Stop me if you've heard this before, but sentient-paint-can-turned-presidential-candidate Donald Trump is having another very public meltdown over bad press. Just hours after the New York Times published the nominee's long sought-after state tax returns, Trump started bandying about his trademark inane retorts, both on the campaign trail and (where else?) on Twitter:

This isn't the first time Trump and his people have shrieked incoherently about facts reported by the LIBRUL LAMESTREAM MEDIA. The Republican nominee previously suggested that he'd like to "open up the libel laws" to sue the press over negative coverage. He has also wondered aloud about suing the Times for something called "irresponsible intent," which is not a legal term and exists only, I suppose, in Donald Trump's brain:

Again, stop me if you've heard this before, but even with the recent success enjoyed by evil rich people who sue media outlets, Donald Trump is blowing hot air here. Libel—as your one cousin who just started law school will eagerly, annoyingly explain—is a published false statement that damages the target's reputation. But it's really, really hard for a public figure—like, say, a major-party presidential candidate—to prove libel, because he or she has to show not only that the story is false, but also the publication knew it was false all along and hit "publish" anyway. As you would expect with a story like this, the Times went to great lengths to check out the anonymously-mailed documents, eventually verifying them with the same tax preparer who signed them. Which covers them against a libel case on that whole "needs to be false" factor: the guy who did the taxes says they're legit.

Although Trump's lawyers quickly released a nonsense bit of legalese threatening to explore "prompt initiation of appropriate legal action," he doesn't fare any better outside of libel law. As the eagle-eyed Mark Joseph Stern of Slate pointed out, there are no laws that prohibit disclosure of the state tax returns at issue. Even if there were, in order to prove the case, Trump would have to admit that the returns are his! At that point, the best case scenario for a Trump lawsuit would be a pyrrhic victory.

Donald Trump, an alleged billionaire who argues with a straight face that he cares about average Americans and contends that he is the world's greatest businessman, is probably unhappy that the public now knows that his tax returns list close to one billion dollars in losses in a single year. Luckily, the law does protect his right to rant as much as he wants on Twitter.