Readers Write: Don’t misinterpret the meaning of our First Amendment

The Island Now

It always amazes me how some can stand for the law of the land, and others can bend the law to suit their own viewpoints.

Dr. Hal Sobel does that quite adeptly when he admonishes President Trump for calling out the press for the ‘fake news’ constantly streaming on TV and the internet. Yes, the press is supposed to be a watchdog, but that doesn’t give it license to create its own facts.

Only moments after he lifted his hand from the Bible following his Oath of Office, the media accused him of removing the bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from the Oval Office – fake news! These attacks continue to this day!

Our previous president used his office to create covert investigations of any person, agency or group who publicly disagreed with him.

How many not-for-profit groups were investigated by the IRS at his behest simply for calling attention to his left-leaning policies? Did the press question when a fairly tidy sum was covertly flown into Iran to pay off the mullahs?

Our president is tasked with protecting us and enforcing the rule of law. When there is an invasion of our southern border by migrants in such massive numbers as we have seen, and the number keeps climbing, our president asks for funding to build a fence, wall or barrier to stop the infiltration of guns, drugs and illegals into our country.

Does Dr. Sobel find it strange that former presidents Clinton & Obama, and our esteemed senators Schumer and Pelosi, all voiced the need for a barrier, that is, until Donald Trump wanted it.

How conveniently it was denied. And the media continues to push the resist and desist rhetoric for which it has become so well known. No, these folks can’t have it both ways.

It’s time for the media to wake up.

Reporters should be delivering facts, not opinion. They’re free to feel any way they wish, but to speak falsehoods is not consistent with our First Amendment.

Sure, they are entitled to their opinions, and they are certainly entitled to speak them, but deliver the news and comments from a factual basis. Then they’ll be true to our Constitution.

Eric Spinner

New Hyde Park

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