Is the 1st Amendment Extinct In America?
September 28th, 2009 by CJ
As I normally do in the morning, I was reading all the news of the weekend. I make the rounds beginning at USA Today, then move on to CNN, Yahoo News, Google News, Fox News, and Drudge Report. Two stories at the Drudge Report distressed me. I can't believe that, in America, these things are happening.
The first involves a Chicago TV station being ordered not to run certain stories. Fox Chicago aired a news item about the "Chicagoans for Rio" who are advocating AGAINST the Olympics coming to Chicago. President Obama himself is on his way to meet with the Olympic committee to lobby for the Chicago.
Hosting the Olympics is expensive normally, but this is an especially tough year. The last few Olympics have resulted in LOSSES for the hosting nations. But, the Chicago Olympic Committee convinced the station's news director not to air any more anti-olympic stories or the previous story. This is a scary attack on our first amendment.
The second story is about a Tennessee Mall vendor who was evicted for selling anti-Obama merchandise. Mall employees ordered Dan Fuchs, owner of the Graphic Edge, to remove his anti-Obama merchandise or face eviction.
Mall General Manager Tembra Aldridge sent Fuchs a letter that the option to terminate his lease agreement was effective 11:59 p.m. the day of the letter and that he must vacate the mall premises and remove his property before then.
Mall officials contend that the decision, but that doesn't explain why Aldridge and Melinda Davis, the mall’s specialty leasing representative, suggested that Fuchs also display items in support of Obama prior to the eviction. If it weren't about politics, this request never would have been made.
Mall officials told the Johnson City Press that the decision was politically motivated, yet later in the article those officials state they don't want the mall to be used as a political forum! Hmmm… Fascism is alive and well and our Constitution continues to get shredded to the point it is fast becoming null and void.
The third example has to do with opposition to Obama's health care proposals. The Washington Examiner reports:
Earlier this month, officials with the Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Corp. sent a one-page letter to all of its policyholders who participate in the Medicare Advantage program. The letter was entirely factual and pointed out, among other things, that because of cuts proposed under Obamacare, "millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable."
The Humana letter angered Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is the principal author of the Senate version of Obamacare, which indeed includes hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of "savings" that are supposed to be achieved by eliminating waste and fraud in the Medicare Advantage program. When Washington politicians talk about saving money by cutting waste and fraud, hang on to your wallets. It's their way of saying higher taxes are coming.
To make sure Americans don't see through this smoke-and-mirror act, and to stay in the good graces of Baucus, the bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which manages Medicare, ordered Humana and all other private companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program to "to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website." They also added this blunt warning: "Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions. …"
These are just THREE examples of the many out there.
Tags: anti-obama merchandise, dan fuchs, fascism, first amendment, tennessee mall
Posted in Political Perspective
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Hmmmmm…..
I've got a problem with this post. Not with the chilling effect that censorship has on us all, but the idea that all three of these are, in fact, attacks on the 1st Amendment.
In the case of the first story, the Chicago Olympic Committee is a quasi-governmental board that has no legal authority over what a television station does or does not broadcast. They were within their rights to approach the station and work out anything they might be able to. The station was within it's right to come to an agreement. The idea that a station would agree to NOT cover a legit news story is distressing, but not a 1st amendment issue.
In the second, the mall is completely within it's right to lease to anyone they want, for whatever reason. And, if they have a termination clause, they have the right to execute it. Many smaller vendors accept leases with a termination clause because it lowers their rent. You'll see these vendors commonly bouncing around a mall as bigger names move in. By accepting the termination clause, the vendor has to put up with these kinds of headaches in exchange for a lessor lease. Again, no government agency shut him down, so not a 1st Amendment issue. Dirty, sick and unkind, but not 1st Amendment stuff. (Locally, we had a mall do the same thing to a "southern pride" store.)
Now the last one is different. It IS an attack on the 1st Amendment. A government agency is ordering private hospitals to cease political speech. That is an attack on our rights, and I hope Humana fights this in court.
“We thank all the viewers, readers and listeners for your ongoing support. Your responses, emails and telephone calls have been overwhelming.”
Graphic Edge has reopened online graphicedgeonline.com , and a portion of the proceeds from sales will go to our legal fund to help in our fight against our wrongful eviction from the Mall at Johnson City.
The website will be expanding and evolving over the next several weeks. Please keep checking back, as we will be adding new merchandise and special offers.
For those who wish to have a custom order, please contact us by email at graphicedgeonline@gmail.com
Thanks again, Team Graphic Edge
What's next? Muzzle all the people who disagree with the president. It worries me that free speech is being hindered in our country or that coercion is being put in place.