. He accused these outlets/reporters of derailing his campaign due to “actual malice,” a bar that must be met for a public figure to be able to hold a media outlet accountable for a case of defamation. That bar was set in 1964 with the seminal NY Times v. Sullivan case where a unanimous Supreme Court agreed that said bar needed to be pretty high in order to enforce the protections of a free and independent media enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Because OTHERWISE, any disgruntled multi-million dollar CEO/company with bottomless pockets and an army of corporate lawyers who got their employees killed would, on a whim, be able to sue any unfriendly media outlet who reported on it into OBLIVION. See: Donald Trump suing everybody that ever said anything bad/true about him. but... Again enter Clarence Thomas, who in his statement about the court ditching Roe v Wade and other such previously decided interpretations of the 14th Amendment (Obergfell, eg, though he didnt mention the legalization of interracial marriage for some reason, weird) should come into question, because, you know, Originalism. The Framers weren’t contemplating The Gays. so, no. I guess they were contemplating AR-15s though. yup, no doubt. Mr. T opined, though not in an actual dissent, that should the appropriate case arise, the (unanimous) decision in Sullivan should be revisited because the high bar instituted by that case to protect media freedom is not enshrined in the constitution (word for word, i guess). Apparently recusing yourself from 1 obvious conflict of interest case before the court, FINALLY, after months of media scrutiny of your corruption, absolves you of, once again, doing away with stare decisis when its not jibing with your bogus originalist interpretation of what-ever-the-hell-Harlan-Crow and Leonard Leo need this week to help them undermine democracy. He said, again, this should be an issue for the states and not federal government to decide. Really? HOW??? Its federal law. It’s in the Constitution. It’s the duty of the federal government to enforce. & How’d that whole Roe v Wade thing go, dude/ the states should decide? so now its ok that the state of Idaho just became a real-world Margaret Atwood book??? Look, John, Clarence, Brett, Amy, et al im sure it’d be nice to sue every media outlet out there that isn’t Fox or Breitbart for reporting on your blatant corruption, and thanks for not voting your (donor’s) conscience on this one. & Also way smart to throw the MSM a bone, SCOTUS. Nothing to see here! Look! We voted to keep one of your rights this time, so chill! It should be no problem when the 6 of us decide what and what not your rights are AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT regardless of what they were for the last 50 years. It seems to me the Constitution is kind of like the bible. You can use it for good, and you can use it for bad, because almost any part of it can be selectively co-opted to suit your purposes. You can “Love thy neighbor as thy self,” or you can stone your wife for cheating on your ass. Its all in there and you can use it however you want. REASONABLE CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION of foundational documents is the only way they can survive. This premise does however decimate “originalism” which is a pretty made up concept in the first place. If the “Founding Fathers” ever thought that was a reasonable approach they wouldn’t have created that whole AMENDMENT PROCESS in the first place. They didn’t foresee planes, trains & automobiles either, maybe we should see if the bible bans those too? They knew that society would change as radically as it did in their own lifetimes, and they engineered the document that would be the blueprint for this new country to be A LIVING DOCUMENT. Peace. we could all use more of it right now. Take good care y’all [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/10/2198561/-SCOTUS-Tosses-Blankenship-Clarence-Tosses-MSM-poison-Bone-Stare-Deceases?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/