Liberal blogger Roger Shuler, known as “Legal Schnauzer” of Alabama has been illegally and unconstitutionally thrown in prison since October 23, 2013 because of his beliefs.
The Alabama judge Claud Neilson, used “prior restraint” of Shuler’s blog postings to throw him in jail. In a completely unconstitutional act and a trashing of free speech- the judge ordered Shuler to remove a blog post BEFORE there had been any trial as to whether it was libelous defamatory. This is blatant “in-your-face” censorship by a crooked judge at the behest of Alabama Republicans!!
This is a MAJOR ASSAULT ON FREE SPEECH and it must be stopped in its tracks immediately with the release of Roger Shuler from his unlawful political imprisonment.
Please PUBLICIZE this case far and wide. Lobby Alabama to release Roger Shuler from his political imprisonment.
Roger Shuler’s wife Carol can be reached at rshuler3156@gmail.com
Roger Shuler’s Web site: http://legalschnauzer.
Key web links explaining this case:
Roger Shuler web links:
SUMMARY:
Roger Shuler is a liberal blogger in Alabama who has driven Alabama Republicans absolutely insane by his exposing their criminalities, sexual hypocrisies and all manner of dirt on them. For example, Shuler wrote about Rob Riley’s (the son of former religious right governor Bob Riley) adultery with a lobbyist Liberty Duke, the resulting pregnancy and Rob Riley and other Republicans facilitating and ABORTION for Liberty Duke, who by the way was married at the time and got a quickie divorce from her husband.
This type of stuff is extremely embarrassing to certain parties, even more so if it is true. Rob Riley wants to be a Republican congressman from Alabama and this revelation probably nuke his chances at that. Adultery and abortion are not good issues for religious right candidates to campaign on.
Roger Shuler has also posted a picture of U.S. Circuit Court Judge William Pryor posing for a gay magazine while naked and with a hard on. Pryor is the former Republican Attorney General of Alabama and a very anti-gay politician. The religious right has a huge influence on Alabama GOP politics and this type of material is anathema to them.
Obviously these types of exposes make the Republicans go ballistic, whether the charges are true or not. Most of them probably are in fact true.
Roger Shuler has also done extensive reporting on the Don Seigelman case. Shuler claims Don Seigelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, was framed and thrown in jail for political reasons: http://www.opednews.com/
The bottom line is that liberal blogger Roger Shuler has driven both Alabama and national Republicans absolutely insane with his exposures of them. I think a lot of what Shuler posts is in fact true - maybe not all of it - but the vast majority of it. Have you ever seen Linda Blair in The Exorcist - remember the part when she is shrieking profanity, then her head does a 360 degree turn, then she vomits? That is what Alabama Republicans feel about Roger Shuler. Here is what I have learned in political activism:
“PEOPLE DON’T LIKE IT WHEN YOU LIE ABOUT THEM, BUT WHAT THEY REALLY HATE IS WHEN YOU TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THEM.”
Because there is no defense for the truth.
It is critically important that activists and citizens publicize the case of Roger Shuler and work to get him released from jail immediately. His imprisonment is a MAJOR assault on freedom of speech in America. The judge used “prior restraint” in the case to illegally and unconstitutionally silence Shuler and he threw Shuler in jail with absolutely NO justifiable legal reason. Do you know how many millions of people would just love to imprison unpopular bloggers and journalists.
Publicize this case, protect your God given right to free speech and get Roger Shuler out of jail.
Sincerely,
Robert Morrow 512-306-1510
Remember, a man has been thrown in jail in the USA for something he wrote, before there has been any trial for libel or defamation. That alone is an absolute torching of the First Amendment and all of our free speech rights.
CAROL SHULER:
Shuler has been incarcerated in the Shelby County Jail since Oct. 23 after Riley filed a lawsuit seeking removal of posts about Riley's extramarital affair with lobbyist Liberty Duke. Some 230 years of first amendment law in the United States says that it's unlawful to restrict publication prior to a final judgement that the report is false and defamatory. There has been no such finding in the Riley lawsuit and in fact has not even been any discovery and yet Shuler has been in jail for almost two full months.
Legal Schnauzer Discusses his First Amendment Case and Bizarre Nov. 14Court Hearing from Jail
This is Carol, Roger's wife. On Friday, we provided a brief update on the Nov. 14 hearing on "permanent injunctions" in the Legal Schnauzer first amendment case. And not surprisingly, it was indeed a kangaroo court, though possibly even worse than we had anticipated.
We reported that Shelby County Courthouse officials turned away the majority of the people who attempted to appear at the mysterious and strange proceedings by claiming it was closed to the public. However, some supporters were able to gain access to the previously undisclosed location.
I was not present at this hearing, but I did interview Roger Shuler by phone who revealed some alarming details. Some key highlights are as follows:
We reported that Shelby County Courthouse officials turned away the majority of the people who attempted to appear at the mysterious and strange proceedings by claiming it was closed to the public. However, some supporters were able to gain access to the previously undisclosed location.
I was not present at this hearing, but I did interview Roger Shuler by phone who revealed some alarming details. Some key highlights are as follows:
- Roger Shuler--shackled at the ankles, waist and wrist--was led by four sheriff deputies from the jail to the courthouse. Once in the courtroom, he remained shackled throughout the duration of the hearing even when speaking and attempting to question the opposing counsel who was under oath.
- The court and the other side were livid about the widespread media coverage of their unconstitutional courtroom circus and shenanigans. Apparently, they believe they have total control of the press all over the entire world and not just here at Legal Schnauzer. They should be free to break the law with reckless abandon and trample the U.S. Constitution without shame and all global media outlets should simply turn a blind eye to their misdeeds.
- The court and the other side blamed me, Mrs. Schnauzer, for the media coverage and threatened me with arrest.
- Roger Shuler told the court he had no way to remove anything from the blog while still in jail in order to comply with their unconstitutional injunction. The court simply said that was his problem and in essence that he would be in jail indefinitely.
- The court and the other side threatened us with monetary sanctions.
- The other side never requested a struck jury upon the filing of the underlying alleged "defamation" case. This means it is a bench trial and the final outcome will be decided by the judge only.
- The other side filed a motion to remove the seal on the underlying alleged "defamation" case.
As if liberals care about freedom of speech or due trial... Why don't they worry about Obama's federal level crimes and constitutional violations instead of some Alabama bumpkin Republicans? We all know the reasons.
ReplyDeleteSure, this type of behavior by local politicians and judges is despicable, but what else is new? Especially coming from both liberals and conservatives? Monkey see, monkey do.
What is the blogger complaining about anyway? He *does* love the state and its use of force, doesn't he?
This sounds like a local battle between pots and kettles to me.
Your comment is a prime example of why Republicans have ZERO credibility. Don't you see you are yourself being supremely hypocritical by excusing the behavior of these goons simply because the victim was a liberal blogger? The lesson people should take away from this is that political goons, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, only care about protecting their own - both parties serve to centralize abusive coercive powers, and thus form the foundation of tyranny.
DeleteTony- your reply is offensive and short sighted. No one, no matter how offensive their beliefs or writings, should be punished for them. Free speech is FREE speech.
DeleteI've always liked your posts, but you are WAY off base here, and should be ashamed.
My question is this: Is this blogger also going after corrupt Democrats? If not then this just smear tactics and chickenshit partisanship. Yes these accusations seem true (Republican fuckers are politicians after all) but I would prefer someone go after BOTH parties not just one or the other.
Delete"He *does* love the state and its use of force, doesn't he?"
Only when its convenient for him. He's a hypocrite. But he does have the right to free speech. At least he should.
@ Anonymous
Delete"Your comment is a prime example of why Republicans have ZERO credibility."
Eh... I'm not a Republican, and i thought i made it perfectly clear i think it is a battle between "pot" and "kettle" and it is typical from both liberals AND conservatives. I don't take the whinings of EITHER of those seriously precisely because "both parties serve to centralize abusive coercive powers."
So you actually agree with me. Maybe you should read better next time.
***
@ Rick Fitz
"No one, no matter how offensive their beliefs or writings, should be punished for them."
Did i say otherwise? I don't recall stating that anybody should be punished for free speech. I just made clear that i have no intention of getting bent out of shape over this particular event, and i made clear why not, considering the types that are involved. Of course nobody should be punished for free speech, but do you really expect me lay awake at night when these statist hypocrites fight each other?
Me caring about THEM is not going to change anything; or me caring about our own side would have changed things for the better long ago. So do you mind if i pick my battles?
"I've always liked your posts, but you are WAY off base here, and should be ashamed."
You assumed i stated something i didn't say, and i feel no shame for not giving a damn about particular statist individuals being confronted with their own double standard. I hope freedom of speech wins. Whether Robert Shuler the blogger wins, i couldn't care less about.
@ Mike\
Thank you. My thoughts exactly.
It was nice knowing you Bob.
ReplyDeleteOn a serious note, this isn't good.
These are local Alabama goons, not Feds. Shelby county includes Birmingham, not surprisingly a corrupt locale.
DeleteBirmingham is in Jefferson County.
DeleteIf a communist published his desire to see all capitalists jailed or executed and was jailed JUST for expressing his beliefs, I would support him. This is no different.
ReplyDeleteI am not a first amendment absolutist but I have signed petitions in support of all kinds of free speech I don't support, left and right.
ReplyDeleteIf this guy had restricted himself to political speech, I would support him.
But he didn't. So I don't.
Hopefully, he can reach some kind of compromise. I wish him luck.
Lila, does that mean you only support freedom of *political speech*? What is your definition of "political speech" then? Is "political speech" a I-know-it-when-I-see-it type of definition in your head?
DeleteAnd if someone does not restrict himself to your definition of "political speech", you support the use of force to suppress his speech?
Read Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 16 on libel and slander:
http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/sixteen.asp
Something tells me that Prof. Block has words about the non-crime of libel.
ReplyDelete@Martin
ReplyDeleteThere is always the possibility that Prof. Block is wrong.
And there is also the possibility that you are wrong.
DeleteTrue but irrelevant because the argument is not between me and Block.
ReplyDeleteThe argument is between the substantial body of libel law, which may or may not be applicable in this case, and Dr. Block.
I am simply taking the side of that considerable body and estimating the probability that somewhere in this mess, the blogger might have been in the wrong too.
I don't have the time to analyze the case, so I can't support him, unfortunately.
(Likely, as a left-liberal, he wouldn't support me, should I ever need it, but that wouldn't be a good enough reason for me not to).
My reason is I don't know whether he was only engaged in political speech and not also in some kind of entrapment, invasion of privacy, defamation, or other malicious act. Getting into people's private lives isn't necessary for political blogging.
In the case of Finkelstein (or Block himself, during a controversy at Loyola over his statements) to take an example, I did know the facts of both cases, so I was willing to support them even though I think Finkelstein could have acted more moderately too.
Because you can legally say some quite nasty personal stuff about people and get away with it, it doesn't mean it's a good idea. Not even if the stuff is true.
And sometimes, there are stories which should be ignored, because no matter if they are true, the fall-out on everyone - victims, villains, officials and journalists - will produce more evil than good.
If EPJ gives him some regular publicity, maybe there's some voluntaryist somewhere who will put his money where his theory is and help him out.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteNo I don't support all free expression.
I don't support gratuitous personal assaults.
For example, if I disliked something you said, I wouldn't aim a telescopic camera from my house into yours and get a candid picture of your wife in the loo and then post it onto a porn site with a google map of your location that you generated on your computer, obtained from sniffing packets off your computer.
In all those actions, I didn't do a thing wrong, per Blockean theory. Per my theory, I committed a horrendous invasion of privacy, so traumatic that I think I would deserve just as much as for armed robbery and rape. But I didn't in Blockean terms do a thing wrong.
That for me is a big problem with Blockean thinking. So I am not a blockhead....
Similarly, I don't support "Incitements" in the context of inflammatory political situations. I don't support shouting fire as a prank in crowded theaters.
It doesn't follow that I therefore think jailing is the answer for all those offenses.
It all depends, doesn't it?
Sorry, not a purist answer, but I'm not a purist.
They do too much damage in this impure world, I've learned.
Imprisoning Roger Shuler using PRIOR RESTRAINT of free speech, before there has been a libel or defamation trial is a full frontal assault on free speech rights. Outrageous and completely unconstitutional as well. As is the judge sealing the records of the case.
ReplyDeleteShuler has been telling a lot of truth about that dirt in the Alabama GOP: divorces, adultery, abortions, closet gay issues, crimes, etc. I have found in politics that people don't like it when you lie about them but what they really *hate* is when you tell the truth because there is no defense for the truth.
I think it is pretty obvious that Rob Riley had an affair with Liberty Duke, got her pregnant arranged for her to get an ABORTON. Adultery and abortion are not good issues to run on for Congress which Riley was contemplating.
Here are most of the web links on the Shuler case: http://protectfreespeech-freerogershulernow.blogspot.com/2014/01/crooked-alabama-judge-throws-liberal.html
"Shuler has been telling a lot of truth about that dirt in the Alabama GOP: divorces, adultery, abortions, closet gay issues, crimes, etc"
DeleteSo WHAT? If he is such a liberal then why would he care about most of these issues? Obviously there is only one reason Shuler is revealing the "truth" and that is to get one up on political opponents, regardless of the question of whether they did anything wrong even according to his OWN set of liberal morality. So basically, it is just smearing and partisan hackery. So am i supposed to give a damn?
"I think it is pretty obvious that Rob Riley had an affair with Liberty Duke, got her pregnant arranged for her to get an ABORTON. Adultery and abortion are not good issues to run on for Congress which Riley was contemplating."
So what? The truth in service of political gain without giving a damn about the moral foundations behind it.
Why am i even supposed to care about anyone having an affair? I have to worry about Ed Snowden and the NSA spying on everyone, yet come to the defense of some asshat that wants to divulge embarrassing private information about things that aren't even illegal, all for political gain? Legally speaking, i agree with Walter Block that Shuler should have every right to do what he's doing. But my libertarian philosophy goes further than what should be "legal".
I am pro-freedom of speech and Shuler should not be jailed. But i have no intention of spending a second worrying about some hypocritical creep who only uses his freedom of speech to score a victory in the battle between statist Republicans and statist Democrats, while his OWN president doesn't give two craps about the constitution that Shuler so hypocritically now clings to in order to justify his partisan smear campaign.
Time is short and energy is limited. It's not going to be wasted on a slime-ball like Shuler.
Hi Robert Morrow,
ReplyDeleteFirst. I don't really think that digging up people's personal histories is a great way to defend freedom, when they are huge issues at the federal level.
Second. I don't see why people who committed abortion can't run for Congress, when people who commit mass murder do. Adultery seems to be universal in the halls of power.
Third. I don't understand why he wanted to harass people like that. He could have stuck to exposing professional wrong doing in office.
So, tell you what.
Why don't YOU post on the subversion of the Indian judiciary by a US federal agent, acting with the State Dept and NGOs, to stop the Delhi police from acting on a criminal case in India, and then turning that into a criminal case (and custodial rape) of a senior female diplomat from a friendly country .....and the total misrepresentation of the facts to support the US position by the US media, all in the great tradition of color revolutions instigated to destroy sovereign nations and enslave more people in the Rothschild-led plantation, all while your precious journalists were using their precious freedom of speech to dig up abortions and affairs, but somehow missed facts that could tell us something about, say, petty matters like universal espionage, total surveillance, and private, secret world government through blackmail, bribery, market manipulation, and intelligence psyops.
......YOU post on that
And then I'll spend time on your fellow.
Lila, you fail to understand that you are conditioned to believe that what you believe should be illegal because it is decent and pragmatic to believe that there have to be some rules. The Political Class created those laws and now they receive protection from their own hypocrisies by way of your legal-induced moral code. Think how much fun Rothbard would have had with the élite if he had a whole research department doing real-time research. I can hear him say now, "This guy was peddling conservative family values and abstinence to get elected while he pressured his 23 yr old secretary to abort his child. *Cue Murray's Laugh*"
Delete@Philip Martin
ReplyDeleteYou believe what you do because of rational thought and I am CONDITIONED TO BELIEVE.
Wow. What condescension.
First. It's a clever trick, practiced by imperial states to keep mouthing pieties with which no one could disagree (who could be against LIBERTY, LOVE, LIGHT, FREEDOM, GOODNESS, MOM AND APPLE PIE?), then create situations to argue that said mom and apple pie are not in prevalence to the degree required by imperial overlords, then drum up support from brainwashed populations under imperial overlord to invade non-apple pie and mom country.
What you are trying to tell me is that politics is about the definition in purist terms of what constitutes mom and apple pie. If only we believed in your pure mom and apple pie, there would be sweetness and light.
I am trying to tell you that imperialist politics can be pursued, state or no state, pie or no pie.
Pure pie or impure pie.
Then you call me pragmatic.
Well, I call you a dangerous fool.
We're not even arguing about the same thing, can you see?
Theories are theories and human history and politics are not theories.
To translate one directly to another has always been disastrous.
But you would have to know history and politics to know that so you will always win an argument based on empty platitudes, since I can't appeal to a knowledge base we don't share and I detest platitudes.
It doesn't mean that I don't think pure voluntaryist communities shouldn't exist. Not at all.
I supported Block, with whom I don't agree, because regardless of what he believes, he is in the business of expressing political views, not smearing people.
If I were pragmatic I wouldn't have supported Block or Finkelstein or any number of people who have said and done things I don't necessarily agree with, but whom I am convinced are expressing political views.
Legal Schnauzer may be expressing political views but he is going about it in ways that look morally wrong to me at first glance and I don't have the time to examine everything. Just off the bat, there were some things I found weird in his whole story.
Secondly, tons of major blogs have already given him publicity. So there's no need for me to add my voice when there are hundreds of much bigger stories that NOT ONE person in the Western media is talking about. US politics does not constitute the whole world, you know, and parochial fights in Alabama carried by that partisan rag Salon are less important to me than the destabilization of whole continents. Sorry.
I want people ALL OVER THE WORLD to have a better life, with real freedom. I am not JUST interested in some entitled activists preserving their right to do whatever they want to with no consequences.
That's not my definition of freedom at all.
And that's not pragmatism. Those are MY PRINCIPLES.
Correction: "who, I am convinced," not "whom"
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Robert Morrow, prior restraints are unconstitutional.
ReplyDeleteHis lawyer will have to appeal and he will have to fight it, which will be easy, because there is solid law on his side.
That still doesn't convince me I need to join in.
There is no slippery slope situation there......There is just one real pissed-off judge.
Anyway, "slippery slope" arguments carry no weight, when we've landed at the bottom of the slope already , i.e. when the entire Bill of Rights is now rendered null by the facts on the ground.
@Philip Martin
ReplyDeleteYou believe what you do because of rational thought and I am CONDITIONED TO BELIEVE.
Wow. What condescension.
First. It's a clever trick, practiced by imperial states to keep mouthing pieties with which no one could disagree (who could be against LIBERTY, LOVE, LIGHT, FREEDOM, GOODNESS, MOM AND APPLE PIE?), then create situations to argue that said mom and apple pie are not in prevalence to the degree required by imperial overlords, then drum up support from brainwashed populations under imperial overlord to invade non-apple pie and mom country.
What you are trying to tell me is that politics is about the definition in purist terms of what constitutes mom and apple pie. If only we believed in your pure mom and apple pie, there would be sweetness and light.
I am trying to tell you that imperialist politics can be pursued, state or no state, pie or no pie.
Pure pie or impure pie.
Then you call me pragmatic.
Well, I call you a dangerous fool.
We're not even arguing about the same thing, can you see?
Theories are theories and human history and politics are not theories.
To translate one directly to another has always been disastrous.
But you would have to know history and politics to know that so you will always win an argument based on empty platitudes, since I can't appeal to a knowledge base we don't share and I detest platitudes.
It doesn't mean that I don't think pure voluntaryist communities shouldn't exist. Not at all.
I supported Block, with whom I don't agree, because regardless of what he believes, he is in the business of expressing political views, not smearing people.
If I were pragmatic I wouldn't have supported Block or Finkelstein or any number of people who have said and done things I don't necessarily agree with, but whom I am convinced are expressing political views.
Legal Schnauzer may be expressing political views but he is going about it in ways that look morally wrong to me at first glance and I don't have the time to examine everything. Just off the bat, there were some things I found weird in his whole story.
Secondly, tons of major blogs have already given him publicity. So there's no need for me to add my voice when there are hundreds of much bigger stories that NOT ONE person in the Western media is talking about. US politics does not constitute the whole world, you know, and parochial fights in Alabama carried by that partisan rag Salon are less important to me than the destabilization of whole continents. Sorry.
I want people ALL OVER THE WORLD to have a better life, with real freedom. I am not JUST interested in some entitled activists preserving their right to do whatever they want to with no consequences.
That's not my definition of freedom at all.
And that's not pragmatism. Those are MY PRINCIPLES.