...

In Justice Thomas’s view, the First Amendment did nothing to limit the authority of states to protect the reputations of their citizens and leaders as they saw fit. When the First Amendment was ratified, he wrote, many states made it quite easy to sue for libel in civil actions and to prosecute libel as a crime. That was, he wrote, as it should be.

“We did not begin meddling in this area until 1964, nearly 175 years after the First Amendment was ratified,” Justice Thomas wrote of the Sullivan decision. “The states are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm.”

The events leading to the Sullivan decision test that assertion. The case arose from an advertisement in The Times seeking support for the civil rights movement. The ad contained minor errors.

...

Justice Thomas’s statement came in the wake of complaints from President Trump that libel laws make it too hard for public officials to win libel suits.

“I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Mr. Trump said on the campaign trail. “We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.”

Thanks to the Sullivan decision, it is indeed hard for public figures to win libel suits. They have to prove that something false was said about them, that it harmed their reputation and that the writer acted with “actual malice.” That last term is misleading, as it has nothing to do with the ordinary meaning of malice in the sense of spite or ill will.

To prove actual malice under the Sullivan decision, a libel plaintiff must show that the writer knew the disputed statement was false or had acted with “reckless disregard.” That second phrase is also a term of art. The Supreme Court has said that it requires proof that the writer entertained serious doubts about the truth of the statement.

Justice Thomas questioned those standards.

...

TD Bank is apologizing after the company was called out on social media for an advertisement inside a Boston branch that was viewed as racist for the way it referenced Dorchester.

The company told Boston.com the advertisement, which read “When you’re Downtown, but your debit card’s somewhere in Dorchester,” was taken down Thursday and was the only such marketing poster.

District 1 City Councilman Roberto Treviño motioned to approve the Food, Beverage and Retail Prime Concession Agreement with Paradies Lagardère for the airport Thursday on condition Chick-fil-A be excluded from the agreement. Treviño asserted Chick-fil-A has a “legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior” and that such a business had no place in the city’s airport.

Treviño’s motion came after a Wednesday ThinkProgress report that asserted Chick-fil-Adonated $1.8 million in 2017 to the Salvation Army, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Paul Anderson Youth Home — charitable Christian ministries that ThinkProgress defined as discriminatory against LGBTQ individuals.

...

Grabien News reviewed transcripts from every episode of “The Ingraham Angle” and “Hannity” in the month of March. If this were really a habit, surely it would have happened at least once in the last three weeks. Yet it hasn’t. Neither Hannity nor Ingraham referred to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez as simply “Cortez” a single time. Her name was mentioned 188 times during this time period.

On the March 14th “Ingraham Angle,” Rabbi Aryeh Spero used the words “Cortez and her quartet,” referring to other freshman, progressive congressmen. However, Ingraham never referred to her as such.

In one episode of “Hannity,” self-described AOC is mentioned 20 times; yet every time the host and his guests use her correct, full name.

We’ve reached out to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to see if she has any examples to back up her accusation. We have not heard back, but will update this piece should a response be forthcoming.

Bernie Sanders' hiring of non-American campaign advisers may violate federal election laws, complaint says