Contemplating Media & the First Amendment
Matthew McConaughey as "Danny Buck Davidson" in Bernie. One of my all-time favorite films is Bernie. The film, released in 2011, tells the real story of a 1999 murder trial in Carthage, Texas. Bernie Tiede, the film’s titular character, murders an elderly woman to whom he was very close in a fit of rage following... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Warren is quickly becoming the candidate known for having a plan for nearly anything (check out her entire merch line dedicated to this idea. In unrelated news, Warren’s PR team never sleeps.) She’s rocked the boat a lot this election cycle, but one of her most controversial ideas is undoubtedly breaking up “Big Tech.”... Continue Reading →
On October 16th, 2019 the ACLU of Tennessee requested an investigation into Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s speech delivered 5 days before. Entitled “Being a Christian Leader” and delivered to the American Association of Christian Counselors, the ACLU claims it acted essentially as a Christian sermon and that using the State Department’s social media, website,... Continue Reading →
On Tuesday, Steve C. Jones, a federal judge in Georgia, blocked a law signed by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp in May that would ban abortions occurring after six weeks of pregnancy. I read an article published in the New York Times about this. It framed the issue as being part of a larger shift... Continue Reading →
I’m confident that if Richard Nixon was alive right now, he’d be green with envy. It only took one scandal for Congress to bring him down, whereas Donald Trump has been dodging accusations of illegal activities since before his election. I mean, it’s absurd that the president is still in office. He makes Nixon look... Continue Reading →
The final question of the democratic debate: “Tell us about a friendship you’ve had that would surprise us.” I’m sorry… What? I cannot fathom why the moderators chose to ask that question, which had to do with the recent controversy surrounding Ellen Degeneres’s friendship with George Bush. Over the course of the three-hour-long debate, they... Continue Reading →
On October 11, Attorney General Bill Barr delivered a speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School with the message that we should be concerned about the secularist agenda to oppress religious people (specifically Catholics) and take away their freedom of religion — yes, you read that right. To me, it’s no surprise that... Continue Reading →
When it comes to the media coverage of a legal trial, the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment often clash. While some will argue that the press has the right to publish whatever they want whenever they want, others believe this infringes on the rights of the defendant. This issue was first brought about in... Continue Reading →
While a first-reading of Vikram Amar's The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech; Its Constitutional History and the Contemporary Debate can often leave you feeling like "what did I just read?" the message behind content regulations in Part III is actually pretty relevant. The two types of content limitations presented in Amar's book are content-neutral and... Continue Reading →
Many lost it across popular social media channels, championing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as the bearer of the final word in what seems to be charged meeting in the White House. President Trump sits on the other side of the room, pouting. Some view the photo as being so powerful, that after President... Continue Reading →
Free Press Free Speech 