Looks Like AOC Just Broke a Law the Dems Accused Trump of Breaking, but Don’t Seem Bothered if She Does It
Last year, after seven anti-Trump users sued over the fact they’d been blocked by the president on his official Twitter account, a judge in New York ruled that Trump didn’t have the power to block others on social media as his account had become a “designated public forum.”
“If the principle undergirding Wednesday’s ruling in Federal District Court stands, it is likely to have implications far beyond Mr. Trump’s feed and its 52 million followers, said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight First Amendment Institute’s executive director and the counsel for the plaintiffs,” The New York Times reported last May.
“Public officials throughout the country, from local politicians to governors and members of Congress, regularly use social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to interact with the public about government business.”
The ruling is under appeal, according to TheBlaze. However, for right now, U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald’s decision remains in place.
But apparently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t particularly care about it.
Ocasio-Cortez, you might have heard, stirred up a bit of controversy last week after her speech before Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. The clip, which The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra originally posted, shows her taking on what appears to be a southern accent before a predominately African-American audience.
This led to a strong bit of self-victimization by Ocasio-Cortez, who claimed it was her code-switching into her Bronx accent and saying she had done the same thing during her speeches at the Women’s March and on Brett Kavanaugh:
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As much as the right wants to distort & deflect, I am from the Bronx. I act & talk like it, *especially* when I’m fired up and especially when I’m home.
It is so hurtful to see how every aspect of my life is weaponized against me, yet somehow asserted as false at the same time.
So, Saavedra posted those speeches, too:
There was nothing like what was on display during the Friday speech. What happened?
Yes, she blocked him.
Now, let me again note that the ruling against Trump is under appeal, though judges hearing the case as of now don’t appear too sympathetic to his arguments.
The New York Times reported last week that “(t)he judges seemed skeptical of Mr. Trump’s contention that he was acting in a personal, not official, capacity when he blocked people.
“(Second) Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker asked Mr. Trump’s counsel, a Justice Department lawyer, why blocking ‘points of view the president doesn’t like’ isn’t ‘just a quintessential First Amendment violation.’”
But here’s the thing — if it’s “a quintessential First Amendment violation” for the president to block somebody, it’s also almost certainly a violation for other elected officials using their accounts as an extension of their office. So, whither Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?
Some Twitter users noted the incongruity:
@AOC FYI Blocking @RealSaavedra - is actually a violation of the 1st Amendment. Twitter is considered a public forum. Last year - Trump got sued by 7 people for the same thing, and they won. I know your methodology stems from dictators who stifle press, but this is the USA.
Sue her like those that sued @realDonaldTrump for blocking them on Twitter. If they can win, so can you.
@AOC You pobably cannot mute or block people now, Congressperson.
A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s practice of blocking his critics on Twitter violates the First Amendment. The practice is unconstitutional, Check the decision by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald.
Will this end up being called out? Highly unlikely. Yet again, the pieces noting the fact that she blocked Saavedra are all from conservative news outlets thus far. Not a single Democrat has come out to express outrage.
We’ll see if any lawsuit gets filed, but even then, will it attract attention? Probably not — not, anyway, in the same way that Trump’s Twitter account does.
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