Posted on 09/29/2008 7:36:49 AM PDT by TenthAmendmentChampion
Last Tuesday without any fanfare, the Barack Obama campaign announced Jennifer Joyce and Bob McCulloch, the top prosecutors in St. Louis city and St. Louis County, were joining something called an Obama truth squad.
They plan to respond immediately to any misleading advertisements and statements that might violate Missouri ethics laws.
"We want to keep this campaign focused on issues," Joyce told me. "Missourians don't want to be distracted by these divisive character attacks."
The truth squad's plan is to indentify false attacks and respond immediately with truthful information, Joyce and McCulloch say.
Truthful information like: Obama is a Christian who plans to cut taxes for anyone making under $250,000 a year.
The Obama campaign says prosecutors from the Kansas City area and some rural areas are also joining the truth squad, and Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer was also expected to be part of the team.
"Whether it is directly attributable to the campaign or one of the soft money operations," McCulloch told me, "if they're not going to tell the truth, then somebody's got to step up and say 'wait a minute, that's not true, this is the truth.'"
For reasons that are still not fully clear, prosecutors promising to tell the public the truth have sparked outrage among supporters of John McCain.
Three days later, I got a call from KMOX radio talk show host Mark Reardon. (I'll paraphrase.)
That story you did last night is really getting a lot of attention, Reardon said.
I was off yesterday. What story? I asked.
The one about the Obama truth squad, he said.
Oh, that story I did Tuesday at 6, I responded.
Well, Rush Limbaugh just talked about it, and the blogoshpere has it, and it's getting big. It's really going to get big, Reardon said.
AP
Rush Limbaugh Reardon was correct.
More than 90,000 people from across the country watched my report on KMOV.com. Click here to watch the report
When I returned to the office on Saturday, I spoke with callers from New York to Florida who had heard about Obama's truth squad and were outraged about it.
One caller said he was angry, because people were going to be "prosecuted" and "indicted" for stating their political views.
Another caller said Obama was planning to send police to the homes of elderly women because of their political statements.
A third caller said he wanted information about Obama's "storm troopers."
Members of law enforcement never said anyone would be prosecuted, indicted or punished for saying anything, only that they were prepared to tell the public the truth.
By Saturday afternoon, outgoing Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, a McCain supporter, was also outraged and accused Obama of "police state tactics" that would "intimidate people and kill free debate."
KMOV
In a written statement on the governor's official Web site, Blunt said the basis for his statement was prompted by "news reports."
"The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill open debate," Blunt said in the statement.
Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said: "We're here to respond to any character attacks, to set the record straight."
"Barack Obama needs to grow up," Blunt continued. "Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations, because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them."
Isn't that what Joyce and McCulloch say they plan to do?
If we follow Blunt's argument, what does that say about his opinion of the John McCain Truth Squad and those responsible for it?
Yes, McCain has a truth squad, too.
A truth squad of one???
Moral equivalence much? The reporter says a response by the governor makes it all right.
I'm so angry I don't know what to say.
You can register at KMOV to log a comment or you can go to bugmenot.com, get a public username and password, and comment on this. The comments are running 20 to one against the idiot reporter.
BO’s Thought Police are at work.
My neighbor is a State Hwy Patrolman. He said guidelines for this was posted on their union bulletin board-what to look for, who to report to, etc..
No, Obama is not a Christian. Why would a Muslim jihad supporter pay his way at Harvard if he were a Christian?
Belonging to Jeremiah Wright’s Black nationalist hate group does not make one a Christian. Fighting for the right to murder babies certainly is not Christian.
Jesus counsels, “By their fruits, you will know them.”
If “prosecutors” are working on behalf of a Presidential candidate and intend to use their office for same, they should be summarily FIRED.
Can you post that remark over at KMOV? That would be very telling.
DFU called their offices saying he knew a printer in SL who was making “Obama is a Muslim” bumper stickers and would they be interested. They said YES!!!!
Scary times.
Promising to tell the truth ? How about calling it what it is : using intimidation tactics by prosecutors to try to squelch free speech.
good commercial: elderly woman saying “I just don’t like that Obama. Something about him makes my skin crawl”
immediately black helicoptors, hummers, and gun toting jackbooted thugs appear “We’re the Obama Truth Squad, and we’re takign you in!” adn they grab her bodily and stuff her into a paddy wagon filled with other elderly people.
then the scene shifts to a vast prison camp modeled after those of germany during ww-ii, showing elderly and children shuffling around dazed. voiceover: “This is Obama’s version of America. is this what YUO want?” black helicoptor flies overhead...
So, assuming B. Hussein IS elected, then WHEN he doesn't lower my taxes, do I get to fly to MO and kick these peoples' a$$es?
Megyn Kelly just reported on this on FOX. She said their email was full of this. She had an Obama goon on the phone defending it saying McCain was running a bunch of lies and a dishonorable campaign. She read the letter that the Obama camp has sent to stations threatening anyone who runs the NRA ads. He avoided the question as to why they were doing that.
Stick on the issues?
Precisely the true “truth” on Mr.O. is a very big issue
Update! They changed the story and pulled the comments!
It now reads:
John McCain’s campaign has a truth squad which includes prosecutors who support his candidacy, according to reports and a campaign source.
Last Tuesday without any fanfare, the Barack Obama campaign announced Jennifer Joyce and Bob McCulloch, the top prosecutors in St. Louis city and St. Louis County, were joining something called an Obama truth squad.
They plan to respond immediately to any misleading advertisements and statements that might violate Missouri ethics laws.
“We want to keep this campaign focused on issues,” Joyce told me. “Missourians don’t want to be distracted by these divisive character attacks.”
The truth squad’s plan is to indentify false attacks and respond immediately with truthful information, Joyce and McCulloch say.
Truthful information like: Obama is a Christian who plans to cut taxes for anyone making under $250,000 a year.
The Obama campaign says prosecutors from the Kansas City area and some rural areas are also joining the truth squad, and Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer was also expected to be part of the team.
“Whether it is directly attributable to the campaign or one of the soft money operations,” McCulloch told me, “if they’re not going to tell the truth, then somebody’s got to step up and say ‘wait a minute, that’s not true, this is the truth.’”
For reasons that are still not fully clear, prosecutors promising to tell the public the truth have sparked outrage among supporters of John McCain.
Three days later, I got a call from KMOX radio talk show host Mark Reardon. (I’ll paraphrase.)
That story you did last night is really getting a lot of attention, Reardon said.
I was off yesterday. What story? I asked.
The one about the Obama truth squad, he said.
Oh, that story I did Tuesday at 6, I responded.
Well, Rush Limbaugh just talked about it, and the blogoshpere has it, and it’s getting big. It’s really going to get big, Reardon said.
Reardon was correct.
More than 90,000 people from across the country watched my report on KMOV.com. Click here to watch the report
When I returned to the office on Saturday, I spoke with callers from New York to Florida who had heard about Obama’s truth squad and were outraged about it.
One caller said he was angry, because people were going to be “prosecuted” and “indicted” for stating their political views.
Another caller said Obama was planning to send police to the homes of elderly women because of their political statements.
A third caller said he wanted information about Obama’s “storm troopers.”
Members of law enforcement never said anyone would be prosecuted, indicted or punished for saying anything, only that they were prepared to tell the public the truth.
By Saturday afternoon, outgoing Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, a McCain supporter, was also outraged and accused Obama of “police state tactics” that would “intimidate people and kill free debate.”
In a written statement on the governor’s official Web site, Blunt said the basis for his statement was prompted by “news reports.”
“The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill open debate,” Blunt said in the statement.
Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said: “We’re here to respond to any character attacks, to set the record straight.”
“Barack Obama needs to grow up,” Blunt continued. “Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations, because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them.”
THE END!!
The snarky remark at the end is gone along with the avalanche of outraged comments!
I actually asked him if I could do a blog post about it. He said no. I dont blame him. His wife is a cop, too, but not HP..
What was I watching last night? I think it's gone now, but it started with Tina Fey? making Palin look like a fool, then cut into the clip with CG about the Bush Doctrine, again making her look like a fool, and then their coup de grace on that hit, a clip with Katie where she said she'd get back to her, trying to make her look totally stupid. It was about as honest an answer I'd ever heard from a politician. She would find out. I hope she never darkens Katie's door again.
“My neighbor is a State Hwy Patrolman. He said guidelines for this was posted on their union bulletin board-what to look for, who to report to, etc..”
UNBELIEVABLE
My cache must have been messed up. The comments are not deleted. My bad.
“My neighbor is a State Hwy Patrolman. He said guidelines for this was posted on their union bulletin board-what to look for, who to report to, etc..”
Cardinal, are you serious? This is important, can this trooper come out and verify this?
This reporter is stupid as all hell. This pathetic piece of crap would have fit right in working in Goebbles propaganda machine. He is as partisan as the prosecutors that want to enforce their version of acceptable speech.
Their site must be having traffic problems because it’s taking forever to load the full article and comments.
How can 0bama be ahead in the polls? What is happening to our country??
Leftists try to ignore the concept that anything done through the gov’t is done with the inherent threat of the use of deadly force.
McCain’s “truth squad” is not threatening criminal action against his opponents.
“What if I refuse to comply with your punishment for my non-compliance with your definition of truth, Obamites? You have authorized the gov’t to KILL ME.”
If we follow Blunt's argument, what does that say about his opinion of the John McCain Truth Squad and those responsible for it?
Yes, McCain has a truth squad, too.
These statements were deleted from the original story without a note about changing the story. Lying media!
But, more to the point of this thread; this McCulloch and Joyce are prosecutors for the entire population of their districts. Does this then translate over to their professional roles as prosecutors? Are they "prosecutors for Obama?" I doubt if a Republican accused of a crime, any crime, would get fair treatment from these two.
The most alarming thing about this is that they are not concerned about truth from all political condidates in Missouri, just the ones that concern their favorite candidate. There's no place for this kind of bias in a prosecutor's office.
Makes banning books at the library look small!
The comments were deleted a few minutes ago while I was reading them. The page refreshed and lo and behold! No more comments.
Any fool can see why invoking sheriffs and prosecutors has a totally chilling effect on free speech.
Even I can see!
Or at the very least, make my life very inconvenient by having me arrested, go to court ( though the case would certainly be thrown out on !st Amendment basis ), incurring court costs and attorney fees, etc ....
Refuse/resist arrest because the charge is unlawful, and you will be killed.
Of course, it would be better to not resist, but, like you said, the inconvenience of it all...
LARRY SINCLAIR is going to punk these uneducated goons.
Put up signs, yard signs, including Pro 1st Amendment signs, take pictures, and tell anyone who don’t like it to eat sh*t.
We have a very successful conservative talk radio station here in St. Louis as well. The morning drive host is a guy named Jamie Allman who worked for a long time as a reporter for Channel 4, and this collection of Fifth Columnists are his pals. To Jamie's credit, he took Mills and Newton to task this morning for this nonsense, as well as Joyce and McColloch.
Nevertheless, I have always maintained that Allman is a big liberal phony working a "conservative schtick" for his own personal gain. No grudge held there, everyone has a right to go out and make a living. After all, talk radio is just an entertainment medium and I don't believe a word any of these hosts spew anyway without outside, independent verification of the facts. What bugs me about Allman is that he trolls the conservative blogs, including this one, for his talking points and direction on how to frame an issue on his show.
I wish I would have saved an email response I received back from him once when I accused him of this behavior. His faux outrage was a hoot, calling my accusations "downright offensive". The funny part is, I can read Free Republic, Powerline, and a few other prominent conservative blogs in the evening and tell you exactly what he will say the next morning. Like I said, what a phony.
But I digress; one salient point I noticed about Comrade Mills' response on the station's website is that they have changed their tune from the original report. As originally broadcast the report clearly stated that MO law enforcement would prosecute anyone who they arbitrarily decided was lying about B0 under Missouri election ethics law. Now they have changed their tune, dropped their rhetoric about prosecutions and now only state that they will set the record straight by rebutting the offending comments.
How interesting. Straight out of the commie playbook.
“After all, talk radio is just an entertainment medium and I don’t believe a word any of these hosts spew anyway without outside, independent verification of the facts.”
######
Well, OK.
Then let’s say that ALL “journalism” is “just an entertainment medium”. My experience has been that most of the information on conservative “talk radio” as well as on FR is MUCH more reliable then the standard media sources.
Interesting commentary on Allman-fellow St. Louisan here.
They want to brainwash us into thinking that 0bama is ahead in the polls. It's another one of their media lies. It could backfire--by making some of his voters stay home, thinking he's got it all wrapped up anyway. The newspapers say so.
They had Gore and Kerry ahead right up until the election, remember that?
And then file a counter suit asking millions of $ in compensation and make the perps life miserable in exchange.
It took a year or so to bring down Mad Mike Nifong and his Duke doozy, but he came down hard. So can these prosecutors if they try this crap.
I say defy defy defy. I dare you!
Their website is flaky. Sometimes the comments appear and sometimes they don’t. However, the story was edited to delete the last three snarky paragraphs.
Couldn’t this State Trooper contact the Gov office, or the national media?
Am I crazy or isn’t this very, very serious stuff?
How is this legal?
The original video is on YouTube, I think. It would be interesting to compare a transcript of each one.
Your post reminds me of “The Commissar Disappears.” Google that sometime.
“The Commissar Vanishes”, not “The Commissar Disappears.”
If you could find the URL, that would be dynamite in the blogosphere.
Actually anyone that lives there should have a camera ready to record any arrests by “The Truth Squad” and post it on YouTube.
John McCain’s campaign has a truth squad which includes prosecutors who support his candidacy, according to reports and a campaign source.
Reports from whom? A campaign source from which campaign? Did the McCain Truth Squad get free publicity from KMOV? This is so crazy! It's a lame attempt at moral equivalence!
You'll get no argument from me on that statement. However, you make a valid point that conservative outlets, blogs included, tend to be more reliable than what we loosely refer to as the "Main Stream Media".
Maybe I'm too cynical, or maybe I feel like I've been lied to one too many times, but I will never take MSM reporting, much less political commentary and punditry, at face value ever again.
I also want to say that I still listen to Allman in the morning as he is very entertaining. While I don't particularly like his commentary, I do really enjoy the depth and breadth of his coverage, his usually stellar line-up of guests, and the convenience of having the major stories of the day brought to my attention. Despite the fact he can't seem to hold onto a regular co-host, I think he's good enough at what he does that he will be around for a long while.
God I wish you could get a nice copy of that with government letterhead on it.
yeah like “don’t taze me Bro”!
TO ALL:
DON’T LET THESE NAZI’S OFF THE HOOK.
THIS IS HOW IT ALWAYS STARTS.
IT IS NOT NECESSARY FOR THEM TO ARREST ANYONE (READ SUMMARY BELOW) — THEY ARE VIOLATING CIVIL RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF AUTHORITY.
WHO ARE THEY TO TELL CITIZENS “THE TRUTH” ABOUT A CANDIDATE!
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
OFFICIAL MISCONDUCT
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/241fin.htm
CONSPIRACY AGAINST RIGHTS
Summary:
Section 241 of Title 18 is the civil rights conspiracy statute. Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same). Unlike most conspiracy statutes, SECTION 241 DOES NOT REQUIRE THAT ONE OF THE CONSPIRATORS COMMIT AN OVERT ACT PRIOR TO THEIR CONSPIRACY BECOMING A CRIME.
{EMPHASES MINE}
The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any.
TITLE 18, U.S.C., SECTION 241
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, THREATEN, or INTIMIDATE any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same;...
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
{EMPHASES MINE}
END
NOTICE THE WORDS “threaten” or “intimidate” in the statute.
Prosecutors/police have great power... and all they have to do is ‘suggest’ or ‘hint’ to a citizen (or citizens) that he /she will be in ‘trouble’ if he/she exercises his/her constitutional right to campaign against Obama (or any other candidate) for the aforementioned prosecutor/police to have ‘threatened’ and or ‘intimidated’ said citizen(s) and therefore, deprived the citizen (s) of there constitutional right of political speech, under the constitution.
IT IS A CRIME WHEN THEY ( THE OFFICIALS) THREATEN OR INTIMIDATE: THEY DO NOT HAVE TO ARREST ANYONE OR TAKE “OVERT ACTION” TO BE IN VIOLATION OF SECTION 241 ( SEE SUMMERY AT TOP)
Such acts are NO different, in kind, than certain tactics of intimidation that were used in the south against black people in order to prevent them from voting etc.
STE=Q
You could be the next Buckhead if you get a copy and post it on FR!!
Books were never banned. Just another manufactured story like Trig being Bristol’s.
He will not. Mortgage, kids..
It's one thing to say that you would be enforcing the ethics regarding any or all candidates for public office, but you have only mentioned speech that might be detrimental to Senator Obama.
This is not a proper use of your office, and I hope that you will change your position.
I only wish they would do fingerprinting or DNA testing on the ballots as they are cast in north St Louis. Do you have any idea how many criminals they might catch? They could clear up a whole lot of their unsolved cases file.
DFU called their offices saying he knew a printer in SL who was making “Obama is a Muslim” bumper stickers and would they be interested. They said YES!!!!
***Good place to bump this thread for later
Not buying it. Either it didn’t happen or your friend is complicit. This is obviously illegal activity.
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