First Amendment News

With Portland protests over racism and police violence continuing for over six weeks, federal forces are stepping in. The federal forces are not wearing recognizable uniforms or practicing due process, often just arresting people and spiriting them away in unmarked vehicles. Police Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty organized a candlelight vigil to support her fellow citizens rights to free speech and assembly. (KGW8, July18, 2020, by KGW Staff) Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, July 17,

A New Jersey hedge fund submitted the highest bid in the bankruptcy auction for the family-owned McClatchy company, one of the major newspaper companies in the United States. Chatham Asset Management was one of McClatchy’s largest creditors. The chain will now go private with its 30 newspapers intact. Mayors in several cities with McClatchy newspapers had urged a sale to local, civic-minded ownership, but Chatham representatives said they were dedicated to providing robust news coverage

The Trump administration is now requiring hospitals to send data about Covid-19 patients directly to Washington, bypassing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Critics of the Trump performance on the epidemic fear the administration will only release data to the public that serves Trump’s political ends.(The New York Times, July 14, 2020, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg) A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services that will control the information said the new

President Donald Trump and his family are currently batting zero in lawsuits to restrain those publishing books about Trump. A New York Supreme Court judge ruled that the suit brought by Robert, Donald’s younger brother, to stop publication of Mary Trump’s book on the family and how it created “the world’s most dangerous man” would not harm Robert. Blocking the book would instead damage the publisher Simon & Schuster and deprive the public of vital

The president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, The Washington Post, July 11, 2020, noted that press secretary Kayleigh McEnany spends a lot of time during briefings denying the obvious, contradicting President Donald Trump’s statements and refusing to address issues raised by the president’s tweets, in sum, serving the president’s political agenda. Writes Jonathan Karl, “The White House press secretary serves at the pleasure of a president but is also a public servant whose salary