The Brett Kimberlin Saga:

Follow this link to my BLOCKBUSTER STORY of how Brett Kimberlin, a convicted terrorist and perjurer, attempted to frame me for a crime, and then got me arrested for blogging when I exposed that misconduct to the world. That sounds like an incredible claim, but I provide primary documents and video evidence proving that he did this. And if you are moved by this story to provide a little help to myself and other victims of Mr. Kimberlin’s intimidation, such as Robert Stacy McCain, you can donate at the PayPal buttons on the right. And I thank everyone who has done so, and will do so.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Grubergate Proves that Citizens United Was Correctly Decided

So in 2010 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of free speech in Citizens United v. FEC.  You can read that decision, here, and my early blog post praising the decision is here.  That old post really has stood the test of time.

One of the arguments made by the dissent went as follows: sure, some corporations had free speech rights: the news corporations!  But, according to the dissent no one else had this right.  They based it on an interpretation of the free press clause where, to them, in that sentence “press” referred to “the institutional press.”

As I pointed out at the time, that was a ridiculously constrained reading of that clause.  Freedom of the press was freedom of expression in the written word.  That’s all.  It protected the New York Times, but it also protected the crank pamphleteer on the street corner.  Any other reading would have the court declare that Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was not protected expression, an outcome the founders obviously never intended.

I would add that such a ruling would also allow the government to regulate many other forms of corporate speech.  Is the Daily Show considered part of the institutional press?  If you were John Stewart, would you want to take the gamble that the courts would say it was?  And certainly there are other comedians besides Stewart who 1) engage in corporate speech, and 2) talk about politics, without seeming to count as the “institutional press.”  One obvious example is Dennis Miller, who recently made a comedy special called “Dennis Miller: America 180.”  I watched it, and basically it was Dennis doing pretty much what you expect from him, standard stand up material mixed with jokes about the news, the only difference being how conservative he had become compared to past years.  Would this be considered protected speech if only the institutional press is protected by the free press clause.  Could a corporation, in this case Epix, be allowed to pay him to engage in that speech if the dissenters won in Citizens United?  If the only corporations that can express themselves freely are the institutional press, and only the institutional press, it is hard to see how Mr. Miller’s speech would be protected, in such a regime.  Or Bill Maher’s HBO show.  Or the ladies on The View...  You get the idea.

Indeed, it is worse than that.  The courts have long held that freedom of expression carried with it the right to be free from compelled expression (with only narrow exceptions I discussed here).  That is, just as the government cannot censor you, it cannot force you to say things you don't want to.  As Justice Jackson wrote in W. Va. Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette (1943):

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

And yet, if Citizens United went the other way, corporations could then be commandeered by the majority party to promote their candidates and their policies.  With the exception of the institutional press, every corporation could be forced to promote, say, the election of Ted Cruz to the White House in 2016, or be required to post the most blatant Democratic propaganda.  In Barnette, a school child was told by the Supreme Court that he was not required to salute the American flag in a way disturbingly reminiscent of the Nazi salute (in the midst of World War II, no less).  But an opposite ruling in Citizens United might have allowed the government to make corporations salute whatever they wanted.

But implicit in the “institutional press” exception is that we can count on the institutional press to bring to light every newsworthy story—that in suppressing and potentially eliminating the speech of non-press corporations it’s not like we are going to miss out on any stories, right?

Except you can’t depend on that, really.  And #Grubergate is a perfect example of this.  First, it is newsworthy.  Here is Jake Tapper explaining why it is a big deal:


And here is a “supercut” video showing just how damning the evidence is so far:


How could anyone say it was not news?  Still, many of the speeches involved were old news.  Gruber gave these speeches often more than a year ago, and yet no one reported on it until just recently.  We just finished the entire election season without any of those videos going before the public at large.  We are only hearing about it now.  How many more House and Senate seats might the Republicans have gained if the video had come out sooner?

And even now we see that ABC News and NBC have been boycotting the story.  And do I have to tell you that MSNBC is boycotting it, too?  It would be bigger news if they were covering it.

You cannot depend on the “neutral” press (ha!) to cover what is newsworthy.  You simply can’t.

There is a new term that has crept into the left of late: “White Privilege.”  It is basically the flip side of discrimination.  If this was 1953, you could say that racial discrimination typically sent black people to the crummiest schools, or you could say that “White Privilege” enabled the white kids to go to better schools.  In theory, it is just a way to talk about racism, and since racism exists, the idea is not inherently offensive to me.

My beef with it is it actually tends in practice to exaggerate differences.  Many white people imagine the lives of non-whites to be this complete nightmare.  For instance:




Meanwhile, in the proclamations of White Privilege by non-whites often sounds like as if they imagine the old “Mr. White” skit on SNL was a documentary:


The humor from that skit came from how Eddie Murphy displayed the anxiety that surely some black people feel, wondering how life might be different when they are not around--Murphy knowing that his skit was simply ridiculous.  But some these people seem to think it is the literal truth.  For instance:



(You know, because no black people dressed as Ray Rice for Halloween.  And how is that related to discrimination, and how is the costume racist?)

And it is also a forum for self-defeating beliefs:


No, the cops don’t just shoot black people for open carrying a gun.  Give me a break.

So the idea of talking about White Privilege doesn’t offend me, but the execution comes off as...  well... racist.

But there is nothing I enjoy more than a good turnabout, so let me point out that for my fellow conservatives, it might be time to talk about a new concept: “Democrat Privilege.”  Rather than talk about the liberal bias in the media, talk about how figures enjoy “Democratic Privilege.”  Even use the hashtag: #DemocratPrivilege.  And the Gruber story is a prime example of it.  What allows the chief architect of a law to go around telling people he lied to stupid americans to sell it, without being covered by ABC, NBC News or MSNBC?  Democratic Privilege.  What Republican, for instance, could drive his car off a bridge, leave a young woman in the car as he escapes, not lift a finger to save her, and not even call the police when he had the opportunity, and still have a political career after that?  And yet, Ted Kennedy not only got away with it, but actually had a Huffington Post author imagine the ghost of Mary Jo Kopechne saying her death was worth it, because it helped Kennedy, somehow.  By comparison Mitt Romney was excoriated for leaving a dog on the roof of his car, while the same media didn’t care that Obama ate a dog.  It’s all Democratic Privilege.  And used non-obnoxiously, it could be used as a fun way to reframe the debate over media bias.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist (and adjudicated pedophile) Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the donation link on the right.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.


And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.
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