Alan Dershowitz: Free speech for NFL players but not the president?

[TomSea]

Alan Dershowitz: Free speech for NFL players but not the president?
Rick Leventhal reports from New York City on the ongoing debate over the issue.

Football players kneel. Owners support them. President threatens owners with tax consequences. What does the First Amendment say about all this? This is not an easy question, though some of President Trump’s critics seem to think it is. 

The ACLU has said it is ready to defend the First Amendment rights of players and to challenge the president’s “unconstitutional efforts to bully the NFL into complying with his view of what is politically correct.” But are President Trump’s efforts “unconstitutional,” or are they constitutionally protected expression? 

Some Trump critics allege that the presidential threats constitute state action and chill the First Amendment rights of the kneeling players and their supportive owners. They cite the case of Playboy magazine and the American Booksellers Association against former Attorney General Edwin Meese, who formed a commission on pornography and sent letters threatening to publish a list of convenience stores that sold pornographic materials. Playboy charged that the attorney general was illegally attempting to censor constitutionally protected magazines. 

Read more at: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/10/17/alan-dershowitz-free-speech-for-nfl-players-but-not-president.html