Like many, I have criticized Speaker Nancy Pelosi for calling federal officers in places like Portland “stormtroopers.” It is highly offensive on a myriad of different levels and serves to fuel attacks on federal officers who have suffered significant levels of injuries in the rioting. However, the recent statement from Ken Cuccinelli, acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, on the possibility of libel lawsuits is unsustainable under current tort law.
While I am thankful to Cuccinelli for bringing torts in this conversation (a subject I have taught for over 30 years), I am afraid that his suggestion is not well based in tort doctrine. Cuccinelli told Lisa Boothe on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” that
“When you see such libelous, slanderous comments from people who know better — Let’s not kid ourselves, the speaker of the House knows that she is using Nazi allusions to refer to correct, professional law enforcement officers. If I was a CBP agent or ICE agent, or FBI agent — and if I was an FPS agent — I might sue for libel.”
I would argue against that particular impulse.
Calling police officers names is a protected exercise of free speech under the First Amendment. It is opinion on representatives of your government. A lawsuit would tossed out on that basis.
Moreover, the suggestion raises the issue of “group libel.” It would be based on officers arguing that, while not named individually, they were libeled due to their association with a group. Such lawsuits are very difficult to maintain. In Neiman-Marcus v. Lait (1952), a New York federal district court addressed a defamation claim arising from the publication of the book “U.S.A. Confidential.” The author wrote that “some” models and “all” saleswomen at the Neiman-Marcus department store in Dallas were “call girls.” It also claimed that “most” of the salesmen in the men’s store were “faggots.” The store had nine models, 382 saleswomen and 25 salesmen. The court found the size of the group of women was too big to satisfy a group libel standard. However, the size of the group of salesmen was viewed as sufficiently small to go to trial.
In this case, Pelosi and others are labeling all members as stormtroopers which helps in a group libel claim. However, this is a very large group and only magnifies the concerns over defamation curtailing political speech. The Supreme Court laid out the constitutional basis for libel laws roughly 50 years ago in New York Times v. Sullivan. Justice William Brennan explained how the First Amendment was meant to give the free press “breathing space” to play its critical role in our democratic society. The same is true of critics of the government, even elected officials criticizing other government officers.
I understand Cuccinelli’s anger at this scurrilous insult. However, it will have to be addressed in the same place it was expressed: the court of public opinion.
Yah know, at least with Nancy Pelosi, you know where she stands. She hates anybody who wears a uniform. She hates rule of law and she hates our traditions and our heritage. Yep, you know where she stands.
Didn’t president Obama want to have a 250,000 man federal police force that would have been as well funded and as well equipped as the U.S. Military but separate from the other law enforcement entities in our federal government? I wonder how that would fly under president Trump.
The American Founders designed and engineered against national hysteria and incoherence, implementing serenity and rationality.
Turnout was 11.6%, by design, in the first Presidential election of George Washington in 1788, in the severely-restricted-vote republic of America.
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“Nature abhors a vacuum.”
– Aristotle
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“[The Deep Deep State enjoys an environment of hysteria and incoherence].”
– Machiavelli
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“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
– William Casey, CIA Director
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“The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the
composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.”
– Alexander Hamilton
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“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
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“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
The Founders designed a Constitution that could be amended, and our Constitution has been amended multiple times.
You, George, regularly posts bigoted (racist, sexist, xenophobic, …) screeds, and I doubt that you’ll ever stop being a bigot, but surely you should be able to understand that constitutional amendments are … constitutional.
That you dislike them doesn’t make them unconstitutional. You will have to live with the text of our current Constitution, not the Constitution of your imagination. You can certainly try to convince enough states to amend it again, but your desire to regress in time isn’t likely to convince anyone.
Thank you for your ad hominem – proof that you lost the debate.
You are here comrade, to declare victory, not adherence to the Constitution.
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Without doubt, the Constitution of the American Founders has been “injured,” nay, murdered by “amendments.”
” And if there are amendments desired, of such a nature as will not INJURE the constitution, and they can be ingrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow citizens; the friends of the
federal government will evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished.”
– James Madison, Proposed Amendments to the Constitution, June 8, 1789
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The unfortunate part is that you disapprove of freedom of speech, thought, opinion, belief, religion, press, publication, assembly, disassembly, private property, etc.
Why don’t you go preach the benefits of mass invasion to Japan, Austria, China, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, etc. – it’s not immigration, it’s invasion to promote your communist takeover – it’s worked well in the one-party communist state of California.
The entire American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, generational welfare and affirmative action.
The Founders limited immigration and that is a fact – you disagree with the Founders.
The 21st rationally repealed the 18th – “Crazy Abe” did it with executive order and proclamation.
“Crazy Abe” neutralized the legislative and judicial branches and illegally seized power, ultimately resulting in the anti-American, unconstitutional and forcibly imposed “Reconstruction Amendments.”
“Crazy Abe” Lincoln’s “Reign of Terror” and his successors’ “Reconstruction Amendments” were and remain unconstitutional and are, to this day, illegitimate – they remain as unconstitutional as the irrefutably unconstitutional ACA, Obamacare, social engineering, taxation for welfare other than “…general Welfare…,” regulation beyond that of money, the “flow” of commerce among jurisdictions, and land and naval Forces, and the rest of the communist welfare state.
Secession is not precluded by the Constitution and is, therefore. as constitutional as it was when the American Founders conducted the Revolutionary War.
As there was secession not rebellion, “Crazy Abe” had no authority to suspend Habeas Corpus.
Lincoln et al. were racist by any standard and had absolutely no intention of retaining freed slaves in America – would you like to read the historical record on the Congress passing funding for compassionate repatriation to Liberia?
As a matter of law, Lincoln’s “proclamation” had no legal basis.
What I post is historical fact.
No, actually, I didn’t post ad hominem.
If you’re going to accuse someone of ad hom, understand what it is … and what it isn’t.
“Your reasoning contains this fallacy [Ad Hominem] if you make an irrelevant attack on the arguer and suggest that this attack undermines the argument itself.” (https://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#AdHominem, emphasis added)
I started with a plain fact that is totally independent of you: The Founders designed a Constitution that could be amended, and our Constitution has been amended multiple times.
I followed that with opinions (that you regularly post bigoted — racist, sexist, xenophobic, …– screeds, and that I doubt that you’ll ever stop being a bigot), both of which you may find insulting. But I didn’t use them to argue against your claim. Rather, I followed them by noting a positive belief: that in spite of your bigotry, I think you’re able to understand that constitutional amendments are … constitutional. I didn’t suggest that your bigotry makes it impossible for you to understand that our Constitution has been amended. Quite the opposite.
I am not anyone’s “comrade.”
Spasiba, “tovarische.” You are certainly not mine. NASTROVYEH!
law abiding, normal, workers and middle class of the world unite!
Crickets, Crickets, Crickets George. Rant on. Historical fact or not, an overwhelming majority, if not a 100% majority, of constitutional scholars and experts would read this rant and very likely conclude, “This guy is a fringe lunatic and there is no reason to give him any serious consideration.”
And thus your reaction.
Is that fear I sense?
Thank you for your affirming extremist testimony and melodrama!
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“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
– William Shakespeare
See if you can find some factual “original intent” and binding fundamental law (not my words or positions) in full force and effect in 1863, which Lincoln and his successors ignored, illegally overturned and nullified by unconstitutional war and brutal, post-war military occupation below:
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof
See if you can find the truth of historical fact of Lincoln’s and America’s “racism” – nationalism – in the historical account (not my words or positions) below:
Lincoln’s Support for Resettlement
Lincoln’s ideological mentor was Henry Clay, the eminent American scholar, diplomat, and statesman. Because of his skill in the US Senate and House of Representatives, Clay won national acclaim as the “Great Compromiser” and the “Great Pacificator.” A slave owner who had humane regard for Blacks, he was prominent in the campaign to resettle free Blacks outside of the United States, and served as president of the American Colonization Society. Lincoln joined Clay’s embryonic Whig party during the 1830s. In an address given in 1858, Lincoln described Clay as “my beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all of my humble life.”14
The depth of Lincoln’s devotion to Clay and his ideals was expressed in a moving eulogy delivered in July 1852 in Springfield, Illinois. After praising Clay’s lifelong devotion to the cause of Black resettlement, Lincoln quoted approvingly from a speech given by Clay in 1827: “There is a moral fitness in the idea of returning to Africa her children,” adding that if Africa offered no refuge, Blacks could be sent to another tropical land. Lincoln concluded:15
If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery, and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost fatherland, with bright prospects for the future, and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.
In January 1855, Lincoln addressed a meeting of the Illinois branch of the Colonization Society. The surviving outline of his speech suggests that it consisted largely of a well-informed and sympathetic account of the history of the resettlement campaign.16
In supporting “colonization” of the Blacks, a plan that might be regarded as a “finall sollution” to the nation’s race question, Lincoln was upholding the views of some of America’s most respected figures.
– Robert Morgan
If documents appear to be absent or insufficient, they were probably denied as free speech and censored by the site, which you may have had some involvement in effecting. The first rule of communist conquest – suppress thought, opinion, speech and promulgation, right comrade? Are you a Brain-Police Officer?
Off topic. But this is info which might interest those who invest in stocks.
I saw the first twit repeated on the internet on Thursday morning. It said Trump had eaten an apple grown on a tree at the White House and puked up a rotten apple Wednesday night in the Rose Garden. Someone at Goldman Sachs determined that Apple stocks were of too high a value because of the tweet. Apple then went down after Goldman told the world Apple was too high. A similar tweet about a second puked up apple by Trump sent out Thursday night and on Friday Applel stock was down again. Today a tweet went out saying Trump ate two apples off the tree and didn’t puke.
Disregard Goldman Sachs from here on out.
Buy Apple early Monday morning at the opening bell.
The NYT has posted a video montage from Portland under the headline videos show how federal officers have escalated the violence in Portland. This is not libel either, but it is certainly not fact, it is opinion stated as fact. Moreover the posted video footage – to my eye – shows a federal courthouse and the officers trying to protect it under siege from fireworks, thrown projectiles, blinding lasers, arson and graffiti. There is simply no doubt that without the presence of the officers the courthouse would have either been occupied by rioters, burned down or both.
But this is our press at the moment.
the federal deputies are trying to cancel the mob violence thats been going on for months now. that’s not violence that’s law and order
the press is not your press it is owned by the richest man on Earth Jeff Bezos and his rich buddies like the Sulzbergers.
They despise us all including you naive Democrat cheerleaders. In fact they despise you more because you are their willing slaves.
At least my mind is not enslaved by their lies even if I am just as insignificant a peasant as are all of you.
Neither Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli are legally in their position (the appointments were challenged last November under existing rules, and even if they were legal then, they’ve both exceeded the 210 day limit for acting appointments).
And neither one understands the relevant laws. As an example, here’s one discussion from Harvard Law School Prof. Andrew Crespo of Cuccinelli’s lack of understanding of the warrant or probable cause requirement for arrest: https://twitter.com/AndrewMCrespo/status/1285738001004482561
none of that gibberish matters now. it’s all beyond that. your BLM riot squads took it here. whatever it takes to restore law and order is ok, even if it means temporarily suspending the usual procedural safeguards
just as the COVID posed a state of emergency, the national insurrection is one too. i say bring whatever force is needed to bear, just make sure a sufficient number of billionaires are neutralized too. otherwise it is an abortion from the get go.
Funny s…t coming from the Trump lovers who have called the FBI worst.
Agreed.
Anon – just to be clear, we have called the 9th floor of the FBI the worst.
What is illustrated here is that the opinions of just about everyone seem to go to the extreme. Pelosi using the term stormtroopers for police in general is an extreme. Using the term stormtrooper for any police, regardless of how outside the law they may conduct themselves is also extreme. One could have used the term stormtroopers for the police in some cities in the south during the 60s as they were indeed closer to being Nazis than Americans; however this is not the 60s. Pelosi does, however, bring out an even more dangerous fact; that of the extreme opinions of the right. Immediately in this blog, one reads a dogpile of accusations and slander on persons in the left. It is apparent that as Pelosi went too far to her extreme, the responses are far further right. Such polarization. Such backward movement. Some of those posting on this blog would probably prefer to be White in Birmingham in the 50s.
Just to be clear, she wasn’t using the term “for police in general.”
What she wrote was “Unidentified stormtroopers. Unmarked cars. Kidnapping protesters and causing severe injuries in response to graffiti. These are not the actions of a democratic republic. @DHSgov’s actions in Portland undermine its mission. Trump & his stormtroopers must be stopped. First Amendment speech should never be met with one-sided violence from federal agents acting as Trump’s secret police, especially when unidentified. This is disgraceful behavior we would expect from a banana republic — not the government of the United States.”
https://twitter.com/speakerpelosi/status/1284294427654197248
That’s clearly a reference not to police, but to the unidentified federal law enforcement in Portland wearing camouflage who’ve illegally detained people without probable cause, who shot a non-violent protester in the head with rubber bullets (fracturing his skull and requiring facial reconstruction), …. They’re a mix of CBP BORTRAC, US Marshals, ICE, and Federal Protective Service (I think that’s a list of all of the federal agencies, but perhaps I’ve omitted something).
Sorry, that should have been BORTAC (no “R”): https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Border%20Patrol%20Tactical%20Unit.pdf
I remain of the same opinion, that Pelosi’s use of a word associated with Nazis to refer to the federal police is an extreme. Her focusing on these select few being used as a political statement by Trump, unfortunately gets carried over when referring to all police by some. It is not an extreme to the same degree as statements made by some on this blog when referring to the left, but an extreme nevertheless.
Trump and his followers are so disgusting at this point that the best way to get rid of them is to let them take their extreme stances and deal with them from the center. Pelosi is allowing herself to go down that same ‘despicable’ road as Clinton. Bad move.
global corporations want business as usual with the PRC”
they want access to markets and they want that Chinese slave labor the CCP has to sell
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/companies-donating-black-lives-matter/
these companies want to scare us with BLM to get rid of Trump because they want globalism
ie free movement of goods, money, and labor across national borders
simple idea folks: follow the money
billionaires are a thousand times more the enemy than the trash they are hiring to destroy law and order
With the exception of the Capitol Police and Park Police, I don’t think of federal LE as police. So I don’t think her comment carries over to police at all.
I agree that her comment was pretty extreme, but I also think it’s extreme for anonymous federal LE to arrive uninvited in a city wearing camouflage (which conjures the military rather than domestic police) and use weapons like tear gas and rubber bullets against non-violent protesters, or to grab and detain protesters without probable cause. Those are the federal LE she was addressing.
they most certainly are police and DEA and ATF is wandering the streets of cities 100,000 and over without getting any pre-approved permissions from mayors whatsoever
because federal law is supreme
funny how Democrats forgot that before and here we are again
yes, I favor our system of dual sovereigns, and 10th amendment protections– when an insurrection is not at hand.
if the blue cities decide they can suddenly secede and allow their sectors to lapse into chaos–
then by all means, send in the troops
The Krupps and other bonzen industrialists were just as quick to try to pay Hitler and the Nazis off as today’s cowards in corporate boardrooms across the country are quick to pay #blacklivesmatter and antifa off. They’re fooling themselves if they think this month’s danegeld is the last. The rioters are just Nancy Pelosi’s “collection agency”.
it’s a poor position we find ourselves in compared to the anglosaxons of old. they had a king alfred to lead them and they knew who was a dane and who was not.
today the lines are not clear.
or maybe they are clearer than we have thought in the past?
I do not contend they are paying off BLM. BLM will riot and loot walmart if they can
I believe they are paying them to destabilize america, scare people and intimidate them away from voting from Trump.
because they want that free trade money. it’s as simple as that.
walmart and home depot, importing all this junk from china to sell us.
what was cheap before, is a little more expensive now because tariffs
so we buy less. they make less money even if they pass tariffs on to customers,
indeed precisely because they do.
this is why they hate trump. big money reasons.,
all the race equality talk is fake, totally fake. walmart only sees green, and always was that way
except that the goal is actually to intimidate white people away from trump.
that racial dynamic and strategy is very very clear
will it work? We’re gonna know by Turkey day
Mr. Turley, When Nancy Pelosi refers to our dedicated law enforcement officers, she slipped up and revealed her true angry intention. Like President Obama, the apologist, by calling LEO’s STORM TROOPERS it connotes that they belong to the “Evil Empire”. This is the United States we are speaking about. She spent decades being paid by and getting rich off the Federal Government and for God Sakes she is the Speaker of the House of Representatives. She puts a target on the backs of our LEOs (and their families-because they released the names and addresses of our LEOs-thus,not wearing their names on their uniforms/vests). What bothers me the most is she continues to call people unhinged. She should rewind some of her recent footage. What really bothers me, being a Christian myself, is that she always refers to herself as Christian (“I am praying for him or her“).Christians should not use their platforms, especially hers, to degrade and put citizens at risk of harm. That includes our LEOs! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone! That goes for her, especially as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“Christians should not use their platforms … to degrade and put citizens at risk of harm. … Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!”
If you truly believe this, there are many people with diverse political views that it applies to, perhaps even more than it applies to Pelosi (e.g., Trump).
I am baptized in the name of Christ. That makes me a Christian.
However, i have been told by one sect of Christians after another, even Catholics now, essentially, that all religions are equal
This is actually a heresy but they are almost all fakes and liars so they dont care
So now I don’t care either. one day I feel like a Buddhist when I am a good mood, next day I feel like a polytheistic pagan or heathen, wanting to bring back Odin and Thor
Since the Christians have dispensed with hell in their churches, I am at no spiritual risk anyways. They were the anointed leaders not me. So I am “free”
But when I am in a really bad mood, I think of Joshua and the “judges” of old. The Old Testament war leaders of Israel.
Im not a jew and have zero Jewish ancestry., but I admire the stern resolve of the ancient Israelites. And how they put Jericho and Amalek to the sword.
That’s impressive stuff.
From Psalm 68:
21 But God will wound the head of His enemies,
The hairy scalp of the one who still goes on in his trespasses.
22 The Lord said, “I will bring back from Bashan,
I will bring them back from the depths of the sea,
23 That [h]your foot may crush them in blood,
And the tongues of your dogs may have their portion from your enemies.”
ha ha she is Soros’ hired hand. He has given hundreds of thousands to her campaign already in 2020. see FEC data,
Pelosi is in his pocket. He is a globalized. This is his color revolution tactic to get rid of Trump and rig the election by intimidating law abiding people into staying home.
The Empire of Soros is the Future Global Government that he envisions. it will crush all nation states once the US is pacified.
The US will be flooded with foreign migrant labor at a scale to dwarf all previous migrations if Trump loses. Bet on it.
white Democrats will if that comes to pass, eventually, be very sorry for their naivete and self hating failure to reckon their own political interests properly.
Her Christianity is a lie just as it is for 99% of politicians
but we expect that
what’s worse is the Christianity of 90% of church leaders is a lie too, protestants and Catholics alike are the same sort of bureaucratic nonentities as run universities.
they have abandoned us, and I would not lift my finger for them anymore.
nor would I let one phony bromide hold me back from Old Testament logic applied to every problem facing us today.
Three federal police officers were permanently blinded when the Portland rioters deliberately shined lasers directly into the officers’ eyes. The Portland rioters are deliberately creating dangerous conditions at the federat courthouse. Rioters have injured countless others, stripped other Americans of their own civil rights, and destroyed countless small businesses and homes.
‘People will do what they do’ Nancy Pelosi’s incendiary ‘stormtrooper’ dog whistle dehumanizes the police and is directly responsible for the escalating violence. The violence will not stop until politically motivated ‘leaders’ like Pelosi are held accountable for their actions. The question, JT, is how to hold Pelosi and others like her accountable to the victims whose lives have been forever altered.
If that’s the case, the people with the laser pointers should, if our court system was efficient and fair, get 15 years in prison starting next week.
Federal Protective Service Deputy Director of Operations Richard Cline: “We have three officers who currently have eye injuries and they may not recover sight in those eyes from those laser attacks.”
Interesting that you make the statement out to be more extreme than Cline does
And although some protesters have been violent/destructive and should be charged, many others have been physically harmed by law enforcement and/or had their civil rights infringed while not being violent/destructive or breaking any other laws.
“Nancy Pelosi’s incendiary ‘stormtrooper’ dog whistle dehumanizes the police and is directly responsible for the escalating violence”
I think unwarranted law enforcement violence has escalated the violence much more than Pelosi’s words.
The violence will not stop until everyone is held accountable for their actions and chooses to act with more self-restraint. (FIFY)
Re: “victims whose lives have been forever altered,” I hope you include people like Donavan LaBella, who suffered a broken skull and needed facial reconstruction after police shot him in the head with rubber bullets without reason.
Committ – I am hard pressed to include LaBella as a victim after seeing the video. However, the IG is looking into it.
hot lead ammo is what’s needed to send the insurrectionists packing now
not pepper spray
@XXii. Yep. As the old joke goes, it’s like 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean. Prosecuting the rioters is a good start.
Supposedly responsible senior leaders like Pelosi set the tone at the top. She and politicians like her are encouraging these attacks. It is even more important to hold them accountable. Only then will it stop.
Supposedly responsible senior leaders like Pelosi set the tone at the top. She and politicians like her are encouraging these attacks.
Look at Pelosi’s biography and look at a precis of the legislation she’s sponsored. Her whole life has been spent making connections and office-politicking. Otherwise, there isn’t any there there. It’s indicative of how shallow Democratic legislators are that they put her in charge of their caucus and have kept her in leadership positions for 18 years.
Many years ago, the British journalist Henry Fairlie referred to Tip O’Neill’s decade in charge of the House Democratic caucus as ‘the years the seed corn were eaten’, because he (unlike Sam Rayburn) had no clue how to adapt the Democratic Party’s policy stances to current circumstances (or even an understanding that anything was amiss). Unlike Pelosi, O’Neill was at least amusing (and had the people skills to negotiate with Ronald Reagan). He also had a better sense of when it was time to go home.
Im shocked at how Nancy Pelosi has degraded from a legitimate politician into an apologist for coup d’etat from rogue elements of government, and also for insurrectionists.
Much as I have disliked the Democrat leadership, I did not think she would sink this low.
It has been a big surprise that the Democrat leadership has outpaced my cynical expectations by far
Unlike Nadler and Schumer, whom I always ardently disliked, I rather liked Nancy at times.
It’s sad she has sunk so low.
Like her? For what reason? That she had five kids?
She taught school, quite briefly, over 50 years ago. Otherwise, politics is all she knows.
She was a protege of Sala Burton and it was Sala Burton’s sponsorship which put her on the map. She’s faced one competitive race for public office, and that was a special election in 1987. She has no demonstrable knowledge of or interest in any component of public policy. She has no considered ideology. Note, after the shellacking the Democrats took in 2010, it would have been the time for her and Hoyer to stand down; the Democratic caucus is so denuded of any sense of what constitutes good performance or bad performance that no one stood up to challenge her ans she and Hoyer lacked the embarrassment to leave of their own accord (even though both were past 70 and had ample pensions lined up).
She had a charming look for a woman of her age. I like her outfits
the impeachment ruined that however, she became so haggard and worn out
@Committ
Maybe I did go a little overboard. After all, it is only their vision and it will probably come back eventually anyway. Besides, they’re only stormtroopers. Like the evil oppressors who fought for the Empire in Star Wars. Remember how we all cheered when the brave freedom fighters attacked the stormtroopers with laser weapons? Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens when leaders like Pelosi dehumanize our police officers with their dangerous and intentionally incendiary rhetoric.
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#People Will Do What They Do. # I Stand With Nancy. #The Face of Democratic Leadership.
#Hold Pelosi Accountable.
My guess is that Pelosi was referring to the German Sturmtruppen, not Star Wars.
I’m not suggesting that anyone minimize anyone’s injuries (police, protesters or anyone else), just asking that you not make it out to be more extreme than is accurate.
@Committ
The most senior elected official in the Democratic party comparing federal police officers to Nazi storm troopers. That’s nice.
But instead of guessing, someone should just ask Pelosi what she meant. While they’re at it, they should ask whether she thinks her public statements condoning violence and dehumanizing the officers contributed in any way to the violence against them and the loss of their vision. Does she have anything to say to the officers or their families? Has she has considered resigning?
Even more surprising is that I am spending Saturday afternoon debating degrees of blindness with a commenter on a legal blog. Permanent, temporary, partial, total, there is no scenario in which those officers deserved what happened to them. It must be utterly terrifying for them to know that their vision may be permanently damaged or even lost entirely due to a deliberate attack by rioters. While knowing that the most senior elected official in the Democratic party compared them to stormtroopers.
————————
#People Will Do What They Do. #Stormtroopers. #Hold Pelosi Accountable.
The Sturmtruppen were WWI. Maybe you’re confusing them with the SA?
“her public statements condoning violence”
I haven’t heard her condone violence. Can you quote what she said?
“dehumanizing the officers”
I think she was comparing them to other humans. It was insulting, but not dehumanizing. And I think the officers who are acting violently towards protesters, injuring them without cause, detaining them without probable cause, … deserve to be insulted. I don’t want LE violating people’s civil rights or escalating violence.
“Does she have anything to say to the officers or their families? Has she has considered resigning?”
Trump has done more to condone violence and insult people than she has, so maybe she’s waiting for him to go first.
” there is no scenario in which those officers deserved what happened to them”
I agree. Has anyone said that they deserved it? (I certainly didn’t, nor did Pelosi.)
“While knowing that the most senior elected official in the Democratic party compared them to stormtroopers.”
Nope. You’re again sloppy with relevant details. Pelosi’s comment was made on 7/17 about the federal LE responsible for “Kidnapping protesters and causing severe injuries.” 7/17 is days before the injuries you’re talking about, and you certainly haven’t shown that the LE whose eyes were injured were among those who’d unlawfully detained protesters or cause severe injuries.
Oh, she was talking about the good German storm troopers from WWI. I knew she was old, but didn’t know she was that old. So sorry, my mistake, not sure what I was thinking. I’ll try to do better next time.
#I Stand With Nancy. #The Face of Democratic Leadership.
Perhaps you would enjoy the fine memoir of the Great war, “Storm of Steel,’ by Ernst Junger. it is a classic. and better than “all quiet” by far
https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Steel-Penguin-Classics-Deluxe/dp/0143108255/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2RR3SAH3ZN19D&dchild=1&keywords=ernst+junger+storm+of+steel&qid=1595865983&sprefix=ernst+junger+%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-1
EDKH – The problem with the Stormtroopers from the Empire is that cannot shoot for s**t. And their armor is worthless.
But it felt so good when they got their comeuppance.
EDKH – only in the original trilogy. After that everything fell apart. If you have seen them, go to Red Letter Media and watch Mr. Plinkett’s review of the prequels, which ended George Lucas’ career and sequels.
EDKH- I really enjoyed the early movies, but never got past Return of the Jedi. The storm trooper thing with Pelosi reminds me of the movie Black Hawk Down. Everyone used to pull for the Army Rangers, but a lot of people are saying that the blue states switched over to the Somali side. It started on college campuses and then crossed over into the Democratic mainstream around 2016. It’s all so confusing.
@PCS. Grrr.
Was the statement Pelosi’s opinion or did she present it as a statement of fact?
Socialists never present facts they just change the subject. They are also not true citizens of the USA but loyal to a foreign ideology. Some in violation of the requirements don’t take the oath of office at all Squat is a good example and most of the socialist side aka Democrats violated the oath of office when they did take it. Doesn’t matter which type of socialist, National, International or Regressive Liberal. They daily make the case for the use of martial law and the military.
Liberty2nd– if you do say it again, I’ll represent the monkey in a group libel suit. The damage done to that poor Monkey’s reputation is immeasurable.
This was supposed to be a reply to Liberty2nd below but it got stuck here instead. By the way, I’ve already had one monkey call me.
Nancy Pelosi needs to go on a political science tour organized by a Chinese travel company
I hear the re-education camps in Xinjiang are such fun, no one ever comes back! Let’s just tell Pelosi that it’s where Hunter Biden got HIS “investment”.
I welcome comments like that from Speaker Pelosi because I believe using Nazi-like comparisons suggests the user has a weaker argument and people of goodwill are turned off by such comparisons. Come on Speaker Pelosi, please get all the members of your caucus to call federal officers Stoormtroopers.
We also need to ask “who was in the streets with violence first. But the press have moved on from the “Antifa in the streets of Portland” story to another story their corporate masters have decreed they lead with.
N. Polosi’s demeanor is just that! At 80 y.o., she has become a crusted old woman who can’t quite get enough face surgeries to hide her self. The sooner she leaves the House in disgrace, the better America will be.
Forget the legalese, She said what she said to rally her leftist goon squads and the Americans who love this nation understood the coded hate and know what she stands for. No need to bother the lawyers, this is all propaganda and pushback at this point. How many lawyers argued the correctness of our last civil war and did it change anything?
How many armed Secret Service agents does Pelosi have?
She is a coward, spewing intense hate for any whom she chooses whilst protected by armed agents.
Americans do well to arm themselves to the teeth just like Pelosi and do as they wish…just like Pelosi
None. They use a unit of the White House Police who are supervised by Secret Service Agents.
None. They are a unit of police that come under the Secret Service. I mistakenly said White House Police in another similar answer. As the so called third in line which means a meaningless requirement as the replacements are aready picked by VP and President she is just like her current job implies. Meaningless except as leader of the Anti Constitutionalist pro foreign ideology illegals presently in Congress.
None they are a unit of the Capitol Police.
They are a small enough group that I think it would work for group slander. Pelosi is very specific.
Pelosi’s comments were libelous and slanderous. Maybe because I am not a lawyer, I don’t see it through a legal lens. I did not take the words literally. Even understanding why an officer may start a legal proceeding over the comments only illustrates the serious egregiousness of the statement.
I think you’re technically correct but in this instance, there is a nuance. I think that Cuccinelli used those words in this statement to convey the seriousness of his opinion.
He’s usually a respectful, patient person while being interrogated by the likes of CNN’s Chris Cuomo or in a congressional hearing. Sometimes people like him have to put their foot down with extra volume to make their point To an exceptionally arrogant politician like Pelosi.
Pelosi had sex with a monkey back in high school butt I better not say it here.