Jamie Raskin invokes Fox News, Newsmax in latest lesson for GOP
It looks like Rep. Jamie Raskin needs yet another reminder to his GOP peers about how the First Amendment works.
The Maryland Democrat and former constitutional law professor spoke out against a Republican-backed “censorship” bill, which he appeared to believe was unnecessary at best given that the First Amendment already blocks government censorship:
Raskin’s latest constitutional lesson follows his earlier briefing to colleagues in early February in connection with the half-baked Twitter hearing to explain to them what applies under the First Amendment Government action, private companies can curate content however they want, and Twitter is a private company.
Similarly, Raskin spoke out against the recent efforts as misguided, noting that they turned the First Amendment on its head. during a meeting of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday.
Raskin reminded us that we are not saying that newspapers and TV stations “censor” themselves when making decisions about what to publish. Citing the recent explosive revelations about Fox News knowingly spreading lies about the 2020 election, Raskin noted that it would be odd to say that Fox News is “censoring itself” by choosing not to tell the truth.
He also cited conservative media when he dragged the committee chairman James Comer along for recently bragging to Newsmax about pressuring AT&T to port the right-wing network to DirecTV.
“If the threat of official pressure like this — ‘Follow our orders or else’ — were directed not just at private social media companies … but at every media outlet, it would change First Amendment politics in America,” he said said.
Writing about Raskin’s final lesson, I noted that the Twitter hearing was “the latest sign that we’re in for a long, weird ride with the 118th Congress MAGA Republicans.” But if you pay attention, you might learn something. In the likely event that this is not the case, the public can still benefit from these legal lessons.”
It seems MAGA Republicans are still not paying attention, but we can all still benefit.