The morning dose of Marxist-Leftist fearmongering fell a little flat today on Fox and Friends. The 'news' network labels this segment, 'How Liberal Protesters Are Trying To Silence The Right,' as if this is such an anomaly. They angled to expose the Left by revealing their duplicitous and surreptitiously illegal methods that aim to take down the sacred GOP. Only problem was, they really found nothing untoward about the chosen methods that were so revered by their beloved Tea Party protesters not so long ago.
The New York Times reported on the commotion in Chicago on Friday:
Around the country, protesters have interrupted virtually every Trump rally, but his planned appearance here — in a city run for decades by Democrats and populated by nearly equal thirds of blacks, Latinos and whites — had drawn some particularly incensed responses since it was announced days ago.
The canceled rally came on a day that Mr. Trump sought to move past the primary fight, saying that the party needed to come together behind him.
Attempting show the unruly nature of these 'liberals,' they roll footage of lawful protests from that canceled event. The first thing you see is a Black, male protester shouting, 'we shut shit down,' twice (with sh** used in the subtitles), which depicted the palpable anger of those wishing to disrupt the proceedings. After a few more examples of typically incensed dissenters, a Fox 'News' reporter is mocked by someone repeating 'Fox News' seven times, with subtitles, naturally. To show how 'witty' the Right is among such bedlam, you hear a poorly educated' White male reply, 'that's college today!' Score one for the Trump voter!
Since the melee, Fox 'News' has been spinning this as the Left usurping the First Amendment to silence a Republican candidate, even though these protesters were acting lawfully. Host Ainsley Earhardt brought on Andrew Napolitano to review the event. After chuckling over the clever last clip, her guest didn't provide the guilty verdict she was seeking.
NAPOLITANO: Virtually everything we saw was an example of protected, free speech in a loud, raucous environment.
He could easily be describing one of the latest GOP debates, especially when we are involving Trump. Judge Napolitano emphasized that before an event occurs, all speech is protected, even hate speech. So their objective of disrupting the usual hateful 'shows' from the reality TV star turned GOP Presidential Candidate was within their legal right found in the First Amendment.
The only time this type of protest can be stopped by law enforcement is when the paid venue and the person of interest is a victim of too much disruption which impairs others from hearing the featured speaker. Earhardt complained that 'a few people can ruin it for everyone,' as if there weren't thousands of Trump opponents at the event. She was sympathetic to all the Trump supporters who were robbed of the opportunity to hear the promises of the most spectacular wall-builder who ever lived.
Earhardt asked the judge about the inciting violence/riots charges that have come up in light of the footage of the Trump supporter who sucker punched a Black man. The infamous incident happened the Wednesday before the Chicago rally, at a North Carolina event, and on Sunday, Trump offered to pay the assaulter's legal fees. He has since rescinded that offer, likely at the behest of his very overworked legal team.
Napolitano explained that the only way speech can be labeled as inciting violence is if the immediate result of said speech was the violent act. In this N.C. case, the violence was supposedly not sparked by Trump, and law enforcement has since dropped the case they were planning to file. The judge emphasizes that 'all speech is harmless when there is time to neutralize it.' The most important element is time in all cases.
It seems that the law gives Trump plenty of wiggle room to extricate himself from potential suits if he says he denounces the violence, even if he strongly suggests it wouldn't be such a bad idea with a little wink and a nod.
