Legal memorandum? (4.00 / 4)

Matt,

I'm a lawyer and would be interested in seeing the "legal memorandum" noted in the letter.  Is it possible for you to post it, so that it can be analyzed?

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by: ThomasPaine @ Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 22:34:35 PM UTC

Here! Here! (4.00 / 3)

Given how bogus the charges of voter fraud are, I want to see what kind of crapola hand these guys are holding.

Five gets you ten, they couldn't beat a pair of deuces.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 22:46:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

More right wing paranoia stroking (4.00 / 2)

The big bad lefties are going to ruin your life for supporting the right view!

Give now or they might get you!

Nothing new, but worrying. The Right never seems to notice that it's always been the Left who go to jail. I mean, after all, if McVeigh had been a communist, do any of you seriously think that his sister or that other jerk wad involved would have been let go free after either no time or a few years in jail? Say, like they let Ethel Rosenberg walk?

This is a sign of REAL desperation. The 527 stuff ain't working. This is the next level. Scare the nut base into doing something. The problem is, what they may do.

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by: Silence Doesnogood @ Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 22:41:01 PM UTC

Oh Yes (4.00 / 1)

I remember this asshole trying to cripple the state government here in Oregon with his TABOR bullshit back in 2006.  Thankfully, it went down in flames.  

Guy's a real scumbag.

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by: Joel Caris @ Sun Oct 12, 2008 at 22:53:13 PM UTC

Public vs. Private (0.00 / 0)

Beyond the obvious legal questions, here, I'm reminded of a criteria in community organizing for what is legitimate to "target".  How much is

"digging through the lives" of these individuals

legitimate political activity?  And what counts as their "private" vs. "public" lives.

It is a classic strategy of powerful people to try to make public relationships private.  For example, a bank president calling up a community organizer and asking after her family, inviting her for dinner, and trying to be a "good guy" who shouldn't have his life ruined.  

Organizers often try to make activities that powerful people keep private, public.  For example, walking around the neighborhood of a slumlord handing out pictures of the slumlord's horrific properties to her neighbors.  (Quite effective).

A key question is whether a particular activity is legitimately private or public.  Is a donation to a specific organization a "public" activity?  Given that it is publicly reported, it seems to me to be.  And certainly the right wing tries to tie people to donations.  

But it is interesting how Rich uses just this language of "public and private" to make a moral distinction about what it is legitimate to attack.  And is is clearly a moral argument he is making to defend his own efforts to "attack" others.  

I can tell you from first hand experience that it is not fun. . . . And, I have paid the price for it in attacks, slurs and threats.

"Public exposure" is one of the key actions he is most incensed about.  Classic.  

This tension about what "counts" as public or private is a central issue in our political world.  The right wing knows this.  So do organizers.

--Aaron Schutz (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing)

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by: educationaction @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 00:16:31 AM UTC

I've seen the legal memo (4.00 / 2)

It's nothing to worry about.  I can put it up tomorrow, but later in the day, if Matt doesn't get to it first.  It's all of two pages and doesn't say anything.

The appropriate response to anyone receiving this letter is, "Do your worst."

Or less politely, "Go fuck yourself."

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by: Reece @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 00:24:03 AM UTC

That's basically what I assumed (0.00 / 0)

But it would still be nice to see, ourselves, just how insubstantial the memo is.  Thanks.

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by: ThomasPaine @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 00:44:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yeah! (0.00 / 0)

Personally, I want to publicly mock it. And since I'm not a wingnut, I have to actually see and understand what I'm mocking.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 01:41:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

appropriate response (4.00 / 1)

I think the appropriate response is to call the police, your representatives in Congress, and your local newspaper.

The truth about Saxby Chambliss

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by: nstrauss @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 01:25:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Here's the memo (0.00 / 0)

It's actually available here:

http://www.accountableamerica....

via Politico.

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by: Reece @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 02:33:00 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Boy, THAT Was Disappointing! (0.00 / 0)

The letter makes it sound like people should really be afraid.  The memo basically tells people they shouldn't break the law.

Didn't your mommy tell you that when you were like, 4 years old?

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 02:41:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yup (0.00 / 0)

If you break the law, there might be penalties.  Whoopitdee doo!

Of course, with the letterhead, we all now know the names of their counsel.  

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by: Reece @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 03:23:13 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'll say (0.00 / 0)

That was one of the most boring, inconsequential memos I've read.

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by: ThomasPaine @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 12:16:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

is this a permissible use (4.00 / 1)

of FEC data? I'm no expert on this, but I don't know if this falls under the acceptable use of their data, especially since his threats of "publicizing"  seems to be a potential commercial enterprise.

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by: hoosierleft @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 00:55:06 AM UTC

That's a very good point (4.00 / 1)

Is this guy getting his lists of donors from the FEC? Seems to be that there might be a lawsuit there.

Desperation is a terrible thing. We've all seen the statement ACORN released, maintaining that they notified the authorities of these problems themselves.

Now that everyone has access to technology it's going to be much harder to avoid a cell phone camera record of citizens being denied the right to vote. It has to have the GOP scared to death, especially when you consider that this follows the raid on the ACORN offices in Nevada. They're either going to get much more sophisticated or they're going to get caught this time.

I guess this is their idea of sophistication.

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by: Silence Doesnogood @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 01:31:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The Memo (0.00 / 0)

Here's the memo:

http://www.accountableamerica....

I had it in my work email which I can't seem to access this weekend.  But I just googled it and found it on this article from Politico:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/...

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by: Reece @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 02:41:01 AM UTC

If Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy lived in the Cyber Era (0.00 / 0)

Threats, rumors and lies. Add the exponential effect of the 'Net and normally sane people seem to lose their ability to reason (not forgetting that half the population is below average IQ of 90-110).

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from an old friend, who forwarded to me and a few dozen of her closest friends (we haven't seen each other in many years). It urged me to view a 10-minute "video" from a site called AmericanThinker: "This should be seen by all voters, especially those Obama supporters and undecideds," she wrote.

I haven't repeated the link. Why expand the visibility of a totally scurrilous rant by a provocateur seeking to drag Obama into federal court three weeks before the election to defend against an absurd allegation that Obama's father rejected his son's American citizenship to get him into an Indonesian school. As if a parent has any rights to revoke or reject a minor's inalienable citizenship rights.

The point though, is that someone I thought I knew, and respected, a retired executive and long-ago girlfriend, participated in sharing, and endorsing, this drivel.

Though I regret Rita violated my privacy by including me and her other acquaintances in the "CC" field rather than the more polite "BCC" field -- I don't want to be associated with right-wing conspiracy theories -- there was an upside. I was copied on one of her relatives' responses:

"The article and video, and their general premise is the biggest dump of bull cheney [sic] imaginable. It has been clearly and unequivocally refuted by sources ranging from conservative columnist George Will and John McCain himself to legitimate news sources like the New York Times, Newsweek and dozens of others. It is an obscene racist maneuver by desperate ultra right wing lunatics to vitiate the obvious: that the Bush policies, supported by McCain, have been a disaster in virtually every venue, from the defense of our country and its values to our economy and the world economy for that matter. I'm disappointed in you for disseminating this bushed up garbage."

If Joe McCarthy had talk radio and the 'Net, I would have missed the '60s, which would have been very different, and that would have been too bad.

I don't always agree with my nephew Matt but more often than not, I do. If bloggers are to help fill the gap left by shrinking newspapers, may they all try as hard to maintain a respect for the difference between facts, opinions and lies.  

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by: ny1writer @ Mon Oct 13, 2008 at 21:12:32 PM UTC