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So Trump wants to do away with the 1st Amendment?

Wow, the ignorance on this thread is totally unbecoming to FR.

Slander and libel are NOT protected by the 1st amendment, there are civil actions that can and are adjudicated ALL of the time.

The hatred here is so thick no one can even think any more.

You are absolutely right about slander and libel NOT being protected by the 1st Amendment.

So why would would we need to “open up” libel laws?

I’m not trying to goad you, not acting out of “hatred”, not at all.

Just wondering how your clear-headed statements can be reconciled with Trump seems to want.

Slander and libel are NOT protected by the 1st amendment, there are civil actions that can and are adjudicated ALL of the time.

And they are notoriously unsuccessful almost all the time, in the context of public figures, because you have to prove "actual malice," and that is tough to do.

And that is precisely as it should be. Political free speech is precisely that speech the founders were most interested in protecting, because it is critical to the functioning of a free society, and because it is highly vulnerable to suppression by agents of political power. The risk of being misrepresented when you enter the political arena is a risk we as free people deem worthy of the benefit returned, namely, that we all have the right to speak our mind, even when what we say is extremely unpopular.

And the impulse to suppression is alive and well, even here at FR. Just the other day some pro-Trump person was suggesting a "common sense" litmus test as a prerequisite to our freedom to vote. Here on FR! And based on what? My negative appraisal of Trump. The individual is dead, long live the collective? Is that our new mantra?

So we have to stand as watchmen for our freedom. Ad you said, the current law already allows suit for defamation against public figures, but it protects media from retaliatory lawsuits by requiring solid proof the defamatory statement was a fact, not an opinion, that it is demonstrably false, that it is limited to the specific victim and not some large group, and that it was done with "actual malice," i.e., the media outlet knew it was false while presenting it as true, a deliberate, intentional lie. Proving all that is a pain in the behind, very hard to do. The only way I could see Trump getting around it is to either lower the standard of proof (bad), or to remove the "actual malice" standard (also very bad).

But how would he do this? He is not the legislature. He is not the judiciary. And libel laws are under the police powers of the states. This is one of those areas NOT enumerated to Congress. It's not a federal issue. Does he not understand the role of the federal executive? I don't think he does. This puts him much closer to Obama than Reagan.

Peace,

SR