When the White House approved my press credential request many of you expected me to personally cover President Donald Trump’s recent Northeastern Pennsylvania appearance at the Mt. Airy Casino Resort.

Sorry to disappoint you.

I never intended to subject myself to such a tawdry spectacle. I can get into a neo-nutsy Klan meeting without press credentials. Mt. Airy casino with its sordid Denapled criminal history is bad enough. But the sleazy Pocono-no-no gambling den featuring Trump as the jackpot is worse.

Then why apply for press credentials?

Principle, that’s why.

A Trump public appearance isn’t some black-tie RSVP event at Mar-a-Lago exclusively roped off for establishment members of the press. Upholding my personal outlaw journalism ethics requires sometimes violating societal and cultural norms and breaking status quo rules on my own terms. Government hacks deciding who does and does not get to cover a presidential event reeks of censorship and authoritarian control. Every legitimate working journalist who applies should get approved. Judging from my decades-long resume, like me or not, I’m as experienced and authentic as the news business gets.

Unfortunately few one-percenter outlaw journalists remain in America. Even when local and national reporters and columnists get press credentials these mostly ass-kissing clerks of fact write political stories the way toady stenographers take down lunch orders from elite bosses. Even the so-called alternative press fears the power structure and timidly backs off instead of forging ahead like they own the joint.

Outlaws own the joint.

I own the joint.

I earned and deserved that press credential. I cover whom I choose when I choose and where I choose with or without permission. My press pass is like the dark Buddha tattoo I wear on my left shoulder. My First Amendment guaranteed free speech is indelible. I yell “fire” in a crowded theater when I see a fire.

Trump and every other living former president can shove it up their Oval Office. Nobody’s cultish White House staff or snooty presidential campaign advisors should be able to hold press freedom over any journalist’s head the way then Vice President Kamala Harris’s handlers once kept me out of one of her NEPA appearances because they limited press coverage to members of the national traveling pool. Trump’s Pentagon now threatens New York Times reporters with a loyalty oath or risk having press credentials revoked or not approved. In response Times management is currently suing the highest reaches of government.

I don’t have anywhere near the Times’ power.

But I sure can hold a grudge.

Outlaw journalists don’t forgive or forget. When Trump first ran for president 10 years ago he blew me off when I approached him with a face-to-face question after a breakfast appearance in a New Hampshire hotel.

I shot from the lip.

“The room wasn’t secure,” I told Trump. “Nobody was wanded. Nobody was searched. Nobody was patted down.”

Trump glared at me.

“Who are you with?” he snapped. “Who are you with?”

I named the radio station where I worked and glared back.

As he lumbered red-faced and fuming for the door I went after him.

“How do you expect to secure the border when you couldn’t even secure the breakfast nook?” I shouted at Trump as he disappeared into a big black SUV. “How do you secure the border when you can’t secure the scrambled eggs?”

I captured the exchange on my phone’s video. But what if my Droid had been a Glock or a cheap Wednesday morning special?  How would America have handled another of our terrible land-of-the-free scenes of carnage from which grief and chaos come alive when gunfire explodes and people die?

Years later Trump got nicked by a bullet that killed a man and wounded two others in Butler, Pennsylvania. Had Trump, the Secret Service and a former Times Leader editor who berated me for writing how easy it would have been to attack Trump listened to me, the Butler assassination attempt might have never occurred.

This week, instead of Trump snubbing me, I snubbed him. I’m not obsessed with getting even, but we all should stand on principle. Other dedicated members of the press should follow my lead. Call out Trump on Air Force One when he spits his ruthless brand of raw sexism. Be aggressive, rude and persistent.

Be an outlaw.

Ride the edge.