"Defending itself in court would be expensive and unpleasant for Britain’s national broadcaster"
At this point it should be clear that not defending against the many specious, absurd and vexatious lawsuits Trump files costs more in the long run. The BBC can likely defend itself using government funds ; a use more legally sound than the DOJ's use of taxpayer money to persecute-though-prosecution the opposition to Trump.
Please, BBC: refuse to capitulate. We're all in this together.
"Please, BBC: refuse to capitulate." Please BBC, ignore his suit altogether. Hopefully with the release of the Epstein email today, his time is up anyway.
The author of the anti-BBC piece is a pharmaceutical executive. Trump wants the NHS to pay more for drugs. He, Nigel Farage, and British MAGA want the BBC to adopt the supine, fearful treatment of Trump now dished out by U.S. legacy media—NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC—if not the adoring attitude of regime TV like Fox and Newsmax.
Trump, Brito and Americans, generally, should learn more about the meaning of the words "the freedom of speech" in the First Amendment. Much light was shed on the meaning of that idiomatic expression in 1964 in two unanimous SCOTUS decisions (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) and Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64 (1964)). The following is from Sullivan:
One vital reason for “the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon” is that those particular powers were “deemed” (by the people who founded this nation and wrote and ratified our Constitution and our Bill of Rights) to be “the only effectual guardian of every” American “right.”
Even more vital and even more fundamental, our freedom of thought, expression, communication, association and assembly truly flow from our sovereignty. So in our “Republican Government,” the “censorial power is” necessarily generally “in the people over the Government, and not in the Government over the people.”
Our “Constitution created a [republican] form of government under which ‘The people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty.’ [Our Constitution] dispersed power” in many ways precisely because “of the people’s” extreme “distrust of concentrated power, and of power itself at all levels.”
"The protection of the public requires” both “discussion” and “information” about official conduct and misconduct. The opposite view merely “reflect[s] the obsolete [seditious libel] doctrine that the governed must not criticize their governors.” “The interest of the public" in the truth about purported public servants “outweighs the interest” of “any [offended] individual." Even the Sedition Act of 1798 expressly permitted bringing federal officials “into contempt or disrepute” or “excit[ing] against them” the “hatred” of the “people” unless such criticism was proved to be both “false” and “malicious.”
Such speech “should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” and it may “include vehement, caustic,” and “unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” In Garrison, SCOTUS emphasized that such “speech concerning public affairs” is “the essence of self-government” (the essence of American government).
In Garrison, SCOTUS also emphasized that the “public interest in a free flow of information to the people concerning public officials, their servants” is “paramount,” so “anything which” even “might touch on an official’s fitness for office is relevant” and protected, including any purported public servants' “dishonesty, malfeasance, or improper motivation.”
“Truth may not be the subject of” any type of content-based “sanctions” “where discussion of public affairs is concerned,” so “only” BBC “statements” proved “false” may be punished with “either civil or criminal sanctions.” Our Constitution “absolutely prohibits” any content-based “punishment of truthful criticism” of any public servant’s public service.
The bottom line is that the BBC did not misrepresent Trump's words. The BBC showed what Trump actually said and the BBC highlighted what Trump's supporters actually heard, what was actually in their heads when they headed for the Capitol purportedly to "stop the steal" (stop the counting of electors' ballots by Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi).
Trump shaking down the BBC is absurd until you realize it’s part of the machinery. He’s not clowning. He’s collecting.
In my latest piece, I argue we wasted years debating whether Trumpism was “real conservatism” while he built this gold-draped playbook for impunity. And now, as he demands a billion from Britain, the joke’s still somehow on us.
Nice article, Stew. But it suffers from two significant common problems. The more obvious problem is that far too many people think our national discussion should be about conservatism vs. liberalism. We need much more conversation about our Constitution, not mere policies, preferences or prejudices of politicians or of the People.
The less obvious problem is that far too many people believe something like you said: "The executive branch now wields powers that would have seemed the stuff of dystopian fiction to the framers." Such misconceptions support the tendency to believe our Constitution is irrelevant to today's problems. Just a few examples from the writing of people who wrote and ratified our Constitution should burst that bubble of erroneous belief about what the framers failed to foresee or do.
The people who wrote and ratified our Constitution did not pretend that the people (or public officials) always would be at their best. In fact, The Federalist Papers repeatedly warned about the fatal attraction between the people and their most dangerous favorites. In the very first (The Federalist No. 1), Hamilton emphasized this very point:
"a dangerous ambition [even] more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."
James Madison emphasized a similar warning and explanation in The Federalist No. 10: Our Constitution was designed "to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan [constitution] which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished."
In The Federalist No. 15, Madison re-emphasized the danger of "[a] spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity." This problem "has its origin in the love of power."
Madison in The Federalist No. 51 emphasized that "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger." In fact, our Constitution was designed specifically to oppose the "reiterated oppressions of factious majorities."
Madison in The Federalist No. 47 emphasized that our Constitution was designed, not to secure democracy, but to secure our liberty by the division and re-division of powers (dividing powers between the sovereign people and all our public servants, dividing powers between state and federal representatives, dividing powers between legislative, executive and judicial representatives). "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many" is "the very definition of tyranny." Tyranny (an excessive accumulation of power) is dangerous and detrimental regardless of whether one (e.g., the president), a few (including any faction in Congress or on SCOTUS (including in combination with the president)) or many (any political or religious faction among the people) possess the power of tyrants to oppress others. As Madison emphasized, under our Constitution there is great danger of oppression and tyranny by any faction or political or religious majority (or even a minority).
"In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct. The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu." "Montesquieu" emphasized (and the people who wrote and ratified our Constitution believed) "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates," or, "if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers."
Hamilton in The Federalist No. 78 emphasized, "I agree" (with Madison and Montesquieu) that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." Maybe "liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments."
Our Constitution was designed to cut both ways: to enable us to be our best and to be represented by our best and also to protect us when we are at our worst or being victimized by the worst.
For those of us who watch a lot of BBC TV, it is odd to hear groups like conservative women complain of unfair characterizations. The BBC inserts way more minorities into its programs than the US PBS does. Inter-racial families are common in nearly all BBC series. Characters with disabilities are often seen, such as characters with deformed limbs and even Down syndrome. If anything, women in dominant roles are common, such as "Miss Scarlet," "Anika," "The Sister Boniface Mysteries," or the "Marlow Murder Club."
Sadly, Trump uses the Supreme Court, and the courts in general, like a 2nd-Grader uses a rubber eraser to correct spelling errors. Billionaires can afford to tie up Trump enemies for decades while slowly bleeding their wealth enough that they abandon defending their just actions.
I suspect the women complaining are complaining .about news coverage. But then, too, there are lots of BBC shows we never see in the US that might not all be so equitable.
I just want him to go away…😔
Mr Thin Skin at it again
"Defending itself in court would be expensive and unpleasant for Britain’s national broadcaster"
At this point it should be clear that not defending against the many specious, absurd and vexatious lawsuits Trump files costs more in the long run. The BBC can likely defend itself using government funds ; a use more legally sound than the DOJ's use of taxpayer money to persecute-though-prosecution the opposition to Trump.
Please, BBC: refuse to capitulate. We're all in this together.
"Please, BBC: refuse to capitulate." Please BBC, ignore his suit altogether. Hopefully with the release of the Epstein email today, his time is up anyway.
The author of the anti-BBC piece is a pharmaceutical executive. Trump wants the NHS to pay more for drugs. He, Nigel Farage, and British MAGA want the BBC to adopt the supine, fearful treatment of Trump now dished out by U.S. legacy media—NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC—if not the adoring attitude of regime TV like Fox and Newsmax.
I watched the Hunter Biden interview posted at the end of your essay. He was coherent, cogent and accurate. I hope the BBC responds the same way.
It is not physically possible to defame Trump!
You talk about Trump‘s beginnings slandering people you totally skipped the Central Park five he’s been doing this for decades and decades
Trump, Brito and Americans, generally, should learn more about the meaning of the words "the freedom of speech" in the First Amendment. Much light was shed on the meaning of that idiomatic expression in 1964 in two unanimous SCOTUS decisions (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) and Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64 (1964)). The following is from Sullivan:
One vital reason for “the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon” is that those particular powers were “deemed” (by the people who founded this nation and wrote and ratified our Constitution and our Bill of Rights) to be “the only effectual guardian of every” American “right.”
Even more vital and even more fundamental, our freedom of thought, expression, communication, association and assembly truly flow from our sovereignty. So in our “Republican Government,” the “censorial power is” necessarily generally “in the people over the Government, and not in the Government over the people.”
Our “Constitution created a [republican] form of government under which ‘The people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty.’ [Our Constitution] dispersed power” in many ways precisely because “of the people’s” extreme “distrust of concentrated power, and of power itself at all levels.”
"The protection of the public requires” both “discussion” and “information” about official conduct and misconduct. The opposite view merely “reflect[s] the obsolete [seditious libel] doctrine that the governed must not criticize their governors.” “The interest of the public" in the truth about purported public servants “outweighs the interest” of “any [offended] individual." Even the Sedition Act of 1798 expressly permitted bringing federal officials “into contempt or disrepute” or “excit[ing] against them” the “hatred” of the “people” unless such criticism was proved to be both “false” and “malicious.”
Such speech “should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” and it may “include vehement, caustic,” and “unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” In Garrison, SCOTUS emphasized that such “speech concerning public affairs” is “the essence of self-government” (the essence of American government).
In Garrison, SCOTUS also emphasized that the “public interest in a free flow of information to the people concerning public officials, their servants” is “paramount,” so “anything which” even “might touch on an official’s fitness for office is relevant” and protected, including any purported public servants' “dishonesty, malfeasance, or improper motivation.”
“Truth may not be the subject of” any type of content-based “sanctions” “where discussion of public affairs is concerned,” so “only” BBC “statements” proved “false” may be punished with “either civil or criminal sanctions.” Our Constitution “absolutely prohibits” any content-based “punishment of truthful criticism” of any public servant’s public service.
The bottom line is that the BBC did not misrepresent Trump's words. The BBC showed what Trump actually said and the BBC highlighted what Trump's supporters actually heard, what was actually in their heads when they headed for the Capitol purportedly to "stop the steal" (stop the counting of electors' ballots by Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi).
Trump shaking down the BBC is absurd until you realize it’s part of the machinery. He’s not clowning. He’s collecting.
In my latest piece, I argue we wasted years debating whether Trumpism was “real conservatism” while he built this gold-draped playbook for impunity. And now, as he demands a billion from Britain, the joke’s still somehow on us.
https://www.stewonthis.com/p/debating-conservatism-while-the-house
Nice article, Stew. But it suffers from two significant common problems. The more obvious problem is that far too many people think our national discussion should be about conservatism vs. liberalism. We need much more conversation about our Constitution, not mere policies, preferences or prejudices of politicians or of the People.
The less obvious problem is that far too many people believe something like you said: "The executive branch now wields powers that would have seemed the stuff of dystopian fiction to the framers." Such misconceptions support the tendency to believe our Constitution is irrelevant to today's problems. Just a few examples from the writing of people who wrote and ratified our Constitution should burst that bubble of erroneous belief about what the framers failed to foresee or do.
The people who wrote and ratified our Constitution did not pretend that the people (or public officials) always would be at their best. In fact, The Federalist Papers repeatedly warned about the fatal attraction between the people and their most dangerous favorites. In the very first (The Federalist No. 1), Hamilton emphasized this very point:
"a dangerous ambition [even] more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants."
James Madison emphasized a similar warning and explanation in The Federalist No. 10: Our Constitution was designed "to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan [constitution] which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished."
In The Federalist No. 15, Madison re-emphasized the danger of "[a] spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity." This problem "has its origin in the love of power."
Madison in The Federalist No. 51 emphasized that "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger." In fact, our Constitution was designed specifically to oppose the "reiterated oppressions of factious majorities."
Madison in The Federalist No. 47 emphasized that our Constitution was designed, not to secure democracy, but to secure our liberty by the division and re-division of powers (dividing powers between the sovereign people and all our public servants, dividing powers between state and federal representatives, dividing powers between legislative, executive and judicial representatives). "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many" is "the very definition of tyranny." Tyranny (an excessive accumulation of power) is dangerous and detrimental regardless of whether one (e.g., the president), a few (including any faction in Congress or on SCOTUS (including in combination with the president)) or many (any political or religious faction among the people) possess the power of tyrants to oppress others. As Madison emphasized, under our Constitution there is great danger of oppression and tyranny by any faction or political or religious majority (or even a minority).
"In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct. The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu." "Montesquieu" emphasized (and the people who wrote and ratified our Constitution believed) "There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates," or, "if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers."
Hamilton in The Federalist No. 78 emphasized, "I agree" (with Madison and Montesquieu) that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." Maybe "liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments."
Our Constitution was designed to cut both ways: to enable us to be our best and to be represented by our best and also to protect us when we are at our worst or being victimized by the worst.
His entire Klan can’t die fast enough
For those of us who watch a lot of BBC TV, it is odd to hear groups like conservative women complain of unfair characterizations. The BBC inserts way more minorities into its programs than the US PBS does. Inter-racial families are common in nearly all BBC series. Characters with disabilities are often seen, such as characters with deformed limbs and even Down syndrome. If anything, women in dominant roles are common, such as "Miss Scarlet," "Anika," "The Sister Boniface Mysteries," or the "Marlow Murder Club."
Sadly, Trump uses the Supreme Court, and the courts in general, like a 2nd-Grader uses a rubber eraser to correct spelling errors. Billionaires can afford to tie up Trump enemies for decades while slowly bleeding their wealth enough that they abandon defending their just actions.
I suspect the women complaining are complaining .about news coverage. But then, too, there are lots of BBC shows we never see in the US that might not all be so equitable.
Perhaps if you lived in Europe part of the year, you would see that the hissy fit is not justified. I suspect that the whiners are Farage MAGAs.