Clipping blog |
| On the National Day of Blogger Silence, Stand Up for the First Amendment Posted: 08 Jun 2012 06:00 AM PDT
The National Bloggers’ Club, a non-profit organization devoted to protecting and promoting new media, signed on to help Walker get a good legal defense. That act of civic engagement, however, put the group’s President Ali A. Akbar squarely in Kimberlin’s sights. A photograph of his mother’s house and a lengthy post about Akbar and the NBC appeared on an anti-Andrew Breitbart site — a website about which Kimberlin to my knowledge claims no connection — and shortly after that he received a threat of legal action from a lawyer who claimed to represent Kimberlin’s Justice Through Music Project. One might question the timing. So that was the good news, then the bad news. The second helping of good news? The American Center for Law and Justice has stepped in to represent Walker in his appeal of what I believe are bogus charges against him. The ACLJ is one of the true heavy hitters on First Amendment issues. It is a mortal lock that if some judge like C.J. Vaughey tries to pull his “Hey, let’s get this thing wrapped up in ten and to hell with the Supreme Court” routine, the ACLJ will have him for lunch. Also, today, the story reached Congress. Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX) have asked for the Attorney General to investigate the SWATting cases. Given the predelictions of our current Attorney General, it’s not likely their requests will be taken seriously, but they’re out there and where there are two, there can be many more. That is the story, at least the broad strokes of it at any rate, to date. I understand if it seems confusing. It’s sometimes confusing to me. It’s not necessarily important, though, that you know all the details. Here is what is important. The goal of Kimberlin and those who act like him is simple. They want you to be afraid, so afraid that you will not speak out freely and boldly in the public arena. Their message, so plain any reasonable person can see it is this: if you disagree with us in any way in public, we will make a spectacle of you. Kimberlin and his ilk have assaulted the First Amendment in a way we have not seen in this country in a very long time. They want our silence and, today, that is what they will get. Ace has called for a National Day of Blogger Silence in which I will participate. This will be the only post I write at The Sundries Shack today (my co-bloggers might have posts of their own later). I won’t post to my Twitter feed either, except to send the link to this post. Now it is time for our elected officials to act. Their core mission is to uphold the Constitution of the United States. The most fundamental freedom, so important that it is spelled out specifically and first among all the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, is the Freedom of Speech. Our Founders knew it was essential that the citizenry be free to speak as they pleased, especially about matters of politics. To speak far more crassly, there are quite a few Republicans on the Hill today who owe us in new media for stumping for them, promoting money-bombs, introducing tens of thousands of people a month to them, and encouraging those people to vote for them through an entire election year. We spent a lot of time and effort working for them. It is time they spent a little time working for us. It is, after all, their job. I ask Congress now to guarantee our Freedom of Speech. My suggestion is a national anti-SLAPP law, modeled on the California state law outlined here by the law-blogger Popehat. That law would serve as the a basic minimum on which the states could build more stringent protections against abuse of our legal systems. No matter what they do, however, it is imperative they take this attack on the First Amendment seriously. Congress could bring in Mr. Volokh, Popehat, Kurt Schlichter, and James Skyles — experts on First Amendment law and SLAPP lawsuits — to help craft the law. Here’s where you can help. Find your members of Congress on this list and contact them (that is the most comprehensive list I can find. I know nothing of who put it together, however). Ask them to look into the stories of Aaron Walker, Patterico, Stacy McCain, Erick Erickson, and others. Ask them to learn about SWATting and the frivolous use of the legal system to squelch political speech. Then ask them to take decisive action to protect your First Amendment rights. Be polite — always be polite — but be insistent. Make it known that your support of their re-election effort could hinge on what they do about this important issue. If you are well-versed on the matter, offer to speak to your member of Congress or a very senior staffer to explain things to them in terms they can easily understand. Send them links to good blog posts (like the ones I linked here to Popehat’s blog or this one by Stacy McCain). Let them know that Senator Chambliss and Rep. Marchand have already spoken out. Give your best effort to get them on the issue, then asks your friends and family members to do the same. As individuals, we are easily intimidated and silenced. As a throng, a throng that demands our elected representatives represent us, we all remain free.  |
| Dianne Feinstein: Ein Senator. Eine Lawine. Ein Durcheinander. Posted: 07 Jun 2012 01:35 PM PDT I don’t expect members of Congress to be geniuses. As conceived by the Founders, Congress was intended to be composed of regular citizens, so that you’d get the normal range of smarts, experience, and savvy as you would if you scooped up any 535 people. However, since the federal government has taken so much power to itself — power to dictate to you decisions as mundane as what light bulbs you can use in your house and how your toilet flushes — I think we can safely say that those who sit in those exalted seats in Washington fancy themselves a cut or two above the rest of us. Thus, I don’t feel terrible at all when I point and laugh at Senator Dianne “Don’t Call Me Ma’am” Feinstein for her recent attempt to appear a lot smarter than she, apparently, is.
Anschluss? I don’t think that word means what the Senator thinks it means. Then again, I’m not a United States Senator, smart enough to tell the hoi polloi what health care they “need” and what type of car they should drive. For the Senator, and Wolf Blitzer, who apparently didn’t notice the word, Anschluss doesn’t have anything to do with avalanches. It has quite lot to do with Nazis and the annexation of Austria in 1938 through a rather suspect (to say the least) election process. In fact, one of the more well-known Nazi slogans, “Ein Volk – Ein Reich – Ein Führer“, was born to support Anschluss. The word itself means “unity”, which I suppose avalanches bring, if by unity you mean being a small part of a large pile of rocks at the bottom of a mountain. My guess, were I inclined to be more charitable to Senator Feinstein, is that her temper got the best of her rational mind and caused her to stumble over a word in a rush to get her ire out all at once. I admit I’m not so inclined, since the Senator felt the need to vote for a ridiculously-flawed Obamacare bill she barely understood. Such displays of arrogance should not earn any measure of slack from we who have to live under her skewed sense of morality. It is obvious she believes herself smarter and more wise than any of us, despite her misguided foray into German yesterday. There is a remedy, though. In November, Californians can replace Feinstein with Elizabeth Emken, a candidate who knows that you and your children are far better off when you are represented by a humble public servant who will guard your liberty fiercely. Besides, I’m pretty sure Ms. Emken known the difference between an avalanche and a German military power play. (Post title translated: One Senator. One Avalanche. One Mix-Up.)  |
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