Saturday, April 22, 2017

What First Amendment?

In the Trump regime, First Amendment rights don't pertain to you, citizen.  They are there to protect Glorious Leader Trump from dissent, as Our Founding Fathers intended.  Make America Great Again, Amen and Hallelujah!

President Donald Trump’s lawyers argued in a Thursday court filing that protesters “have no right” to “express dissenting views” at his campaign rallies because such protests infringed on his First Amendment rights. 
The filing comes in a case brought by three protesters who allege they were roughed up and ejected from a March 2016 Trump campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky, by Trump supporters who were incited by the then-candidate’s calls from the stage to “get 'em out of here!”

Lawyers for Trump’s campaign have argued that his calls to remove the protesters were protected by the First Amendment. But the federal district court judge hearing the case issued a ruling late last month questioning that argument, as well as the claim that Trump didn’t intend for his supporters to use force. 
The ruling cleared the case to proceed into discovery and towards a trial. 
Thursday’s filing by Trump’s campaign lawyers asks the judge to pause the proceedings and allow Trump’s legal team to appeal the ruling to a higher court “before subjecting the President to ‘unique’ and extraordinary burdens of litigation.” 
Specifically, Trump’s lawyers want the appeals court to reconsider whether Trump’s calls to remove the protesters were protected speech under the First Amendment and whether it’s reasonable to construe the calls as an incitement to violence.
Trump’s lawyers point out that he explicitly urged his supporters against roughing up protesters, following his calls to “get ‘em out of here,” with the plea “Don’t hurt ‘em.” 
Trump’s lawyers also argue that he had every right to call for the removal the protesters since they “obviously interfered with the Trump campaign’s First Amendment right” by “vigorously expressing their disdain for Mr. Trump,” including by chanting and holding up signs depicting Trump’s face on the body of a pig, among other anti-Trump messages.

Guys, this is actual, textbook, literal fascism right here, by saying that the First Amendment, which clearly spells out that the government cannot take action to abridge the freedom of speech and peaceable assembly doesn't apply to critics of Trump because he is above the law and supersedes the Constitution.

This is literally, not figuratively, what authoritarian regimes claim as the basis of staying in power.

This is dangerous as hell, guys.  We're heading off the cliff here, because the next steps after this in the autocrat playbook are that since Trump and Trump alone who chooses whether or not to enforce whatever the judiciary has to say about this, the judiciary only matters when Trump says they do.

But hey...her emails.

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