Our commitment to this blog

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Good afternoon:

Many of our readers generally know that Crane and I have enemies dedicated to intimidating us and eliminating our blog. I write today to describe their tactics so that readers will recognize their handiwork when they see it and better appreciate what we deal with on a daily basis.

To discredit what I say, they knowingly disseminate false and malicious information about me and my professional reputation as a lawyer and law professor. They do this at their own websites and at high-traffic internet websites like the Huffington Post.

They do not rely on real evidence because no such evidence exists. As my regular readers know, my posts are self-authenticating for the most part because I explain what is happening in non-technical language, provide insights about a case or issue that only a knowledgeable and experienced trial lawyer would know, and generally predict outcomes accurately or explain what went wrong. I admit I am wrong when I make mistakes.

Over time the truth of these statements reveals itself.

Our detractors attempt to create the appearance that their false statements about us and what we say are legitimate by using multiple internet identities to communicate the same false information and proxy servers that conceal their true identities and IP addresses. Using this method, one person can appear to be more than ten people having a conversation about us or something that we supposedly said.

This method of character assassination and legitimization of false information has been around for a long time. The late Andrew Breitbart used it to discredit democratic candidates for political office and organizations dedicated to registering voters and turning out the vote. The method was used to defeat John Kerry in the 2004 election. At that time it was called swift boating.

In some cases involving people who have their own blogs and comment here, they have threatened to use the same tactic against them unless they moderate what they say and stop commenting here.

The effort against me has been underway for about two years and I have no reason to believe that it will end unless the feds indict the people running the scam with conspiracy to violate my civil rights.

Everyone has a right to free speech, including me. However, it is not absolute. For example, no one has a right to scream “Fire” in a crowded theater.

The right to free speech comes with a duty to speak the truth. Knowingly or recklessly uttering false statements about another person is not protected by the First Amendment. If such a statement causes an injury to a person’s reputation that is capable of being measured in dollars, such as lost income for example, the injured person can recover money damages from the person who uttered the false statement.

Under some circumstances, a person who utters a false statement may be charged with a crime.

We realize that a federal prosecution against the people attempting to destroy the credibility of this website probably will remain a low priority for the feds, unless someone is murdered. We are not the only people whom the right wing hate machine seeks to discredit and silence with a coordinated campaign of lies.

They do this all the time.

From time to time we get discouraged by all of the hate directed at us. Within the past two weeks we were doxed: our address and telephone number was published on the internet.

We want our readers to know that we honor our commitments.

No matter what happens, we will continue to speak the truth.