A Teahadist candidate for Congress, that once compared President Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden, is now suing the Democratic incumbent for libel.
According to the Newburyport Daily News, Bill Hudak, running for the House in the 6th Congressional District of Massachusetts, has filed a lawsuit accusing Congressman John Tierney of running libelous television commercials.
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The lawsuit is both laughable and predictable. It is also ironic that the same people who claim the Democrats, specifically President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are stripping Americans of their civil rights, but they seek to stifle political speech with a bogus lawsuit. The details and the pretentiousness of Hudak and his team of lawyers from PayPal University whom probably are dumber than Orly Taitz can be summed up here:
The lawsuit, which opens with a quote from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, accuses Tierney of "engaging in a broad smear campaign" and making "false and defamatory statements" about Hudak's positions on key political issues.
The lawsuit cites in particular a Tierney ad called "Bill Hudak is Dangerous for Our Country," which has been airing on television this month. The ad includes statements about Hudak's position on tax cuts and the home mortgage interest deduction and features an actress saying, "That's just going to wipe out middle-class families."
Democrats have had success challenging Teahadist candidates on their extremist views on Social Security. The lawsuit seems to be a desperate tactic to halt very effective hard-hitting and truthful advertising. The last detail is the most salient here since NY Times v. Sullivan, truth is always an absolute defense against libel or slander.
Reporter Julie Manganis said that Hudak asks a judge at Salem Superior Court to order the Salem Democrat to stop using ads that suggest Hudak wants to "shift the tax burden from the wealthiest to the middle class" and "eliminate the home mortgage deduction." Hudak, a Republican lawyer from Boxford, says those are not his stands.
Democrats pounced on the inherent GOPocrisy of Hudak, who during the 2008 Presidential election hung a banner across his lawn proclaiming the Democratic candidate was a terrorist like Osama Bin Laden.
In fact, the Teahadist's favorite son, newly-elected Senator Scott Brown, rescinded an alleged endorsement of Hudak when media began questioning Brown about his ties to the birther.
Hudak continued to deny his birther ties, despite the presence of a videotaped interview which he gave to a fellow Teahadist.
Police in Boxford received numerous complaints about Hudak's numerous signs. According to Dan Kennedy, in 2000, a bylaw was passed limiting the number of signs placed on a public right-of-way in front of a person’s property to one. The same bylaw, which places restrictions on other types of event signs including golf tournaments, yard sales and open houses, limits their size to 2-by-3 feet. Residents are allowed to place as many signs as they choose on their own property.
The police said the complaints pertained both to the size of the signs and their placement on a public right of way, Kennedy said.
The lawsuit illustrates the one way flow of civil rights as envisioned by right wing authoritarians like Hudak who masquerade as libertarians. Moreover, it is a textbook example of afrivolous lawsuit because the standard for suing a public figure, especially a politician, is incredibly difficult — for good reason I might add.
Bill Hudak's action is without merit or legal precedence," said Tierney campaign spokeswoman Kathryn Prael. "It is an attempt to intimidate speech in the context of a political campaign, and we will respond appropriately in court."
A hearing on his request for an injunction is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in Lawrence Superior Court, before Judge Robert Cornetta.
Local experts give the lawsuit no chance of succeeding and called it a desperate campaign stunt:
Tim Sherratt, a professor of political science at Gordon College in Wenham, said it's always difficult for a challenger to make inroads against a long-term incumbent.
"In some sense, it's politics by other means," Sherratt said. "It's almost certainly an attempt to draw attention to his campaign."
The race in Mass. 6th has failed to generate the same level of interest nationally as the races involving Mass. incumbent Congressmen Barney Frank and the open seat to replace William Delahunt who is retiring. Moreover, the lack of traction Hudak has in trying to tie Tierney to a recent guilty plea by his wife concerning a tax filing may have been the motivation for the lawsuit.
Thomas Martin, a law professor at Massachusetts School of Law in Andover, said that in addition to a history of strong protection of political speech, the courts have long ruled against prior restraints against publication on First Amendment grounds.
Martin,said that under the existing case law, a judge would have little authority to bar a candidate from airing ads unless they could be shown to be obscene, or perhaps violate some national security interest.
"I very much doubt any judge wants to play the role of campaign censor," said Martin, who could find no similar cases involving one candidate suing another for libel during a campaign.
As desperate and half-baked the lawsuit is, nonetheless it chills political discourse in this country and forces Tierney to waste time defending it in court. The campaign is seeking to dismiss the charges, which will probably happen in court tomorrow.
I view the lawsuit as potential ammunition for Democrats to illustrate the number of ways that Teahadist seek to pervert the Constitution and impose radical martial law not unlike in the movie, A Handmaidens Tale.