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Online Call To Shoot President Ruled Free Speech
Hugh Pickens writes "USA Today reports that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the conviction of a man who threatened to shoot President Obama, saying his Internet message board comments amounted to free speech and ruled that prosecutors 'failed to present sufficient evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt' that the man 'had the subjective intent to threaten a presidential candidate.' Walter Bagdasarian was found guilty two years ago of making threats against the presidential candidate in comments he posted on a Yahoo.com financial website after 1 am on Oct. 22, 2008, as Obama's impending victory in the race for the White House was becoming apparent. Bagdasarian told investigators he was drunk at the time. The observation that Obama 'will have a 50 cal in the head soon' and a call to 'shoot the [racist slur]' weren't violations of the law under which Bagdasarian was convicted because the statute doesn't criminalize 'predictions or exhortations to others to injure or kill the president,' said the majority opinion, written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEQOvyGbBtY
All I can say is "You did the right thing, judge(s)!".
If the US lauds itself as the freest (did I spell that right?) country of the world, as its founding fathers imagined, then it should be all right to say " Obama 'will have a 50 cal in the head soon'". In my books, such a line only amounts to a threat if there's a reasonable possibility of its execution.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Fox News would be going on 24/7 about liberal violence. But when it's directed at a black Democrat, then both sides need to tone it down.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Everything seems to empower the Tea Party. Every court ruling, every law passed, even after the US government defaults this would also benefit the Tea Party.
When are we going to accept that the Tea Party is a domestic terrorist group that fantasizes about having another civil war?
Their policies are straight from the old south. The for profit prisons, which mean prisons are now the new plantations where corporations can have the cheapest possible labor force. These corporations also write our laws. Check out ALEC exposed to see the whole plan.
After the US defaults the Tea Party is planning to blame Obama. Now they have the legal justification to threaten Obama's life in their attempts to overthrow him. It seems like a disaster waiting to happen with the looming default, and coming economic crisis as the trigger point.
He didn't kill anybody, but he's in prison for life because people believe he gave the command.
When someone says a sentence like that how do we know it isn't a command coming from a militia leader? Remember Hal Turner?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Buddhi
Of course he's still going to be on every single government watch list for the rest of his life. And if he ever does anything you can bet they will throw the book at him.
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Who actually says "Shoot the racist slur"? What a lame racist. A real racist would have called him a nigger. Nigger. Its ok to write it, its just a word. It is especially ok to write it, when quoting someone else who said it.
I mean do we really need to edit what a racist said to make it more genetic and palatable? I mean seriously.... of all the things to PC up....
I am sure he isn't embarrassed to be known as the guy who called Obama a nigger.. if thats even what he said...since he obviously wasn't quoted correctly.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Contrary to popular belief, it is not always illegal to scream "FIRE" in a theater.
Consider the following:
I wouldn't say that. What the Tea Party is: a successful re-branding of the Republican Party. There is no "Tea Party." It's the Republican Party.We've allowed the Republican party to effectively change its name after being poisoned by the Bush years, without asking any questions of any kind about its democratic legitimacy (such as whether or not it is actually grassroots and not a magnificent example of astroturfing). It allows Fox News to continue to create the illusion that the Republican Party is a sufficient vehicle to channel the democratic impulses of the right-wing working class, and to keep people with actual libertarian or conservative impulses inside the Republican tent. In fact, the Republican Party is just as corporate as ever, and has no intent on working to shore up its relationship with the working-class in actual policy measures.
the House Un-American Activities Committee was originally started by self-styled liberals to root out 'fascists' from the american political scene after the business plot.
that kind of backfired, because after WWII, the HUAC was still around, but it started going after Communists and Liberals, with a vengeance. Some times if you read old conservative writings, you will find them bitter and angry about the 'unfairness' of HUAC in the 30s, i can only too easily imagine some 'payback' going on in the 50s.
when you start warping and bending the laws in order to attack political opponents, you should not be surprised when it comes back to haunt you.
> The observation that Obama 'will have a 50 cal in the head soon' and a call to 'shoot the [racist slur]' weren't violations of the law [...]
That sentence alone implies that in the U.S. death threats are protected free speech, but you can't use the word "nigger". I love it.
they were prosecuted for Espionage.
and Drake in particular felt his Oath to protect and defend the constitution (he was in the Air Force) was more important than any agreement between him and the NSA to not give out information.
besides, the information he gave out was not classified.
This is completely wrong. The Republican Party is terrified of the Tea Party, which has repudiated Republicans such as John Boehner and Lindsey Graham. In fact, the Tea Party has threatened Republicans who have tried to make a deal with President Obama over raising the debt limit. Furthermore, the extreme positions of the Tea Party has undermined Republican efforts to reach out to the mainstream and independent voters. TP Michelle Bauchmann claiming that slavery was good for black families is not what the Republican Party needs at this juncture. There is probably nothing more the Republicans want at this point than to be separated from the Tea Party.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
even after the US government defaults this would also benefit the Tea Party.
Actually, it wouldn't. The problem with the Tea Party is that they're all morons. It's a party of angry, stupid, middle-age white people who don't know anything about running a country. Defaulting on our national debt would be a disaster that hurts the poor and middle class the most, and hence will hurt the Tea Party the most. They just don't realize it.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Yes where in the FARK did you come from. Corporate prisons are not unionized, that would make it too expensive and would hurt their bottom line. Example of TeaBagger benefitting from corporate prisons: Russell Pearce and Jan Brewer of Arizona. Arizona SB1070 was written by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), both of whom gave very large donations to both Pearce and Brewer. (http://blog.lawinfo.com/2010/10/29/private-prisons-helped-draft-arizonas-sb-1070/) Please provide even the most minimal documentation to show where an organized group of liberals spit on republican senators/representatives as they walked to their offices. Please provide even minimal documentation to show where an organized group of liberals said in a stump speech that a republican senator should be hung (Republican/TeaParty member Dino Rossi). Please provide even minimal documentation to show where a group of liberals jumped up a cheered when a candidate said " “America’s greatest threat is Marxism and International Jewry/Zionism! We will never regain our Liberty and Freedom until we expel every Jew from America!” This was a statement on Sarah Palin’s web page by a Tea Party member and Sarah Palin supporter. Please show a case where a liberal carried a sign outside the Republican White House that said "The American Tax Payer are the Jews of Obama's ovens". If you were soooo woorriieedd about Washington spending our children's inheritance where in the h*ll were you when the Bush tax cuts tripled the US deficit by cutting taxes for the very rich. Where were you when Bush gave the top fifth of income earners 65% of the tax cut and 33% of tax cuts to those in the top 1% resulting in an increase 3.9 trillion dollars in deficit from 2001 to 2008. Where were you and your teabagger friends then? Where were you and your teabagger friends when Bush shredded our constitutional rights? You signature indicates your lack of intelligence. I rarely see a winner, particularly a neocon, indicating that they worked hard to meet a goal, they just run around chanting how they are "the champions of the world" I see the losers congratulating their opponent for a hard won victory. The only people being led around like cows in a field are the teabaggers who are bought and paid for by FreedomWorks (Dick Armey) and Americans for Prosperity which are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Koch Bros.
There was never any doubt that saying that was perfectly legal.
This case dealt with the special situation of threats made against the President which is covered by additional law.
Of course, the 9th circuit can be a bit odd at times. It gets overturned on appeal more often than most circuits.
Corporatism? The Tea Party is the leading proponent of corporatism at this time. They're the ones that are fighting the hardest for tax breaks for corporate entities and spending cuts for services that individuals use.
Remember the Tea Party is basically just the extremist wing of the Republican party mixed liberally with those too naive to know what they're in with.
If the USA can't get enough money to run you are all well and truly fucked - and if it means raising taxes to stop that then it's a hell of a lot better than the alternative which the USSR demonstrated when it fell apart. A lot of people need to wake up and understand that the 1950s are over and were never as good as remembered anyway.
Let them try. Everyone knows that it's the Republicans and Tea Party who coupled the debt ceiling issue to the deficit issue, and they're the ones who refused to raise the debt ceiling limit to begin with. Sure, the negotiations on the issue(s) might sour you on Obama if you're opposed to tax increases for the "job creators", but in that case you're probably already against him to begin with. Even with some Republicans supporting the idea of decoupling the debt ceiling and deficit it's largely right wingers blocking those efforts. If they think they're going to fool the majority of America into blaming this on the President then the only ones they're fooling are themselves.
TP Michelle Bauchmann claiming that slavery was good for black families is not what the Republican Party needs at this juncture.
What she said was tactless and foolish, but she didnt say what youre claiming she did.
In fact, she didnt actually say it at all, it was a pledge she signed, and the controversial language was
Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President
Which is to say, it was lamenting the state of family values, and trying to emphasize its point with hyperbole.
It would be much the same as if someone had said
Even under Hitler, people had more speech rights
A rational interpretation of that statement will not read an endorsement of the Nazi regime into it, but rather a gross and insensitive use of hyperbole to emphasize how bad you think things are NOW.
Although I suppose if the goal is to demonize your political opposition, it sure is convenient to simply call it racist, and to make the claim that republicans are hankering for the days of slavery again; and a fig to any reasonable attempt to use context and language skills.
Ah, you've never heard of the little game called "Good cop, bad cop"? This is just a variant.
D: We want X
R: You know, I'd like to give you X, but those scary bastards over there (T obligingly growls menacingly and froths at the mouth), they'd tear me apart if I gave it to you. They really want -20X, but I think we can satisfy them with -X/2.
It is probably very hard for the American public to understand the necessities of racial hatred and murder incitations speech laws. The root of such laws in Europe do not come from royalty slander, as some have postulated here. It comes from the shock of what happened during WW2. In most of Europe, then legal racial hatred speech have driven perfectly normal and decent people to act as monsters, inhuman, immoral mass behavior from the average Joe. That, was the definite proof that if you let some ideas prosper, some horrible things happen as a result. Call for murder of a human being should be illegal, being the president or not. Call for bullying trough violence elected bodies should also be illegal, as this is a shortcut for particular interests to force their political agenda against the will of the majority. If so many of your presidents got shot dead, it is also because so many speeches inviting to killing are aired, making it "ok" to kill. Finally, you do not need the freedom to call publicly for murder to excerpt control on your government. You can still call for a new constitutional assembly, which is exactly what you are talking about, and is free speech, even if you do not have the right to call for murder.
Where is this left wing press you believe exists?
I remember when the Blagojevich scandal started, and MSNBC quoted some of Blagojevich's people saying that the whole Obama election team was a bunch of boy scouts who wouldn't bend the rules an inch, and their commentator said it sounded like Obama was involved in Chicago politics as usual, and the Times Headline did the same quotes and yet read "Obama has some explaining to do." I'm sorry, but when the perp says you were Mr. clean cut, rah-rah go Team Apple Pie is when you DON'T have any explaining to do. It's when your NOT playing by Chicago rules. Do you count MSNBC or the NYT as parts of that left wing? Go look at the headlines the supposedly left wing parts of the press floated for Obama's involvement in that story, and then ask yourself if they were really trying to drive the country towards the left? Or were they just slinging mud and seeing how the public took it?
Or look at the US coverage of the tragedy in Norway. How many US papers and TV news outlets have mentioned that the youth camp shot up was for the Norwegian Labor Party (their center left, and the party currently holding the most power), and the scumbag that did it was entirely politically motivated, by his own accounts. If the media was largely left leaning, don't you think this would be played (quite fairly) as a conservative deciding specifically to kill liberal babies? Instead the political side has gone largely unmentioned, and completely omitted on some major channels. MSNBC has some mention of it 12 paragraphs down in their latest update as I write this. USA today has been careful to just call it an island youth retreat. Right now, the west has had over a dozen cases of Right Wing nuts killing people they saw as Left, since Bush 43 left office, and that 'left wing press' seems strangely reluctant to point out that, in terms of killing children, left and right don't seem to have the same scores. Your 'left wing press' seems to ignore that fact, or at best say "Oooh! there's terrorists on the left too - they burned a car lot full of SUVs, that's equally bad. There, we've reported it balanced.".
Who is John Cabal?
Didn't they arrest people who criticized Bush, outside of free-speech zones?
I'd like to agree, but in the US, it is usually the progressives that get killed by the hicks who want to live in the 15th century.
Still, I think "free speech" means FREE SPEECH. Any limits on speech means it is no longer free speech; any "consequences" are limits. The US has no right to claim it is free, in any way, if it is legally limiting what anyone can say.
Great Intellect...