A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.
Conservatives sounded off Wednesday about CNN’s article detailing its attempt to identify the creator of the GIF depicting President Trump wrestling CNN. The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson wrote that Andrew Kaczynski had written an “implicit threat” against the Reddit user known as HanAssholeSolo by implying CNN would reveal his identity under certain circumstances. “They are trying to walk it back now and say that’s not what they meant, but that is how any reasonable person would have read what was written,” he wrote. “Had they instead just written a story that they tracked down the anonymous troll, who [is] an X years old white male who apologized and deleted his account, end of story. But the reservation at the end went beyond that.” The Daily Caller’s David Hookstead sarcastically praised CNN in a post titled, “The Bravery It Took CNN to Track Down a Private Citizen Can’t Be Overstated.” “When we look back over American history, there will be several moments that stand out as defining days where American exceptionalism shined through,” he wrote. “D-Day, the Civil War, the race to the moon and now Andrew Kaczynski performing an investigative task that could be done by just about any 10-year old with access to a computer.” The Daily Wire’s John Nolte wrote that Kaczynski suffered from “Little Man’s Syndrome” and condemned CNN’s “Hitler-tactics.” The hashtag #CNNblackmail took off among right-wing Twitter accounts.
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro specifically criticized CNN’s defense of Kaczynski’s article. “CNN says that the last line here is an assurance that they have no deal with him,” he wrote. “But why not simply say that CNN is keeping him anonymous for his own safety? And why would his safety then change in a positive direction based on him reneging on a non-deal with CNN? None of this washes.” National Review’s David French agreed: “CNN is positioning itself not as a reporter of internet realities but rather as an internet schoolmarm, threatening an anonymous man with exposure if he dares step out of line,” he wrote. “Is his identity newsworthy or not? Does it become more newsworthy if his behavior stays ‘ugly?’ ”
Other voices pushed back against the notion CNN had been coercive. The Resurgent’s Ed Willing compared charges of blackmail to conservative defenses of Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey. “On the one hand, people are defending the President’s actions in firing Comey as ‘not obstruction,’ on the technicality that he’s Comey’s superior, so it can’t be obstruction,” he wrote. “On the other hand, these same people are accusing CNN of felony blackmail/extortion because they ‘reserve the right’ to publish an already public digital trail of a social media user who attacked them. Public information, available to anyone who tried. That’s not blackmail.”
The Daily Caller’s Legal Affairs Reporter Kevin Daley argued that charges of coercion made little legal sense.
The definition of coercion varies by state and across federal laws, but it generally involves the compulsion to act against one’s will where one party holds influence or power over the other party. Under this construction, CNN’s actions are lawful.
In the first place, it appears that the Redditor’s actions were entirely voluntarily. The user made clear his apology, and post deletions reflect his desire to maintain his anonymity, so as to protect himself and his family from public ridicule. His actions are clearly in harmony with his will. Coercion is not possible where an individual is acting in accordance with their desire.
It also seems coercion is impossible as a chronological matter. As KFile notes, CNN did not speak with the user until after he had deleted the offensive materials and posted an apology.
In other news:
Conservatives kept a close eye on Fourth of July tweets. The Daily Wire’s Amanda Prestigiacomo wrote that tweeters who celebrated July 4th as Malia Obama’s birthday instead of Independence Day were haters of America:
Some anti-American fools decided to slander the greatest, freest nation on the face fo the planet on Independence Day, of all days, from the safety of their iPhones (thanks, economic freedom!), without fear of threat from their government for speaking out (thanks, First Amendment!).
A typical leftist move in which the irony is entirely lost on the immensely free “crusading” social justice warriors.
The Daily Wire’s Joseph Curl wrote about Colin Kaepernick’s trip to Ghana and his comments about slavery and celebrating the Fourth. “Of course, Kaepernick is free to express himself in whatever way he chooses,” he wrote. “This is America, after all. But perhaps if he had toned down his protest and sought to add to the conversation, not simply to blame, he would still be an NFL quarterback.”
Actor Dean Cain criticized Salon in an appearance on Fox & Friends for publishing an article encouraging Americans to fly their flags upside down to protest President Trump. “It’s just another example of a whole group who don’t want to accept the results of the election,” he said. “They are upset with it, they don’t like that President Trump is in office, and they do anything to oppose him, even denigrate the world’s most well-known symbol of freedom.”
Independent Journal Review and RedState ran posts on the angry responses of Trump supporters to NPR’s tweeting of the Declaration of Independence. “Yes, apparently, words that herald freedom and the resolve of the American spirit,” RedState’s Susan Wright wrote, “seemed to set off some of the Trump faithful, as they promptly began to attack NPR, connecting the text of the Declaration of Independence with mutiny against President Trump.” IJR’s Gary Legum concurred: “Ironic that tweeting the Declaration of Independence is probably the only way one could ever get Trump to actually read it. Darn Founding Fathers really needed to use only bullet points and keep the whole document to one short page.”
