The First Amendment actually reads; "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Bold is added by me. The word "people" is in the phrase regarding assembly, the freedom of speech phrase doesn't exclude anyone. Congress did make a law that abridged the freedom of speech within 30 days of an election (commonly known as McCain/Feingold Campaign Finance Reform).
The PNJ makes the claim that elections will now be paid for by the highest bidder. Hmm, how strange it is that the one thing newsies report to us during elections is how much money each candidate has raised. They use this as a basis for how likely the candidate is to be a contender. Funny also that we've all known politicians have been bought by lobbyists for years and more recently they've been so bold as to buy each other's votes on bills with outright bribes using taxpayer money.
Every time a "news organization" is accused of anything, they cry "free press, free press!" PNJ is owned by Gannett corporation. Should they be limited in their opinions prior to an election?
We all know there's a lot of funny business when it comes to campaign finances, but for a newspaper, owned by an often opinionated corporation that thrives on it's protection under the First Amendment, to then cry foul when other corporations are given the same protection is laughable to say the least.
