japhy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2024 10:14 am
And yet it is trumpty dumpty who said he wanted to change libel laws. Go figure.
What he REALLY wants to change is the definition of "lie."
As an aside, in big complex documents, there will often be dozens, if not hundreds, of so-called "Defined Terms". In theory you could say that:
"Red" means the color blue."
And then Red means blue, wherever Red is used in the contract.
An old saw is that I'll let you draft the body of the contract, if you let me draft the definitions.
Which calls this story to mind:
Sure, Let's Let the Head of a Militia Group Redefine 'Terrorism'
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... ic-parker/
The Bundy Bunch is back again, totin' them farr-aarms for freedom's holy cause. From InvestigateWest:
Parker’s decision to point a gun at government officials got him accused of “domestic terrorism” by the FBI. He spent 19 months in prison. He went through two federal trials. But it also gave him the kind of fame that he’s been turning into political influence ever since. And now, Parker, head of the Real Three Percenters of Idaho, a militia movement group, is casting himself as a key architect of Senate Bill 1220, an Idaho bill to change the state’s definition of terrorism.
The bill “essentially guts” the state’s Terrorist Control Act, said Jim Jones, a Republican who served as the state’s Idaho Attorney General from 1983 to 1991. Jones said he convinced the Legislature to pass the act nearly 40 years ago, in the wake of a bombing of a North Idaho priest’s home by violent white supremacists. It gave the state the power to charge criminal acts that are “dangerous to human life” and intended to influence government policy through intimidation as an “act of terrorism,” carrying elevated criminal penalties. This bill would change the law to apply only to those who commit violent acts who are associated with federally designated foreign terrorist organizations, like ISIS or Hamas, making it inert against actual homegrown domestic terrorists.
How nice!
Parker walked into a January 2018 meeting of the Idaho Legislature as a free man. Two trials over his role in the Bundy standoff had resulted in two hung juries. He’d copped to a misdemeanor plea of obstruction to avoid a third. Rep. Dorothy Moon, R-Stanley, announced Parker was in the room and praised him for “everything he’s done for the citizens of Idaho and Nevada.” Dozens of Republican members of the Legislature responded with a hail of applause. Moon and more than 50 of her Idaho Republican legislative colleagues had signed a 2017 letter urging the charges against Parker be dropped, arguing they represented government overreach. Today, Moon is the head of the state GOP.
Chairman Moon represents 122 people. So, naturally, we should allow Stanley, Idaho to define terrorism.
