Prayers For Benny

You can pray for bad things, of course.

Two people detained outside a Chicago-area immigration detention center last year are suing right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson for defamation, saying he falsely portrayed them as violent extremists who assaulted federal officers.

Illinois residents Kyle Frankovich, a data scientist at Harvard University, and Maureen Foody, a contract court reporter, filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. They said they were detained while protesting peacefully outside the Broadview detention center, but that Johnson knowingly framed them as criminals and “left-wing terrorists” in videos he posted to millions of viewers.

It is good that genuine public figures have a hard time suing for defamation, but I do think "normal" people should feel a bit more empowered to do so than they seem to.