Slashdot Mirror
Threatening YouTube Video Lands Man In Prison
wiredmikey writes "Norman LeBoon of Philadelphia was sentenced to 24 months in prison for his production and transmission of a YouTube video over the Internet last March containing a threat to injure and kill a United States Congressman. Following his arrest, LeBoon told federal agents that Eric Cantor is 'pure evil'; 'will be dead'; and that 'Cantor's family is suffering because of his father's wrath.'"
Threatening people is against the law. Film at eleven.
"Will be dead" is assault, a felony depending on who it's directed towards. This isn't news.
Considering death threats against democrats are headline news and against republicans they're embargo'd? What you said is far from true. Lexisnexis is over there, feel free to use it.
Om, nomnomnom...
LeBoon is obviously a disturbed individual. And Congressman Cantor's pure evilness can't be good, either.
His name is an anagram for: Loner Man Noob
just makeing a bomb threat will do the same thing and it may be a pound me in ass one.
As others have suggested, the difference is that unlike the GOP, the Democratic party doesn't encourage, endorse or suggest violence as a means of solving the political problems int he US. Or have you forgotten about that? The various incidents were pretty well covered by the media.
That's because he *is* trolling.
Here are two recent and telling examples of why the troll is wrong:
Exhibit A: Crazy person goes on a rampage and shoots a Democrat politician in the head, nearly killing her.
Media response: Multiple week long circus trying to blame Sarah Palin for the actions of a loon.
Police response: Local police Chief spends more time in front of the camera railing against the Tea Party than he does investigating the attack.
End result: Eventually the investigation is completed by the FBI. The crazy person was crazy and acted alone, uninfluenced by any mainstream political thought or either party. Media continues blame game against Palin unabated.
Exhibit B: After a week spent trashing the capital building in Madison, Leftist thugs send multiple death threats against Wisconsin GOP members and their families.
Media response: Nonexistent outside Fox and the con-alt-media.
Police response: 1 month later and they have ONE person in custody.
End Result: Still playing out.
These are only the most recent examples. I could come up with many more. The point is, in public life in general and in the media in particular, Dems are generally given a pass and let slide when it comes to misbehavior. But the same behavior done by a GOP member elicits WEEKS of scathing coverage with the clear and obvious intent of the absolute destruction of said GOP politician.
Not to say that ANY politician should be allowed to slide when they do wrong. They should be absolutely held accountable. But it would be nice, for a change, if we got the same anti-corruption zeal from the MSM when the bad guy or gal is a 'D' as we do when he or she is an 'R'.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
That's not a citation, that's your interpretation. Threatening a public official isn't automatically going to end with court proceedings, there is a legal threshold that must be met. It doesn't happen to occur to you that if Fox was the only one covering it that the threats might not have been credible?
Remember Fox and the con-alt-media are the ones that believe in this massive liberal conspiracy and that Fox went to court specifically to defend its right to make up stories. Fox itself isn't a source of news, and that's their official stance on the matter.
Neither the GOP nor the Democratic party encourage, endorse, or suggest political violence as a means of solving our problems. Some of both of their supporters do so, however, and it's mostly on the left. The far left espouses violence so much because that's generally the only way it can either gain or keep power. How ofter does a country vote in communism? Even more importantly, how ofter does a country vote out communism? The first thing a communist government does is make any other political or economic system illegal. The few that are left have mostly had to back off some on the economic front (both China and Viet Nam are de facto capitalist countries today, even if their governments are still communist).
Those who favor liberty do not favor political violence; even the American Revolution was a means of last resort, when everything else had failed. The left does not favor liberty, it favors control and conformance, and that makes it much more comfortable with political violence, because violence supports that goal and walks hand in hand with putting people in jail for "political crimes." There are no political crimes in free countries, but many in non-free countries. We have not yet seen the day when a person can be put in prison in the United States merely for saying that which is not politically correct, but there are many on the left who see such a thing as desirable, and who will work to bring it about.
This guy might have benefitted from a quip emblazoned on a plaque my grandpappy had on his wall:
Perhaps I'll send Norman the plaque to decorate his jail cell.
Mr. Non-Boolean
-kgj
"Threatening normal, everyday citizens? Police care less because their ticket quotas are more important."
WRONG.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
I, on the other hand, do. And that's because I have actual experience.
Communicating threats has never been taken more seriously than it is now.
I spent 30 months in prison for this crime. If someone believes your opinion
is an accurate representation of how law enforcement deals with this stuff, they
could find themselves in a world of shit.
Care to name the last time a Republican shot a Democrat? Please cite your source or admit that you're a troll.
1838
Actually he makes a very good point. 18 Wisconsin congressmen reported death threats after the collective bargaining bill was passed there recently. Yet, you actually do have to go looking to find anything about it on most nationwide news sites. That link above is from a daily newspaper in a small town in central Wisconsin. I'm surprised I wasn't able to at easily find a wire service story about the death threats, given the hysterical nature of the rest of the coverage of the issue.
considering that CNN did report that death threats have led to at least one set of charges, it's hard to imagine that Fox News was just making shit up about the threats, as you're trying to suggest.
Death threats against Democrats are given the "aw, shucks" treatment.
References, please. When did this happen? Who specifically said it was "aw, shucks" for a Democrat to receive death threats?
Because I remember the news media spending weeks chiding Republicans and Tea Party members for an "extreme tone", while the same news media was much less interested in actual death threats made against Republicans.
It was big news that Sarah Palin's campaign used marks to indicate cities on a map, and the news media endlessly discussed how serious it is that Sarah Palin used words like "target" and "reload" when talking about election plans. It wasn't news at all that Democrat ads have used bullseyes, or even put a crosshairs with reticle over a Republican. That crosshairs looks like a rifle scope to me.
I remember that it was big news when a Republican shouted "You lie!" at President Obama, but it was not big news when a Wisconsin Democrat shouted "You're f***king dead!" at a Wisconsin Republican. (Nobody thinks it was a sincere threat of murder, but it still seems like a poor example of the more civil "new tone" talked about in recent months.)
Are you telling me that the same news media that was all over the Republican "extreme tone" downplayed actual death threats against Democrats?
Citation needed.
Disclaimer: I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat; I am a minarchist libertarian. I am not a fan of extremist rhetoric on either side, I am not a fan of death threats, and I am not a fan of double standards.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Probably because there's a difference between removing a document (movie, etc) from public view and putting it on the public record as evidence.
Blank until
Kind of funny that Slashdot has fallen victim to the sickness of always letting you know up-front if someone being threatened or harmed in some way is a Democrat, but as with any of the media outlets seems to "accidentally" leave off mention when the potential victim is a Republican.
Also kind of funny you don't see Tea Party people being arrested for this kind of lunacy even though from reading Slashot you'd think that every last one of them were equally insane.
People here on Slashdot seem to equate the conservative body of thought in general with threats and stifling of thought, but repeatedly (as we see echoed in Wisconsin) you have to look to the edges of the left to see actual threats (or even actions) materialize.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why was there any need to send thisguy to 24 months in prison, instead he could have been sent to a center for treatment of excessive anger and temperament control. But the judiciary is a puppet of top corporates, do not be amazed if they start sending you to jail for posting comments like i have done just now .......
Riiight,and fascism is just another name for love and all white folks are in the Klan! I personally still got a nice scar on the back of my head thanks to a cop in MS, who said, and I quote "God damned niggers and fucking hippies, I don't know which I can't stand more". BTW that "God Damned nigger" I was riding with? He was a baptist minister, I was playing in his traveling tent revival on bass as a personal favor.
So allow me to say, from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself your fascist cock sucking racist assclown.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Several points:
-- Glenn Beck is not a "mainstream politician on the right". He's a guy who's payed to say provocative shit in the media to generate viewer numbers. Those ratings are turned into profits by the Fox News Channel through the magic of advertising. Much like Howard Stern's detractors listen to him for long stretches of time "just to hear what he's going to say next," Glenn Beck is in the same business.
-- He uses violent rhetoric because it's provocative: it's attention grabbing, it's sensationalist, and it gets people watching. This does not excuse it, in my opinion, but he is no more making "violent threats" than any of the examples below are *actually* threatening violence. Read on.
I would!
-- Rep. Mike Capuano, Democrat, my home state of Massachusetts. Remarking on the collective bargaining legislation in Wisconsin: "It's more than just sending an email that gets you going. Every once in a while, you gotta get out in the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."
-- Pres. Barack Obama, Democrat. Speaking to folks at a fundraiser: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun, because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
-- Pres. Barack Obama, Democrat. Talking about Republican prospects in the 2010 midterm elections"They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate. If they're successful in doing that, they've already said they're going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill."
-- Liberal talk show hosts like Beck are fewer & harder to find, but looking over various comments made by Randi Rhodes, Charles Bouley, Mike Malloy, and others... there are examples of violent rhetoric being used.
-- Famous recent example would be where a supporter of Pres. Obama's health care plan bit off part of a conservative protester's finger in an apparent fit of rage over their disagreement.
-- You could also check out the video embedded in this next link: in which a MoveOn supporter allegedly "chokes" a conservative protester. I'm inclined to believe there's not a lot of "choking" going on, but certainly there's still no need for him to be putting his hands around the other man's neck at a political protest, is there?
Look, it's easy to characterize violent rhetoric from liberals as "far, far left" activity, that's way out of the mainstream - nobody wants to believe that "their team" could be capable of the sorts of things that "those people" do, and so it's a natural reaction that you'd want to distance yourself from it. Much like conservatives will distance themselves from anybody who is *actually* preaching violence against liberals, and agree with you that it's the "whacko right nutjobs" who are talking like that.
The fact of the matter is that it's not just the whacko fringes using the rhetoric, on EITHER side. It's absolutely appropriate to be as disgusted with it from Republicans as it is to be disgusted with it from Democrats. Both of them should know how to behave better. But if you're really going to say that you don't mind if "your team" uses that kind of rhetoric, but you're going to object whenever the "other team" does, then you're just a hypocrite.
government shuts down, they still get paid. Nobody can afford health insurance, but they get theirs for free at US Taxpayer expense. Regular people get threatened all the time, nothing happens.