Abolish the Wire Services

You went into crazy land when you said they conspire. Anybody, including you, can get the AP feed. Not much of a conspiracy.

I’m not saying that the “conspiracy” - the agreement among journalists that there is not, and will be, ideological conflict among journalists - is secret. It is an open secret that if you challenge the objectivity of a journalist in good standing, all other journalists in good standing will land on you like a ton of bricks. If you started out thinking you were a journalist, they will disabuse you of the notion - tons of ink will be dedicated to making sure everyone knows that you are “not a journalist, not objective.”
They like to accuse conservatives of code words and “dog whistles.” But “objective” is their code word for "wise.” Anyone with liberal education knows that it is arrogant to claim to be wise, and the Greek word for wisdom - “soph” - is the root of the word “sophistry,” meaning mendacious argumentation. So even journalists, as arrogant as they are, don’t claim wisdom for themselves.
Except that they aggressively use “objective” as a code word meaning pretty much the same thing. And they do it within the context of a mutual admiration society - you attack me as a member of the journalism community, the rest of the members of the journalism community take up the cudgels for me, I don’t have to defend myself. With the understanding that if anyone else in the community gets attacked, it will be my turn to counterattack to protect them.
You can say it’s not “a conspiracy” in the sense that it is an open secret - but if you cross it, as you theoretically have a perfect right to do, that “non-conspiracy” will do its best to make you wish you hadn’t exercised that right.

It’s just a source of news, and really not even for journalists, it’s for publishers to not have to pay journalists. They pull stuff off the wire instead.

Of course. Except that the AP sets standards - some perfectly unexceptionable, some with direct political implications. It was a scandal in journalism when, on the day Lincoln was shot, the first report of the shooting “buried the lede” - it rambled on about other things and only tangentially mentioned that Lincoln had been shot. So the AP instituted the rule about the “pyramid organization” of news reporting - important story element first, gradually filling in the less significant elements of the story later. Perfectly unexceptionable. But then there are things like the prohibition of the use of the term, “illegal alien” to describe an alien in the country in violation of US law. Things that require that a story not be too conservative in tone.

The 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan SCOTUS decision held that politicians and even judges have a huge burden to meet in order to sue for libel. That decision was unanimous, and if presented with the same facts today SCOTUS would not - and should not - overturn it.
But.
Viewed from the history of “bias in the media” controversy over the past half century, the case which evoked the Sullivan decision looks quaint. Mr. Sullivan was a Democrat - a Southern Democrat. In 1964 his political persuasion was in bad odor with the national Democrat Party and the Republican Party. Southern Democrats have died off, and the dominant party in the south in modern times is the Republican Party. A further idiosyncrasy in the case is the fact that Mr. Sullivan’s complaint was not about editorial content but about an advertisement.
Three concurring justices wanted to go even further, none expressed objections. A politically unpopular plaintiff made an obvious target for the Warren Court then sitting, and the result was perhaps less temperate than might have otherwise have been expected. IMHO it was a “perfect storm.”
But if I admit that the same facts would have to evoke the same decision, that does not mean that I think that the decision is good law. The reason is that the past half-century has crystallized facts which could, and should, have been known in 1964 - but which were not raised at all in Sullivan. In 1964 Senator Barry Goldwater lost a landslide to President Lyndon Johnson, and it seemed quaint when Senator Goldwater complained about “the referees.” He was referring to what is now referred to as “the media.”
The Warren Court did not have a history of controversy over journalism as an integral part of the national dialogue as we know it today. That only came into focus during and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War; I confess that I became truly conscious and convinced of “bias in the media” during the Carter Administration. The 800 pound gorilla in the room, utterly remarked in Sullivan because not raised by Mr. Sullivan, is the fact that a ruling making it hard to sue for libel affects Republicans - who are libeled mercilessly - and does not affect Democrats at all. Because Democrats are never libeled. It simply doesn’t happen.
The Sullivan decision fully vindicates the black letter of the First Amendment, which is good. But ironically it defeats the intent of the First Amendment utterly. Because the situation feared by the Antifederalists has come to pass, not in violation of the First Amendment but cynically under the cover of the First Amendment. The Antifederalists wanted - all voters wanted - free and open debate (in person and in print) over public policy (and religion). Accordingly the First Amendment tells the government to butt out, and not control that debate.
But the advent of electronic communication has precipitated a situation in which journalists systematically go along and get along with each other. And the Democrat Party systematically goes along and gets along with journalism. And since the Democrat Party is the party of big government, the effect of unified journalism joined at the hip to the Democrat Party is very, very, similar to what the First Amendment sought to prevent.
What then can be done? The problem is caused by journalism functioning as a trust, and the solution is to sue journalism under antitrust legislation.
Roy Moore is suing for libel, but he needs to sue on antitrust grounds as well.

The journalists of the establishment media see themselves not merely as people who approach politics from different first principles than do Donald Trump and his supporters. They see themselves as members of a superior tribe that is justified in taking any action to protect its territory and members.
But “superior tribes” are forbidden by the Constitution. We have neither official priests nor titles of nobility.
So, what do we do with creatures like this? The First Amendment ^{as interpreted by SCOTUS in its 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan} allows them to say and write absurd and malicious things.
The Sullivan decision was unanimous, but it seems quaint today. Of course no Court is likely to overturn Sullivan explicitly, now or in the future. But the plain fact is that it is an artifact of a different time. After the 1964 election Barry Goldwater complained about “the referees,” which now are called “the media” - and in simple fact are just: journalists. But the systematic assault on “bias in the media" did not go viral until later. Reed Irvine’s “Accuracy in Media” wasn’t founded until 1969, and I didn’t subscribe to the AIM Report until after the election of Jimmy Carter. Before that, I confess, I used to listen to the news assiduously. After a year of that, I was convinced - and became systematically skeptical of journalism.
After the 50^th anniversary of the Sullivan decision it is time and past time to critique that ruling, and the inferences drawn from it. To give the Warren Court its due, Sullivan is a full-throated defense of the First Amendment, and the decision had to go against the plaintiff. The problem with Sullivan is the facts which were not presented, and in the inferences which are clear in hindsight only. First, the facts. Plaintiff was neither a Republican nor, as presently conceived by the party, a Democrat. He was a southern Democrat. An unsympathetic character to any right-thinking New York Times reader of that era, or now. And as unsympathetic to Republicans as well as Democrats. An absolutely perfect target for the Warren Court. And, in contradistinction to the planted axiom of this article, there was no claim by the plaintiff that he was being ganged up on by a journalistic cabal. He complained only about the decision of the Times to publish an ad - one which did not so much as explicitly name the plaintiff.
The explicit purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent the government from unifying the newspapers on the side of the government. But logically, the implied purpose is to prevent newspapers from unifying, not only on the side of the government, but from unifying, period. What good is it if the government does not unify journalism, but journalism unifies itself - and on the side, not of the government as such, but of a political party dedicated to the proposition that society is deeply flawed and corrupt, and that therefore government should expand without limit? That plainly is the situation we face, and nobody brought that fact before SCOTUS in 1964.
Before the 1844 advent of the telegraph and the 1848 advent of the first wire service (the AP), newspapers were fractiously independent, and were famous for not agreeing with each other a lot. But over the succeeding decades, journalists were in the position of conducting a virtual meeting over the AP “wire.” And
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
The "conspiracy against the public” projected by Adam Smith inevitably followed:
The journalists of the establishment media . . . see themselves as members of a superior tribe that is justified in taking any action to protect its territory and members.
Another way of putting it is that journalists have one obvious power - the power to produce and publish propaganda. And so the inevitable result of a conspiracy against the public by journalists is a systematic barrage of pro-conspirator propaganda. Claims that we have no justification for questioning the objectivity (a word which is fairly close to meaning “wisdom”, and thus is a slippery way of engaging in sophistry) of the conspirators, and claims that those not inside the conspiracy are “not journalists, not objective.”
Because the object of the conspiracy is to make the conspirators the de facto leaders of journalism and of the Democrat Party - and through that, of government itself - blind application of the Sullivan precedent to subvert the right of proponents of limited government, and of the Constitution, to redress in the courts for systematic libel by those who seek to grow the government. is a perversion of the intent of the First Amendment. A case must be brought to SCOTUS which sidesteps Sullivan by attacking the journalistic “conspiracy against the public” on anti trust grounds as well as libel.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3723866/posts?page=1

When The Truth Doesn’t Matter

It's not merely that TRUTH doesn't matter: TRUTH is held in contempt.

Contempt for TRUTH, scorn of TRUTH--TRUTH for its own sake--is the evil most fundamental to the decadence of Western Civilization.

Rush Limbaugh will tell you, based on the New York Times v. Sullivan decision, that the First Amendment makes it impossible for a public figure to sue for libel. The nine SCOTUS justices of the Warren Court who unanimously agreed to Sullivan, some of them writing concurrences which would have gone further, would have agreed.
But Justice Scalia asserted that the First Amendment did not modify or restrict libel law. At all. Scalia’s point was that freedom of speech and freedom of the press existed, with limits for libel/slander and for obscenity, at the time of the ratification of the First Amendment. And the language of the First Amendment is tailored to make no changes in that.
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Without the highlighted “the” in the amendment, 1A would have abolished restrictions on libel, slander, and pornography and (arguably) it would not have been ratified. But that is not what happened, and that is not what the Constitution is. The Constitution simply does not affect libel law at all.
The Sullivan decision was handed down in 1964, at a time when people took the conceit of “journalistic objectivity” seriously and there was no major organization dedicated to the proposition that journalism was not objective but rather “liberal.” That was several years before Tet and the abandonment of the military by Walter Cronkite. Since then it has become abundantly clear that “objective” journalism, ain’t. It is joined at the hip with the Democrat Party.
I argue that that is the inevitable result of the virtual meeting of journalists known as the wire service - especially the AP, but all of them have the same tendency. As Adam Smith put it, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” And since journalism knowingly prospers reporting bad news, journalism claiming objectivity is cynical journalism. But since nobody can be cynical about one thing without being naive about its opposite, journalism’s cynicism towards society is journalism’s naiveté towards the party of big government.
The upshot of the fact that journalism is joined at the hip with the Democrat Party - thus that Democrats don’t need to sue for libel - and the Sullivan conceit that politicians (i.e., Republicans) can’t sue for libel - is the fact that the Democrat Party is entitled to its own facts.
Republicans have to sue for libel, asserting that Sullivan is irrelevant either because it is wrongly decided on its merits, or because “objective journalism” is a monopoly in violation of antitrust law. And SCOTUS must agree. Because while the intent of the First Amendment is to “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred thoughts contend,” the intent of the Democrats/journalists - and effect of Sullivan in that context - is precisely the opposite.
The inability of Republicans to resort to libel suits raises the danger that they, or their acolytes, will feel justified in looking to more drastic measures.

The Media gleefully participated in the lies for TWO AND A HALF YEARS.

There is no solution for the scandal of Democrat lies which does not address “the media” (actually, wire service journalism).
And there is no solution for “the media” which does not address SCOTUS’s 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision. With all due respect to the fact that Sullivan was a unanimous decision with enthusiastic concurrences, the facts before the court were insufficient to allow them to make a ruling with the claimed value as precedent.
On a venal level, Mr. Sullivan was neither a Republican nor a Democrat - at least, not a Democrat in good standing with the Democratic Party as understood by the Warren Court. Mr. Sullivan was a Southern Democrat, whom SCOTUS felt free to abuse without blowback from the two major parties. So there’s that.
But on a legal level, the Sullivan decision enthusiastically defends a superficial interpretation of the First Amendment but tramples its underlying meaning. We are taught that 1A gave us freedom of the press, but a knowing reader can see that that is not true. Second Amendment proponents point, rightly, to the phrase “the right of the people to . . .” and say that the Second Amendment merely codifies preexisting rights, rather than creating them. The same rationale holds in interpreting the First Amendment. As Justice Scalia pointed out, 1A refers not simply to “freedom of speech, or of the press” but rather to "the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Without that preceding “the,” the expression would codify absolute freedom of speech and press - and neither libel law nor pornography law could ever pass constitutional muster. But "the freedom . . . “ refers to freedom as it existed at the time of the ratification of the First Amendment. And there is no obvious reason to suppose that 1A would have been ratified if it had been understood to repeal laws (or prevent Congress from passing laws) against pornography or libel. Arguably, then, that the right to freedom of the press and the right to seek redress for libel both are entailed in the intent of the First Amendment.
On a philosophical level, the intent of protecting freedom of the press is to prevent the unification of press and state. Freedom of the press does not imply a responsibility to be objective; in fact it is a hindrance to any government effort to enforce such a responsibility on journalists. The intent of libel law is to prevent undisciplined publication of scurrilous and unverified rumor as fact. It is a check on the power of any given press.
But another factor, one AFAIK entirely absent from the considerations of the court in Sullivan, is antitrust considerations. Mr. Sullivan presumably said nothing about any other journal than The New York Times, but although “bias in the media” was not an expression in common use in 1964 - and the Accuracy In Media organization only dates to 1968, suspicions were expressed about that issue by Barry Goldwater in 1964, and by others during the conflict between the Democrat Party (and prominent reporters) and Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s (and years after it would have done Sen. McCarthy any good, the declassification of the Venona Papers validatedMcCarthy’s position).
In 1954 critic Leslie Fiedler captured the essence of “McCarthyism”: “From one end of the country to another rings the cry, ‘I am cowed! I am afraid to speak out!’, and the even louder response, ‘Look, he is cowed! He is afraid to speak out!’” - Ann Coulter, Treason
And as others have pointed out, although journalism widely proclaimed that “McCarthyism” compromised their freedom, any given journalistic institution would have been incensed if they had been accused of knuckling under to it - and would have been well able to defend themselves from the charge if pressed.
As Adam Smith said,
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Wealth of Nations (1776)
Wire services constitute virtual meetings of the journalists who participate in or read, wire service content, and there is therefore scant reason to assume that they do not “conspire against the public.” If they do, one would expect them to conspire to promote their own propaganda power, and to deploy it in ways congenial to themselves but detrimental to society. As noted above, journalists are within their rights to promote their own political opinions. But cooperation among journalists generally to unify the political implications of their publications - and then to propagandize to the effect that they are, all of them, "objective” - is illegitimate “conspiracy against the public.”
That would be true whatever the politics journalists conspired to promote. But it is worse than that. The particular politics settled on by the journalism monopoly promote big government at the expense of the founding principles of the American Revolution. Jefferson stated that “That government governs best, which governs least,” but the most famous declaration of the reasons for the Revolution (other than the DOI) was Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. The first two paragraphs of which develop the idea that government is at best a necessary evil.
Such declarations aside, to allow all, or most, presses to unite in heaping calumny on those who oppose the unlimited growth of government is to allow government and its promoters to unite press and state. The fact that it is done under the aegis of the press rather than that of the state (as in censorship) is a distinction with scant difference.
As a matter of right, a president or any other office holder, is entitled to seek damages in court if subjected to the sort of full court press Mr. Trump has endured. To deny the Republicans the right to sue for libel, when Democrats never are libeled, is to entitle Democrats not only to their own opinions but also to their own facts.

“The freedom of the press” is enshrined in the First Amendment. It was not established by it; that freedom existed before, during, and after the ratification of the Constitution). Note that 1A does not refer simply to absolute “freedom of the press” - which would have abolished laws against pornography and against libel - but rather “the [existing] freedom of the press.” I am not obliged to say everything I know to be true - that would be a full-time job for anyone, and also would be tactless - so inevitably I say only the things that I want to at any given time. And yet, as Benjamin Franklin put it, "Half the truth is often a great lie.”
“Bias” is a loaded term; your “opinion” (if it differs from mine) is my “bias.” We are all entitled to our own opinions, that is natural right and constitutional law. So much for bias/opinion.
We are all entitled to our own opinions, but there is such a thing as truth: we are not entitled to our own facts. The laws of libel are what enforce that. I can sue for libel if you print a malicious lie about me.
The trouble is that in 1964 SCOTUS unanimously held that Republicans can’t sue for libel. Well, that’s not how they put it - but that is the effect of SCOTUS’s New York Times v. Sullivan decision.
The Sullivan standard makes it difficult to the point of impossibility for a “public figure” to sue for libel. That would be politically neutral if the press in America were politically neutral. That was far from the case in 1964, in fact it was worse then than it is now. Not because the press was more tendentious then than now, but because calling out that tendentiousness was - in a three-network world, with no internet and hardly any conservative commentary, even on radio - barely a thing. Barry Goldwater did complain about “the referees” after his landslide defeat that year, but . . .
The reality was, and is, that major journalism is wire service journalism, and wire services unify journalism (it is also true that in the Internet era the wire services are no longer "too big to fail"). And the reality of “If it bleeds, it leads” is that for commercial reasons journalism focuses like a laser on flaws (real or imaginary) in society which cry out for the government to “do something.” It is also a fact that journalists systematically go along and get along with each other when they claim that “all journalists are objective.” But the government not only may not require journalists to have no opinions, it also may not treat journalist’s claims of objectivity as evidence of anything other than journalistic self-interest.
Journalism’s “If it bleeds, it leads” perspective means that journalism is negative about society. Journalism’s claim of objectivity, in full knowledge of their negativity, is a claim that negativity is objectivity - which is cynicism. Journalism is cynical about society and, correspondingly - naive about government. Which is a pretty good definition of socialist ideology.
People have a right to form political parties, and the government cannot forbid parties from aligning themselves with the political disposition of journalism. That certainly has the advantage of assuring that you never get libeled by journalism. And that explains the Democrat Party - and why opposition to the Democrat Party puts you in such danger of being libeled.
The Sullivan decision does not consider the possibility that my analysis is accurate. There was no reason that the wire services and the monopolistic - and socialistic - tendencies would have been brought to the Court in the Sullivan case. The implication of Sullivan is that a Judge Kavanaugh or a President Trump can be libeled mercilessly without recourse. Sullivan is a dead end. Unanimous decision or no, it must be overturned or at least bypassed by SCOTUS. And that can only happen if a Republican sues for libel and antitrust violations of the wire services and their members/subscribers. And appeals to SCOTUS when he is denied standing.
Abolish the Wire Services

Popular Knitting Website Banned Posts Supporting Trump, Accusing Him Of "Open White Supremacy”

Notice the term “open.” If something is open, there will be no difficulty at all giving an example of overt support.
It’s one thing to make an erroneous assumption, and another to go over the top about it. “Trump is a racist” is a legitimate - if incorrect - opinion. "Trump is an open racist,” OTOH, is a fact claim, not an opinion. Where is the evidence of open racism? If true, it should be easy to document and incontrovertible.
But in fact, YOU ARE STILL CRYING WOLF (About Trump “Racism”).
The fact that the “open” racism dog didn’t bark invalidates the claim. But that doesn’t matter, because Democrats are entitled, not only to their own opinions, but to their own facts. Why? Because Republicans can’t sue for libel.
In its 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, the Warren Court held unanimously that government officials have a high bar to cross to get a libel action heard in court - so much so, that it just isn’t done. In the majority opinion and in the enthusiastic concurrences wishing to go further, SCOTUS claimed that this was necessary to protect the First Amendment and freedom of the press.
That was 55 years ago, and nobody since has been willing to touch that unanimous decision with a ten-foot pole. But just as the Sullivan decision was unanimous without Scalia on the bench, the 1988 Morrison v. Olson decision would have been unanimous without then-freshman Justice Scalia, too - and Morrison was dead wrong.
Justice Elena Kagan, in an event at Stanford, called Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s lone dissent in Morrison v. Olson (1988), in which he argued that the Independent Counsel Act should be struck down because it was a wolf in wolf’s clothing, “one of the greatest dissents ever written and every year it gets better.” - https://www.lawfareblog.com/morrison-v-olson-bad-law
I claim that, altho Mr. Sullivan perhaps should have lost, Sullivan was an incorrect holding because of factors not before the court in that case:

In 1964 there was some unrest about “bias in the media,” but the reality was that there was so much “bias in the media” back then that the Court just took for granted that there was none - “a fish will be the last one to discover water.” When there is no Internet and no FR, and there is no talk radio . . .

Although SCOTUS had in 1945 (Associated Press v. United States) found The Associated Press to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, SCOTUS in Sullivan does not draw the correct inference from that fact. Per Wikipedia, in that case
The Associated Press (AP) had prohibited member newspapers from selling or providing news (whether that news was supplied by the AP, or was authored by the member newspaper - called "spontaneous" news) to nonmember organizations as well as making it very difficult for nonmember newspapers to join the AP.
Originally there were three separate cases (Associated Press et al. v. U.S., Tribune Company et al. v. U.S. and U.S. v. Associated Press et al.) that were joined into one when heard at the Supreme Court.
But a listing of those business practices does not reach the real antitrust implications of the AP (and indeed, of all wire services). Which is that any wire service is a virtual meeting of people of the trade of journalism - and “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” - Adam Smith.
The “conspiracy against the public” which has been the result of that virtual meeting is a propaganda campaign to the effect that “all journalists are objective.” This campaign obviously promotes journalism, but it is specifically “against the public” because it homogenizes journalism ideologically. You can’t be a journalist if you compete ideologically with consensus journalism. The whole journalism establishment will declare you “Not a journalist, not objective” if you dare to try. The conceit that “journalists are objective” is inherently humbug, because objectivity is a laudable goal, not a state of being. To attempt to be objective, you must start from the assumption that it is possible, at least, that “where you stand depends on where you sit.”
Justice Scalia made the point that when he found that he liked an opinion of his too much, he redoubled his efforts at objectivity to see if some personal preference of his was involved in the case. That is hard intellectual work, which someone who assumes that he is objective would take for granted is unnecessary and who is therefore very unlikely to undertake it. Thus, the claim of journalistic objectivity is inimical to the actual attempt to be objective at any given time.
Worse yet, journalists know that journalism is systematically negative. “If it bleeds, it leads,” and all that. It follows that a claim that “journalists are objective” is tantamount to a claim that “negativity is objectivity” - a claim which is consistent only with cynicism.
The funny thing about cynicism is that it is not “extreme skepticism.” Skepticism is defined as doubt, but cynicism is negative certainty. And if “A” and “B” be opposites, cynicism towards “A” is inconsistent with cynicism towards “B.” It is in fact consistent only with faith, even naiveté, towards “B.” And so it is with the cynicism of journalism. Journalism is cynical towards society and, per Thomas Paine’s Common Sense society is a blessing, but government is an evil necessary only to limit imperfections inherent to any actual society of real people. Thus we see in journalism the combination of cynicism towards society with naiveté towards government - a combination which is necessary and sufficient to produce advocacy for socialism.

In Sullivan, the losing plaintiff was a Southern Democrat - i.e., someone who like Sen. Eastland (D, MS) and Sen. Talmadge (D,GA) never was and never would have identified himself as a Republican, but whom a (Democrat) reporter today might casually label a “Republican.” That means that while the target of SCOTUS’s Sullivan decision was nominally a Democrat, in practical terms it has no bearing on any Democrat now. Any given journalist is entitled to associate with the views of any given politician, and any given politician is entitled to associate with the views of any given journalist. But under the aegis of the “all journalists are objective” propaganda campaign, all Democrats associate with the view of the consensus journalism view, and all journalists associate with the Democrat Party view.
Consequently Democrats do not get libeled. Therefore, a rule against government officials suing for libel is a rule against Republicans suing for libel. And the consequence is that Democrats are entitled to their own facts. No court will hear any objection to that.

SCOTUS was all proud of itself in Sullivan for "upholding the First Amendment.” But if the purpose of freedom of speech and press is to “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred thoughts contend,” Sullivan has the opposite effect.
The wire services were a rational response to (the very high cost of) telegraphy. As recently as 1945, the idea of abolishing them would have seemed ludicrous on economic grounds. But that was then, and dirt-cheap Internet communications and internationally accessible news web sites are now.

I do not believe the typical Democrat supports socialism and the current looneys running for office. I think this is a media push, and I’m waiting for some on the Left to say, enough…

IMHO socialism has always been “a media push.” And always will be.
You are suggesting that they are jumping the shark - and, from your lips to God’s ear.
But you don’t want to underestimate journalism’s ability to change the subject.
IMHO:

The 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision by the Warren court, tho unanimous, is as wrong as the 1988 Morrison v. Olson decision - which woulda been unanimous if Antonin Scalia hadn’t been confirmed to the bench less than a year earlier (Morrison, upholding the now-expired Special Prosecutor law, is still on the books but in light of subsequent history no one thinks the court would reaffirm it).

”The media” is (not are) a cartel. Major journalism is defined by the conversation among journalists which is known as, “the wire services.” According to Adam Smith, " People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” The continual virtual meeting of all major journalism via the wire services dates back to before the Civil War, and "a conspiracy against the public” became inevitable long before we were born.

The actual form which that conspiracy against the public took, and takes, is the self-serving propaganda campaign to the effect that “journalists are objective.” That claim:

is fatuous and incorrect, in that objectivity is a (laudable) goal but not a state of being. Trying to be objective is hard work, and knowing that you are objective is impossible. Whether or not you belong to a mutual admiration society claiming objectivity for you.

politically homogenizes journalism, forcing all journalists to conform or risk being labeled, “not a journalist, not objective.”

marks those who endorse it as cynics. That is true because all journalists know that “If it bleeds, it leads” put them on the lookout for bad news. Thus, all journalists know that journalism is negative. And only a cynic could claim that “negativity is objectivity.”

Journalism is cynical towards society, but if “A” and “B” be opposites, cynicism towards “A” must correspond to naiveté towards “B.” Although socialists eagerly seek to conflate the two, society and government are very close to being opposites. "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one” - Thomas Paine. Thus we see in the journalism cartel a witch’s brew of motive and opportunity which drive “the media” into the socialist-minded snake’s nest that it is.

Journalism, having a strong ideological tendency while cynically claiming to have none, defines political terms in a way calculated to promote its agenda. A hundred years ago, the term “liberal” would have applied to the perspective Jim Robinson, and the rest of us on FR in general, hold. But - in another “conspiracy against the public” - journalism changed the meaning of that then-popular term - applying it not to proponents of liberty but precisely to its own socialist political slant. This transformation was performed in the 1920s, according to Safire’s New Political Dictionary (tho he does not attribute that change to the ones with motive and opportunity - namely, journalists). Note, Dear Reader, that this poster eschews the use of the word “liberal” - in its inverted socialist meaning - without using scare quotes.

”Liberal” politicians go along and get along - very well - with journalists, or journalists would not call them “liberals.” No member of the journalism cartel will - on pain of expulsion, as noted above - libel a “liberal.” Consequently the Sullivan decision, which denigrates the right of politicians to sue for libel, impacts the rights of conservatives but does not affect “liberals” at all. (“Conservative” actually belongs in scare quotes as much as “liberal” does; the journalism cartel assigned us that negative label. After all, the liberty we advocate enables change; it is socialism which is reactionary against, for example, the mining and combustion of carbon compounds.

Antonin Scalia pointed out that the Bill of Rights in general and the First Amendment in particular were crafted to prevent change in the rights of the people. 1A doesn’t refer simply to “freedom of the press” but to “the freedom of the press." Already existing freedom of the press, not absolute freedom of the press. 1A does not touch pornography laws and it does not touch libel laws. If it did, arguably, the amendment would have been controversial and might have been rejected. That is speculative, but what is not speculative is that the right to recompense for libel, not articulated in the Constitution but protected explicitly by the Ninth Amendment, was and is a right of the people just as much as freedom from arbitrary search and seizure was and is.

The point is that in Sullivan, the Warren court was all enthusiastic about its supposed enforcement of the First Amendment. But in reality it expanded the First Amendment in a way that gave license to journalists at the expense of a right of the people. And the fact that “the people” in question are (Republican) government officials does not vindicate SCOTUS - because the libeling a politician libels the voters who elected that person. Not only the politician in question but the voters who advocate for that politician have a right to have facts - not opinions but facts - adjudicated.
As matters stand, “liberals” have a right not only to their own opinions but to their own facts - the very definition of Political Correctness. Trump has spoken of getting legislation, but IMHO that would be beside the point. Republicans - Trump himself, or the Republican Party, perhaps - must bring a massive libel suit against the wire services and the newspapers &c which are outlets for their propaganda. Vindicate the right, and the damage should be devastating. The torts include violation of antitrust law - the wire services are a Nineteenth Century solution to a Nineteenth (and, admittedly, Twentieth) Century problem - the high cost of telegraphy bandwidth. The Internet/www illustrate the fact that expensive telegraphy bandwidth is a historical artifact - and the wire services should be, too.
And the newspapers and broadcasters must be forced to abandon the casual, reflexive cynicism they direct against America.

IMHO, there is one specific reason for PC: The unanimous - unanimously wrong - 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision.
In Sullivan, the Warren Court held that the First Amendment requires that politicians not be permitted to sue for libel except in egregious circumstances. Meaning, no one ever tries it.
But there are gaping holes in SCOTUS’ logic. First - a fact not raised in the Sullivan case - major journalism functions as a cartel. The wire services are continuous virtual meetings of all major journalism - and all major journalism behaves precisely as Adam Smith described in Wealth of Nations:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
I identify Smith's predicted “conspiracy against the public” with the enormous, and by now traditionally believed (or at least believed to be right in principle) propaganda campaign to the effect that “journalists are objective.” Alexander Hamilton asserted that
“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.”
And that precisely describes the MSM’s self-promoting propaganda. Three ways to think about the “journalists are objective” claim:

Objectivity is a laudable goal, but not a state of being. It is hard to try to be objective, because the discipline forces you to seriously examine in what ways “where you stand depends on where you sit.” And the issue does not begin and end with taking care that the facts are right; what is, and what is not, a story is a hard issue if you actually desire to be objective.

Precisely because it is so hard, the default for “journalists” assiduous to remain in good standing is to substitute for the true meaning of the word “objective” the much easier “journalists are unanimous.” "Ain’t nobody got time" to actually try to be objective - but any fool can go along and get along with all the others. Failure to go along can mean failure to get along: you can easily find yourself labeled “not a journalist, not objective.”

”If it bleeds, it leads.” All journalists know full well that they are systematically on the lookout for bad news and negativity about society. Death: Reality vs. Reported illustrates the point very nicely. In 2016 the three biggest causes of death in America were Heart Disease (30.2%), Cancer (29.5%), and “Road, Falls, and Accidents (7.6%). Deaths in those categories do not reflect particularly poorly on society. But the three leading cause of stories about death by- prominence in The New York Times and The Guardian - were Terrorism (>33%), Homicide (>22%), and Suicide (>10.6%). Deaths in those categories get almost 2/3 of the coverage, even though they represent <0.01%, 0.9%, and 1.8%, respectively, of actual deaths in 2016. Precisely because they reflect poorly on society. And, not coincidentally, suggest the need for government action.
Since journalists know that they are negative towards society, any claim that “journalists are objective” corresponds to a claim that “negativity is objectivity” - a claim that could only be made by a cynic. But if “A” and “B” be opposites, cynicism towards “A” corresponds logically not to cynicism, but to naiveté, towards “B.” Thus the internal logic of commercial journalism aligns with cynicism towards society and naiveté towards its near opposite, government. IOW, the internal logic of commercial, general circulation news reporting has a pro-socialism, anti-limited government, slant.

The plaintiff Mr. Sullivan in the 1964 case was a Democrat - but a Southern Democrat, in 1964 in bad odor in elite Democrat circles - not to mention, the type of people the Republicans fought the Civil War against. This made the Sullivan decision nominally bipartisan, ruling against someone neither “liberals” nor Republicans (in 1964 - see, Rockefeller, Nelson - there was a nontrivial overlap in those two categories) favored. Bipartisan coloration masks the fact that since 1930 “liberal” has been a euphemism meaning - but not vocalized - “the political perspective of the journalism cartel.”
“Liberals” systematically go along - and famously get along - with journalists. Liberals never get libeled, but conservatives routinely do. In the aftermath of the success of Republicans in recruiting the children of the Southern Democrats reified in the 1994 Republican “takeover” of the House after 40 years in the minority, the two parties are the (liberal) Democrat Party and the (conservative) Republican Party. And there is not now any bipartisan odor to a decision which assures that although Republicans get libeled routinely, they never get to have the facts (not opinions, facts) adjudicated.
The bottom line is that the Sullivan decision entitles the “liberals” not only to their own opinions but to their own facts. And that is Political Correctness.
But doesn’t the First Amendment require the Sullivan decision? No. The reason that pornography cases and apolitical libel cases have always been given a hearing in court is that the First Amendment does not actually grant journalists - or anyone - rights. 1A, and indeed the whole Bill of Rights, were crafted and adopted to conserve the status quo ante the adoption of the Constitution. The rights in Amendments 1 through 8 are, under Amendment 9, not superior to any other right recognized in law at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. Including the right to seek redress in court for libel.
The First Amendment does not give journalists a title of nobility or a confer priestly status on the profession. It does not require politicians to allow their reputations - and those of their adherents - to be sullied with falsehoods. Basically, the Warren Court made that part up.
The Sullivan decision is an engine for making it difficult for "those to whom [the people] intrust the management of their affairs” to resist "unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.” It must either be bypassed, or overturned.

”If it bleeds, it leads.” All journalists know full well that they are systematically on the lookout for bad news and negativity about society. Death: Reality vs. Reported illustrates the point very nicely.
In 2016 the three biggest causes of death in America were Heart Disease, Cancer, and “Road, Falls, and Accidents." At 30.2%, 29.5%, and 7.6% respectively, the three accounted for two thirds of all deaths in 2016. But deaths in those categories do not reflect particularly poorly on society, do not arouse demands for government action on any sort of emergency basis - and got less than 1/5 of the news coverage of deaths in America in 2016.
OTOH, in 2016 the three leading cause of stories about death - judged by prominence in The New York Times and The Guardian - were Terrorism, Homicide, and Suicide. Terrorism. At more than 33%, more than 22% and more than 10.6% respectively, deaths in those categories get almost 2/3 of the coverage of deaths in 2016, even though they represent less than 3% (<0.01%, 0.9%, and 1.8%, respectively) of all actual deaths in 2016.
The obvious reason is that such deaths do reflect on the society in which they occur and, not coincidentally, they can be used to suggest the need for emergency government action. And that the perspective of journalism is that society’s failings are important - and that journalists are the ones to identify those failings and to guide the necessary government correctives.
A century ago, “liberalism” was the word for the perspective now called “conservative.” Since those who had motive and opportunity (that would be journalists, for those of you keeping score) essentially inverted the meaning of the word (in the 1920s), “liberal” has, de facto but, implausibly, denyedly, meant nothing other than “in accord with the perspective of journalism.” Political “liberals” simply go along and get along with journalism’s egoistic self-regard.
“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.”—Alexander Hamilton
“Liberal” rhetoric is anti-society, pro-government activism. Neither more nor less.

This whole scam of unprovable scandalous charges against Bret Kavanaugh is an artifact of the fact that judges do not sue for libel. The 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision says, in so many words, that judges cannot sue for libel. That decision by the Warren Court was unanimous - IMHO, unanimously wrong.
Although the plaintiff Sullivan was a Democrat, that is deceptive because he was a Southern Democrat - a breed of the sort which fought the Republicans in the Civil War, but also in bad odor with Democrat liberals in 1964.
In the 1920s the journalism cartel essentially inverted the meaning of the term “liberal” from “agreeing with Jim Robinson” to its implausibly denied (by journalists) modern connotation: “agreeing with, and going along and getting along perfectly with, the perspective of journalism.” And there are not now any Democrat politicians other than “liberals.”
The upshot is that Democrats don’t get libeled - but conservatives do. Thus, the Sullivan rule that it’s easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle than for a politician to get a hearing for his libel complaint doesn’t affect Democrats at all - and is ruinous to the reputations of conservative politicians and their adherents.
In Sullivan, SCOTUS claimed that the First Amendment gave the press freedom from legal constraint on libeling politicians, but that is untrue. The plain fact is that the Bill of Rights - see the plain text of the Ninth Amendment - was strictly conservative in that it gave no one any new right. Think: how would the composers of the Bill of Rights have gone about gaining consensus for the creation of new rights??? They patently did not try - their objective rather was to provide assurance to the AntiFederalists that the Constitution did not change anyone’s rights in any way not explicit in the text of the Constitution.
As Scalia noted, the meaning of the phrase “the freedom . . . of the press” is different from the simple “freedom . . . of the press” would have been. “The” freedom of the press was the freedom which existed before the Constitution was ratified. Freedom, that is, within the constraints of traditional laws against libel and pornography. Thus the right of a plaintiff to sue for libel - unenumerated but plainly implied in 1A - is not changed but protected by the Bill of Rights. The Warren Court claim that the First Amendment reduced the right of a politician or judge to sue for libel is therefore unfounded. To reach their desired conclusion SCOTUS would have to have shown that restriction of politicians’ rights to sue for libel preexisted the Constitution and the First Amendment.
Absent the visionary dissent by freshman Justice Antonin Scalia, the 1988 Morrison v. Olson decision would also have been unanimous. But although it has never been overturned, Morrison is considered to have been delegitimated by history, and worthless as precedent. Why should anyone suppose it impossible that the Warren Court, lacking as it did an Antonin Scalia, could have been unanimously wrong???

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