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 When The Right Is So Terribly Wrong                  #264

By Hank Silverberg 


We are all in danger. It sounds less threatening than other pieces of legislation being floated in Congress and state legislature's right now, but this one is 100% dangerous. 

A bill (SB-1316) has been introduced in Florida (where else?) that would require all bloggers who cover the Governor, his administration or the state legislature, to register with the state. And it would require them to reveal if they are being paid to write the blog and who is paying them to write it. 

To anyone who has ever passed a fifth-grade civics class, this is a clear violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but apparently Republican State Representative Jason Brodeur who proposed it, and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis who supports it, aren't smarter than a fifth grader. 

The First Amendment could not be clearer in spirit or in actual words on ANY government licenses for the press. 



The bill being proposed would indeed, by any reasonable interpretation, be abridging "the freedom of speech or of the press" and therefore be totally unconstitutional. 

I suspect cooler heads will prevail here, but it's Florida, so you never know!

At the same time, two companion bills in Florida would make it easier for public officials to sue anyone in the media for libel or defamation. 

Since the famous 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court ruling, a person or business suing the press has to prove not only that the information that was published was wrong, but also has to prove "actual malice," meaning the press knew the information was wrong and published it anyway. 

That's a hard case to make, and it should be that way. It protects the press from frivolous lawsuits just because someone didn't like what they have published or broadcast. (Yes, it covers broadcast journalism as well.) The ruling has withstood several big-time challenges in the last 54 years. 

Ironically, the biggest such case to come to the courts in recent years is playing out in New York State right now where Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, which make election machines, are suing the right-wing media outlet Fox News. The multi-billion-dollar defamation suits claim Fox News and another ultra conservative network Newsmax, continued labeling of the results of the 2020 presidential election as fraud and continued to mention of Dominion Systems and Smartmatic as the likely source of that fraud, even though those networks, their anchors and reporters, knew the story was false. You can find the documents in the Dominion Systems suit in the link below. 

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20527880-dominion-v-fox-news-complaint 


It will be interesting to see if Florida goes through with bills to make it easier to sue for defamation and libel if Fox and Newsmax, both very friendly to Republican rhetoric, lose their cases. 

For the record, I do not get any financial gain out of this blog. No one pays me to write it. But even if someone did, I will not register with the government. It's my right as an American to criticize any public official I want, as long as it's not violent or hate-speech type of threat. 

Note, it took Hitler less than a year to gain total control of the German media in 1933-34 by taking over the guild which regulated entry into the journalism profession and licensing only reporters, editors and publishers who were friendly to the Nazis. 


The Turbulent Times!

Here is some more evidence of the impact from climate change. The warming atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is having an impact on winds at a varying altitude, and that could be affecting air traffic. 

A research paper done at the University of Reading

in the United Kingdom from 2019 looked at the busy aviation route over the North Atlantic. The study found a change in wind shear since it was first discovered in the 1970's. It has increased by 15% in some altitudes.

The atmospheric dynamics that are linked to turbulence now make it harder for aircraft to avoid the turbulence which used to occur mostly near storms.  

The FAA wants the airlines to improve their training and communication for pilots on the risks of air turbulence, or wind shear, as it is often called. 

Turbulence accounted for 37.6% of all accidents on large commercial airliners from 2009 to 2018, according to the NTSB. There were 122 serious injuries to passengers and air crews because of turbulence during that same period. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/03/04/flight-turbulence-climate-change/


Fantasy Islands??? 

Japan is an island nation. But how many islands there are continues to be in dispute. The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan now says there are 14,125 islands within Japanese waters.  That's 7,000 more than a similar survey recorded in 1987. 

Apparently, new technology has allowed the Japanese to do a more accurate count, enabling them to distinguish between larger individual islands and small clusters that had once been counted as single islands. 

There are also a few new ones as a result of volcanic eruptions.  

But this is more than just lost and found. Maritime law establishes where the boundaries of one country start and end, and that becomes controversial when there are natural resources involved. 

https://news.yahoo.com/japan-finds-7-000-islands-222500767.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall

Japan already had some island trouble before this latest finding. The Kuril Islands in the north remain in dispute with Russia, which has occupied them since a battle at the end of World War Two. 

Japan also claims and administers the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, but they are claimed by China. 

At the same time, Japan and South Korea have a 70- year-old dispute over Dokodo and Takeshima Islands located in the Sea of Japan, which Korea calls the East Sea. 

Most of these islands are either unpopulated or have small numbers of people living on them. 

All of the disputes have led to some military confrontations and battles over mineral and fishing rights near the islands, and where international waters open to all begin and end. 

On top of all this, China has begun to use some man-made and unoccupied islands in the same region as Navy bases for its huge fleet. 


Dumbest Quote of The Week!

This week's dumbest quote comes from Tennessee Republican State Representative Paul Sherrell, who said during a hearing on the state's death penalty and forms of execution: 

“I was just wondering, could I put an amendment on that, that would include hanging by a tree, also?”  

That immediately brought imagery of lynchings in Tennessee, where there were 233 hangings by tree between 1877 and 1950. There were more than 4,400, mostly in southern states, between 1883 and 1950. The vast majority of the victims were racial or ethnic minorities. 

Sherrel later apologized once he was reminded that lynching is a hate crime today. 

"My exaggerated comments were intended to convey my belief that for the cruelest and most heinous crimes, a just society requires the death penalty in kind."

But that didn't come until he had been lambasted by some of his colleagues and others for the racist connotations in his comments.  

  (Your comments and suggestions for this blog are welcome, see comment section below)  


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