Glenn Greenwald had a post Friday titled Billionaire Romney donor uses threats to silence critics.
The post concerns Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who Greenwald alleges bullies political opponents by threatening frivolous defamation and copyright suits. I don’t know if VanderSloot is guilty as charged by Greenwald, but I suspect the story is not as simple as Greenwald makes it.
We are awash in bullying and threats, and let’s not pretend it is something unique or even more common coming from the right.
Greenwald himself engages in a form of political bullying by his use of and defense of the term “Israel-Firster,” a demeaning play on ages-old stereotypes of Jews being disloyal to their country. That perjorative, which almost always is brought up only with regard to Jewish supporters of Israel, is meant to squelch political speech by delegitimizing the motives of those who disagree.
The Koch brothers, who support libertarian and free market causes, have been the subject of an explicit campaign of intimidation from groups like Think Progress. The Koch brothers just released hundreds of e-mails they have received containing death threats and other threats.
Scott Walker, Sarah Palin and others on the Republican side of the aisle also are subject to threats on Twitter and elsewhere from the left.
Opponents of Prop. 8 in California organized boycotts of Mormon businesses. As did advertisers on the Glenn Beck show on Fox News, and a law firm hired to represent the House of Representatives with regard to DOMA.
Media Matters mapped out ways to use “lawfare” against opponents.
And so on, and so on.
We are awash in threats and intimidation and much of it comes from the left.
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Nice posting, William. I wrote about the radical left’s gay rights intimidation campaign yesterday. Lots of threats from these thugs, especially after Prop. 8: ‘The Inevitability of Gay Marriage?’
Opponents of Prop. 8 in California organized boycotts of Mormon businesses.
Since the Left compares the push for gay marriage to the civil rights battle against Jim Crow, it would be awkward for them to acknowledge that the major bloc which most strongly favored Prop 8 was the black vote.
Lashing back out like Breitbart did against Alec Baldwin is the only way to shut them up. OT–is any one else alarmed about the reports from Joe Miller in Alaska that our State Department has just “gifted” (via a treaty agreement) Russia with seven oil rich Alaskan Islands ? WTF???
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/02/report-obama-administration-is-giving-away-7-strategic-islands-to-russia/
Joe Miller is the guy whose antics, when brought to light despite his campaign’s efforts, so alienated Alaskan voters that they reelected RINO Senator Lisa Murkowski via write-in. In hindsight, thank goodness Murkowski ran (as an independent who caucuses with the GOP) after losing the primary to Miller or the seat might have flipped to the Democrats.
I’ll follow the Alaska story when or if it comes from a credible source.
What does Tina Fey have to say about this?
If this is true, it will be a helluva campaign issue. “Obama donates US territory to Russia.”
But yeah, if nasty Tina Fey’s believed comedic BS was right, then Obama gave Palin’s house to Russia.
Still bothers me that Palin was right on the Bush doctrine, and leering over the glasses Gibson was wrong … but they still derided Sarah. I don’t think Palin is ready for presidency … but what an incredible woman.
Don’t pick on Palin . Nobody in the whole USA is ready for the presidency.
You can put your pseudo Palin love back into the closet.
The threats aren’t always just verbal. We have friends whose pro-Proposition 8 yard sign was set on fire. The sign burned completely and left a burned spot on their lawn.
It’s more than a little odd how the people who love to claim that Republicans are fascists don’t seem to recognize that the only ones using fascist methods to advance their cause are the leftists. Well, the leftists and the islamists.
“We are awash in threats and intimidation…”
Except for some unfortunate ThoughtPolicing by our side, I think ALL of it comes from the Left.
My personal favorite is the Missouri (I think) AG who promises to prosecute people for untrue statements about Bad Luck Barry.
Greenwald == pure Alinsky.
Punch back. Twice as hard.
If Im not mistaken, I believe the ACLU more or less perfected the strategy of intimidation via lawsuit and that blueprint became expanded.
And no..I dont fault everything the ACLU has done or does but when folks start “cross shopping” in communities not bothered by religious expression and begin imposing their standards to make a point? Its mususe of law. Its rule by law.
Good topic.
This is what happens when the American people GO ROGUE. Gov. Sarah Palin is one of the bravest, determined and patriotic people this country has known. Her message is simple: free markets, small government and people making their own way. The gov’t is the one making things difficult for everyone. And it’s not just the left. The right is guilty too or this would have been fixed by now. All this wasteful spending, restrictions, taxation without representation. The American people need to do a reprisal of Patrick Henry and take our country back. The only way to do that is TO FIGHT FOR IT AND GO ROGUE!!
It may be too late. In his book, “Democracy in America”, Toqueville said so eloquently that, “the American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
We’ve actually lasted about 80 years longer than Toqueville suggested we would, but the politicians have perfected the art of bribing the public with its own money. They have now turned America into a far bigger socialist country than the USSR ever was.
If you look at the total dollar value of the annual social redistribution of income from the “makers” to the “takers” in America, that sum is greater than the annual GDP of all except the four largest economies in the universe. (There are about 50 such programs, but the ones we all know about are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment “insurance”, disability “insurance”, government subsidization of mortgages and student loans, corporate welfare and cronyism and tax subsidies for everything from ethanol to solar power, to high speed trains, etc., etc., etc.)
They’ve created — because our grandparents, parents and our generation kept electing them — a system where almost half the country is dependent on the productive output of somebody else. It is a system that discourages risk taking, entrepreneurism, and self reliance. It is utterly and thoroughly unsustainable. But the politicians refuse to deal with it and/or demagogue those that try.
I am becoming less confident that we can change the system at the ballot box. It’s a disgrace that we have one major political party and a national media that refuses to hammer home how dangerous the trajectory is and who demonize the few people in the other major political party that IS trying to educate the public to change things while we still have time.
The main reason Leftist bullying (just incipient fascism) has proliferated and flourished is conservative/Republican/Right failure to identify it and stand up to it. It’s the old axiom of appeasement. The sweeping cultural capitulations of the GOP (and others who may not have a political stake in the game but who are collaterally implicated in the bullying) — in the name of peace, comity and “getting along” — have only fortified the attackers and slanderers. What happens more often is that the Right or those on the Right make an initial but feeble and non-specific rebuttal or defense, the Left doubles down, and then the Right folds. This inabilty or refusal to call out the Left with specific and historical citations and GO TO THE MAT with equal intensity and tenacity has been disastrous. It has been akin to a failure to complete an antibiotic cycle against bacteria. The bacteria rebounds, and then adapts and becomes stronger. If you’re not willing to raise the stakes and press your argument, why are even calling yourself a conservative?
An interesting case study-in-progress will be how Santorum follows up his loaded but stupidly inadequate attack on Obama’s misguided “theology.” Will he be forced into a “clarifying” semi-apology? Or will he double down and explain exactly what he meant and what this “theology” is? And why on earth didn’t he explain this at the beginning, i.e., talk about the virtual religious fundamentalism of Leftism?
VanderSloot?! Wasn’t that also the surname of the man-child who allegedly murdered Natalee Holloway? There musty be a lack of character in the genealogy.
When I was a kid we beat up bullies, it worked like a charm and the best part was you only had to do it to ’em once:)
McCarthy … excuse me, … I mean Greenwald … should prioritize threats. The domestic threats he imagines and blows up out of all proportion in his mind are still harmless if journalistic superheros fail to defeat them, but Iran’s sincere and serious threat to actually blow up populations, if carried out, would not only kill hundreds of thousands or millions of innocents, it would render the subject matter of Greenwald columns irrelevant and unreadable with a half-life of decades.
Meanwhile, I have to live with the threats of the red-paint brigade who jealously detest my mink and fox ensemble. They can throw their paint, they can splatter, they can spray, but …
Nothing comes between me and my mink.
Greenwald is a liar. Seriously, defamation suits? We do not live in England where there is a cottage industry over such crap. Call me very skeptical on anything Greenwald says…
The threat of suits can have a chilling effect here, but it’s far from one-sided. And sometimes the threat of suit is a reaction to the type of demonization which takes place every day as a political tactic.
I felt sorry for Sarah Palin this time. She really did want to run for President and I think she had to pull back because of the constant threats against her and her family.
I believe her reluctance to openly endorse Newt is because she will not be able to go out and campaign with him. So, this is why Todd is helping out. Of course, I don’t know this for a fact, but I feel like this is probably true. She had a lot of security at CPAC, which should tell us all how mean and lethal the left really is.
Todd started The iron Dog yesterday . He has sent Newt his former guernsey with his sponsor boldly displayed.
It reads STUD BOY .