One popular advice columnist has received a harrowing order from his local attorney general: Stop publishing your column in our state or face fines and jail time.
North Carolina-licensed family psychologist John Rosemond, whose syndicated writings appear in more than 200 newspapers, is being told by the State of Kentucky that he is a criminal because his column’s tagline claims he is a psychologist.
Why is that illegal? Well, the state’s attorney general accuses him of engaging in the “unlicensed practice of psychology” because he dishes psychological advice in a newspaper setting without being licensed by the State of Kentucky.
Despite Rosemond having published more than a dozen books on parenting and having laid claim to the “longest-running” advice column in America (he began syndicating in 1978), a local psychologist took issue with one column and notified the Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology. As licensing boards are wont to do, they deemed Rosemond an unfair competitor and proceeded to go after him using the arm of the state.
Sassy Wire 
And that’s an issue of “free speech”…how, exactly?