It is conveniently located between the pictures at the bottom of the article and the comments; to the right of their social media links.
It is conveniently located between the pictures at the bottom of the article and the comments; to the right of their social media links.
Zaap
Diamond Member
- Jun 12, 2008
- 7,162
- 424
- 126
I'd say his 'threats' were at most d-baggish (mainly bringing the person's family into it)... but way over what line? Its pretty silly to me that any of that constitutes anything resembling actual blackmail.
Still,.the guy basicaly just got a slap on the wrist for it, so all in all no biggie.
Unless used as a precedent to further squash free political speech. Constituents *should* hold their electected officials feet to the fire,.and let them know they're on notice. But clearly you can't take that beyond not supporting the official with votes or campaign support. Threatening to dig up dirt on their families is just stupid.
Blackmail is definitely not OK, but if the comments in the email posted in this thread are accurate, I hardly think something like that is worth felony charges. Seems like a very slippery slope when you start charging people with felonies for something as flimsy as this. Unless there's more to it than what was provided in the story, I don't agree with the charges.
DrDoug
Diamond Member
- Jan 16, 2014
- 3,580
- 1,629
- 136
What he wrote sure sounds like what a teabagger would say. Why talk nice to people, especially those on your side, when you can threaten them and their family? According to the law in OK, he broke it. Like it or not, that's his state and their law. Then he doubled down and refused a plea deal so now he is a convicted felon.
What an accomplishment! :thumbsup:
What an accomplishment! :thumbsup:
Emailing a Senator is now considered blackmail?
It pays to actual read the news article.. the more you know, you know..
The article you linked does not state what was in the email that would be considered blackmail.
Demanding passage is free speech, not blackmail.
Something is missing
Where is this info coming from?
Yes, I agree that it could be considered blackmail; however, it is not in the article linked in the OP
MomentsofSanity
Lifer
- Jan 25, 2011
- 16,678
- 8,861
- 146
The article you linked does not state what was in the email that would be considered blackmail.
Demanding passage is free speech, not blackmail.
Something is missing
Where is this info coming from?
Yes, I agree that it could be considered blackmail; however, it is not in the article linked in the OP
RTFT
Seems about the equivalent of charging someone with attempted assassination for pointing their finger at a senator and shouting "pew pew pew".
Unless of course said senator has a lot of embarrassing secrets* in his past that he doesn't want coming to light... :hmm:
*going by the fact that he was trying to "blackmail" a Republican I'm going to go with some secret visits to gay prostitutes.
Newell Steamer
Diamond Member
- Jan 27, 2014
- 6,894
- 8
- 0
Its fucking comically simple.
There was a demand made and there was a threat if said demand was not met then xyz would happen.
That is text book blackmail.
There was a demand made and there was a threat if said demand was not met then xyz would happen.
That is text book blackmail.
XYZ implied that they would dig into the family background/activities for embarrassing political/social dirt.
Claiming any physical threat or damage was implied seems to be a reach.
So if I sent an email saying: make this bill heard or else I'll never vote for you again and I'll tell everyone I know not to vote for you.
Is that blackmail?
Seems about the equivalent of charging someone with attempted assassination for pointing their finger at a senator and shouting "pew pew pew".
Unless of course said senator has a lot of embarrassing secrets* in his past that he doesn't want coming to light... :hmm:
*going by the fact that he was trying to "blackmail" a Republican I'm going to go with some secret visits to gay prostitutes.
The fact that we are talking about this right now, if there is any dirt to be found it is far more likely to be looked into now.
ch33zw1z
Lifer
- Nov 4, 2004
- 38,130
- 18,603
- 146
No, and that's not even the same as what was said. This is what he should of written in the email.
If the quoted Oklahoma law above is correct, your issue should be with the law and not the charges. The law, again if correct, is pretty clear cut that what he did was blackmail in the state of Oklahoma.
If those are the only comments in the email, that doesn't sound like blackmail. If he had information to release, I could understand that. However, saying that he will essentially attempt to find something to out the representative is pretty weak.
I would say it is only legally blackmail assuming that said secrets existed. So in order to convict, I as a juror, would need the prosecution to submit evidence of said secrets :sneaky:
Fern
Elite Member
- Sep 30, 2003
- 26,907
- 173
- 106
Agree 100%.
If I was him I'd appeal that ruling etc.
Edit: Does anybody really think that if that email were sent to somebody other than senator it would have been prosecuted?
Fern
Last edited:
And don't they have to prove that this guy has the ability to carry out the claims? "Find your secrets!" is silly. If I wrote you an email and said "Send me $10 or I will build a space ship, put your family on it and crash it into Neptune!" I think it is going to be hard to convict me of blackmail.
If he had simply threatened to have himself and his constituents vote for another candidate, would it still be blackmail?
Good discussion on this issue, enough that we wanted to fill in some of the details.
First, the Sooner Tea Party isn't your normal Tea Party. The Democrats love us in Oklahoma because we tend to focus on outing corrupt Republican politicians because they are in control and not following their own party platform. Had it not been for the conservative Democrats banding with the conservative Republicans we would have had the Obama Care health insurance exchange forced on our state despite the statewide referendum that rejected Obama Care in 2010 by a 70% margin.
We spend most of our time and effort on rooting out corruption with the goal of making politicians accountable to their constituents. If a politician is a flaming liberal, we leave him alone as long as he ran for office on that platform. If he is a progressive Republican that ran on a conservative platform then we go after them when we have information to embarrass them be it their voting record, financial difficulties, illegal acts, or immorality such as cheating on a spouse or taking advantage of a staffer.
Lots of comments about the weak charges and that is because in 2011 we nearly took down the prosecutor that charged Al with the crime. The grand jury that investigated him cleared him but there were some very suspicious goings on like the main witness, a restaurant owner, changing his testimony, getting charged with perjury, then a few months later the prosecutors dismiss the charges. The final report of the grand jury says that it was out "online blog", actually our newsletter, that forced them to investigate after the A.G.'s office wanted to delay the investigation.
There were several scandals that we broke on the Oklahoma County D.A. office including campaign contributors being arrested for felonies like bribing police officers, drunk driving, assaulting an officer, and the cases were not being prosecuted so the statute of limitations would run out. Right before he testified the prosecutor paid back $10,000 in illegal campaign contributions and finally prosecuted four lawyers that had cases between three and four years old. One of the lawyers that was finally prosecuted was Senator Branan wife's kinfolk, he lost his law license. The guy was the grandson of former Senator Robert S. Kerr so this guy is from one of the wealthiest families in the state.
Another scandal that we broke was the JRI scandal where the prosecutor was setting up a job for a retiring speaker of the house using tax money. They were releasing massive numbers of prisoners, overwhelming the parole officer system, all to provide "clients" for the retiring Speaker of the House's new employer. The problem with that is that it was a repayment for the Speaker pushing the prosecutor's legislation at the House before he retired. And the prosecutor had convicted two politician for attempting to do what he actually did, set up a job for a retiring politician. The Associated Press did a story on JRI and said that our newsletters were studied and discussed by the governor's staff and that they convinced the governor to pull the plug on the JRI program, causing the former Speaker and the prosecutor to leave a meeting in tears. Grow men bawling their eyes out and storming out of a public meeting.... something was very personal there.
Political wives.... yes they need investigating. We just finished a series of stories about a House member that was a sex addict. Cheated on his wife for ten years with the same woman, met her on adultfriendfinderdotcom, liked to be very brutal, extremely so, and took prescription methamphetamine pills before the deed and prescription sedatives afterward to come down off the high so he could go back to work at the Capitol. He finally abandoned the woman and she claims she had an illegitimate child with the House member. In the process of researching we found that the guy's wife had been given a sweetheart job, six figure salary, in a job that she had no qualifications for doing, for a foundation owned by a big oil company and the former owner of the state's largest newspaper. The prosecutor that actually tried the case has a wife that was a ghost worker some years back, same deal, basically a way to bribe officials, employ their family or friends but they never show up for work.
There is also a revolving door between political wives and the State Chamber of Commerce and various government agencies. Same deal, sweet deals offered the wife so the husband votes the right way. Same deal for the well known reporters; the eventually leave to work for the House or Senate in the media division or go to work for one of the big corporations.
As to the charges, the Supreme Court has already knocked down six state blackmail statutes because they are overly broad and vague like the Oklahoma law. Political speech is the most protected form of speech and a public utterance, like that email that was not sent to the senator but was a reply all to a group email that included the senator, is considered free speech. The most famous case was during the Vietnam war protests where a man said that if he was drafted and they put a gun in his hands, the first person he would kill was LBJ. He was arrested but the case was overturned.
First, the Sooner Tea Party isn't your normal Tea Party. The Democrats love us in Oklahoma because we tend to focus on outing corrupt Republican politicians because they are in control and not following their own party platform. Had it not been for the conservative Democrats banding with the conservative Republicans we would have had the Obama Care health insurance exchange forced on our state despite the statewide referendum that rejected Obama Care in 2010 by a 70% margin.
We spend most of our time and effort on rooting out corruption with the goal of making politicians accountable to their constituents. If a politician is a flaming liberal, we leave him alone as long as he ran for office on that platform. If he is a progressive Republican that ran on a conservative platform then we go after them when we have information to embarrass them be it their voting record, financial difficulties, illegal acts, or immorality such as cheating on a spouse or taking advantage of a staffer.
Lots of comments about the weak charges and that is because in 2011 we nearly took down the prosecutor that charged Al with the crime. The grand jury that investigated him cleared him but there were some very suspicious goings on like the main witness, a restaurant owner, changing his testimony, getting charged with perjury, then a few months later the prosecutors dismiss the charges. The final report of the grand jury says that it was out "online blog", actually our newsletter, that forced them to investigate after the A.G.'s office wanted to delay the investigation.
There were several scandals that we broke on the Oklahoma County D.A. office including campaign contributors being arrested for felonies like bribing police officers, drunk driving, assaulting an officer, and the cases were not being prosecuted so the statute of limitations would run out. Right before he testified the prosecutor paid back $10,000 in illegal campaign contributions and finally prosecuted four lawyers that had cases between three and four years old. One of the lawyers that was finally prosecuted was Senator Branan wife's kinfolk, he lost his law license. The guy was the grandson of former Senator Robert S. Kerr so this guy is from one of the wealthiest families in the state.
Another scandal that we broke was the JRI scandal where the prosecutor was setting up a job for a retiring speaker of the house using tax money. They were releasing massive numbers of prisoners, overwhelming the parole officer system, all to provide "clients" for the retiring Speaker of the House's new employer. The problem with that is that it was a repayment for the Speaker pushing the prosecutor's legislation at the House before he retired. And the prosecutor had convicted two politician for attempting to do what he actually did, set up a job for a retiring politician. The Associated Press did a story on JRI and said that our newsletters were studied and discussed by the governor's staff and that they convinced the governor to pull the plug on the JRI program, causing the former Speaker and the prosecutor to leave a meeting in tears. Grow men bawling their eyes out and storming out of a public meeting.... something was very personal there.
Political wives.... yes they need investigating. We just finished a series of stories about a House member that was a sex addict. Cheated on his wife for ten years with the same woman, met her on adultfriendfinderdotcom, liked to be very brutal, extremely so, and took prescription methamphetamine pills before the deed and prescription sedatives afterward to come down off the high so he could go back to work at the Capitol. He finally abandoned the woman and she claims she had an illegitimate child with the House member. In the process of researching we found that the guy's wife had been given a sweetheart job, six figure salary, in a job that she had no qualifications for doing, for a foundation owned by a big oil company and the former owner of the state's largest newspaper. The prosecutor that actually tried the case has a wife that was a ghost worker some years back, same deal, basically a way to bribe officials, employ their family or friends but they never show up for work.
There is also a revolving door between political wives and the State Chamber of Commerce and various government agencies. Same deal, sweet deals offered the wife so the husband votes the right way. Same deal for the well known reporters; the eventually leave to work for the House or Senate in the media division or go to work for one of the big corporations.
As to the charges, the Supreme Court has already knocked down six state blackmail statutes because they are overly broad and vague like the Oklahoma law. Political speech is the most protected form of speech and a public utterance, like that email that was not sent to the senator but was a reply all to a group email that included the senator, is considered free speech. The most famous case was during the Vietnam war protests where a man said that if he was drafted and they put a gun in his hands, the first person he would kill was LBJ. He was arrested but the case was overturned.
Last edited:
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 20K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 12K
-
Discussion Speculation: Zen 4 (EPYC 4 "Genoa", Ryzen 7000, etc.)- Started by Vattila
- Replies: 13K
-
Facebook
Twitter