Posted on 01/16/2004 3:30:23 PM PST by Jim Robinson
JOINT PRESS RELEASE BY
FREE REPUBLIC LLC & CITY OF FRESNO
On September 12, 2003, the City of Fresnos Human Relations Commission issued a news release describing Free Republic LLC as a hate group and accusing it of threatening violence towards minority groups. As a result of this, on September 22, 2003, Free Republic LLC filed a claim with the City of Fresno, which was a procedural first step in filing a lawsuit for defamation. Free Republic LLC and the City of Fresno announce that this dispute has been fully resolved.
The City of Fresno officially retracts the press release and acknowledges that the City had no basis for referring to the Free Republic as a hate group or accusing them of making threats against minorities. The City of Fresno also wishes to announce that Debbie Reyes, the Chair of its Human Relations Commission has resigned from her position, effective January 2, 2004.
Questions regarding this matter may be directed to either of the contacts set forth below.
Free Republic Charles L. Doerksen - 559 233 3434
City of Fresno Michael Slater, Assistant City Attorney 559 621 7500
I place the FReepers who want to shoot down airliners and private planes in that category.
~Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay, its Independence day~
Thanks To JimRob for defending our honor against this slander. Thats worth much more than money to me.
This is also a reminder to me at least, to not let righteous indignation or negative emotion translate into hate speech in my posts here.
Congratulations Mr R.
"Koranimals. What else can one expect? Until Mecca becomes a smoking crater."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1059733/posts#20
Of course its not considered bigoted, unless it was written this way:
Koranimals. Jews. What else can one expect? Until Mecca Jerusalem becomes a smoking crater."
At this point, the convenient, Anti-Semite hell breaks out.
"Bush orders settlement to conservative GOP website by City of Fresno by Troy Montague Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004 at 11:03 PM Settlement funnels money to local conservative website on orders of president George Bush. Rightwing website "FreeRepublic" to recieve large settlement from City of Fresno.
This is urgent-read and call the attorney general's office as soon as you can. We must stop this criminal give-away to GOP activists at taxpayer expense.
The City of Fresno has announced it is paying a large settlement to the "FreeRepublic", a right wing conservative website/forum to settle a lawsuit filed by Freerepublic alledging defamation and damage of reputation. Some background on the case:
The case FreeRepublic vs. City of Fresno stems from a bulletin sent to Fresno Police by Fresno Human Relations Commissioner Debbie Reyes regarding an event planned on sept. 13th by the Fresno chapter of FreeRepublic Network. This event, billed by Freerepublic as a picnic/rally was a subject of concern to Reyes as she had been made aware of possible counter-protests to the picnic/rally by activists critical of FreeRepublic Network's harrassment of anti-war activists and general right-wing extremist nature. Ms. Reyes faxed a notice to police that there might be possible conflicts at the event and notified them that FreeRepublic was well known as an organized hate group disguising themselves as patriotic americans. This notice and resulting publicity resulted in the lawsuit naming City of Fresno, Debbie Reyes, and Mayor Alan Autry as defendants. They alledged Reyes fax resulted in defamation and filed suit seeking $1,000,000 compensation.
The very very strange thing in all this is George Bush met with Fresno Mayor Alan Autry on 10/15/2003 and there is good reason to believe this lawsuit by the FreeRepublic Network was the main topic of conversation between the two. The FreeRepublic online forum is a darling centerpiece of the GOP party, the largest and most highly trafficked GOP oriented website in existence. Progressive activists have long suspected FreeRepublic receives under the table covert funding directly or indirectly from the GOP party. (Read: use of GOP $'s should be illegal because its GOP) So it is quite likely and plausible that when Autry met with Bush and discussed this with him Bush told him to pay off these good old-boy conservatives and get some funds into their hands so they can continue their fight against the left and all things progressive.
It is clear that before any settlement is paid to FreeRepublic an investigation into ties between Mayor Alan Autry and FreeRepublic should be undertaken. He has been supportive of their activitys to a suspicious degree (Read: any support of opposition political speech = very suspicious) and it is apparent he was very interested in arranging for the city to settle out of court on the lawsuit and quickly get some money into the hands of his fellow patriots at FreeRepublic.
Did Fresno Mayor Alan Autry work at the suggestion of George Bush to supply a large cash settlement to FreeRepublic at taxpayer's expense? Demand an investigation. Contact: California State Attoney General "
Can't be?!? We're told by the leftist lame-stream media maggots that ONLY conservatives use hate speech and commit hate crimes.
I use Hitlery's Gandhi 'joke' as an example. As in, 'There's nothing there, move on. Never happened, yada, yada, yada'
NOTE: Yes I DO hate her. Is that 'still' legal?
NOTE II - I mean absolutely no offense to you. Just joshing
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