Posted on 12/20/2010 4:05:11 PM PST by freespirited
What a sore loser. Even before he was kicked to the curb by Ohio voters, Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, tried to silence the Alexandria-based Susan B. Anthony List for criticizing his vote for Obamacare after the Stupak amendment banning the use of federal funds for abortion was stripped out of the bill.
Citing an Ohio statute that makes it a crime to knowingly tell malicious lies about a public official, the formerly pro-life congressman filed a criminal complaint against the PAC on Oct. 6, insisting that the health care bill he voted for would not fund abortion.
“The four billboards we planned to put up in his district, but were never allowed to, said: ‘Shame on Driehaus. He voted for taxpayer funded abortion,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the SBA List, told The Examiner.
However, many other pro-life groups besides the SBA List believe otherwise, including The National Right to Life Committee and Ohio Right to Life, whose executive director, Mike Gonidakis, said: “The health care bill that Rep. Steve Driehaus voted for is a death sentence to an untold number of innocent unborn babies and he knows it.”
Even the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which came to the SBA List’s defense, couldn’t stomach Driehaus’ attempt at revenge, arguing that the Ohio law was unconstitutional because it forces the state to prosecute private individuals for criticizing public officials.“The people have an absolute right to criticize their public officials, the government should not be the arbiter of true or false speech and, in any event, the best answer for bad speech is more speech,” the ACLU Ohio’s amicus brief noted.
The kicker is that the people in Ohio who decide when political criticism crosses the line into defamation are the four members of the Ohio Election Commission, who are all happen to be political appointees.
The day after the November election, Driehaus dropped his criminal complaint. But the sore loser is now suing the SBA List in federal court for defamation and “loss of livelihood” for pointing out his flip-flop on the abortion issue.
Driehaus lost his lucrative livelihood in Washington because he cynically tried to play both sides on the abortion issue, which the SBA List had a First Amendment right to point out.
Didn’t the enforcers of this law already start making plans for funding abortions?
“loss of livlihood”
That’s because government officials can’t do anything else, so they go into government to become rich off the backs of the people they are supposed to serve.
Boo for his supporting Obamacare. Boo for his failure to protect the unborn. And a final boo for considering a seat in Congress a livelihood. The Founders meant for service in the legislature to be a public service, not a career.
Is it TIME yet?
Get a real job b!+ch.
If the law didn’t allow it, why did Obama have to agree to sign an Executive Order to prohibit abortion funding?
And where is that order?
“Citing an Ohio statute that makes it a crime to knowingly tell malicious lies about a public official”
All dem-o-rats and most ‘pubs should be in prison if this were really enforced.
>>Get a real job b!+ch. <<
I admire you greatly!
Those who know Driehaus are not suprised by this...
The IRONY of him suing for LOSS of LIVLIHOOD when he wants to KILL BABIES!
“Citing an Ohio statute that makes it a crime to knowingly tell malicious lies about a public official...”
Whoa. Stop right there. This law is an unconstitutional as all get out.
This isn’t Europe, where a German president can sue because newspapers said that he dyed his hair. And it certainly isn’t England, whose libel law is so grotesque that they define libel as writing something that *offends* someone, and truth is *not* an affirmative defense.
This the America. If you take away our right to curse politicians, it stops being America.
What’s next unemployment for ex-congresscritters?
There needs to be a law that says if you can prove a congressman has lied, they are hanged by their naughty bits with a piano wire! I’m sure when the vote on that law came down, the vote would be split along party lines as they say.
Ping!
What is truly remarkable about what this low life has said and done is that while his political career has been brought to an end, hundreds more just like this parasitic worm still hold their seats in the Congress of the United States.
How long are we going to put up with this nonsense and the nonsense that we have seen out of the lame duck session? Toss them all out I say. Every single one. Spare not a man or a woman, they are all tainted by the same virus of entitlement and corruption. Purge Washington of all of their ilk and start over.
Must be the payoffs from Planned Parenthood stopped flowing in.
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