
It’s very strange. Eugene Volokh writes about this ruling in the Washington Post, in a piece entitled, “Transit agency may reject factually false ads.” What in our AFDI ad is factually false? Volokh quotes this from the ruling:
Plaintiffs’ proposed ad states, in prominent text: “The FBI Is Offering Up To $25 Million Reward If You Help Capture One Of These Jihadis.” That statement is demonstrably and indisputably false. The FBI is not offering a reward up to $25 million for the capture of one of the pictured terrorists. The FBI is not offering rewards at all, and the State Department offers a reward of at most $5 million, not $25 million, for the capture of one of the pictured terrorists.
Plaintiffs do not, and cannot, refute those basic facts.
“9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Sharia, Bans Seattle Counter-Terror Ad,” by Pamela Geller, Breitbart, August 12, 2015:
The clowns on the 9th Circuit court have ruled that an FBI global terrorism ad poster cannot run because it might upset Muslims.
This all started back in 2013, when the FBI was running a terrorism awareness campaign featuring bus ads depicting photos of sixteen of the world’s Most Wanted Terrorists.
This was a publicity campaign sponsored by the Joint Terrorism Task Force for the State Department’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program. The ad featured the world’s leading global terrorists. As it happened, all but one were Muslim. Islamic supremacists and their leftist lapdogs demanded the want ad come down, claiming it was insulting to Muslims. The FBI caved and pulled the Seattle-area bus ads featuring the “Faces of Global Terrorism” after receiving complaints “that the ads stereotype Muslims.”
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), believed that this public awareness message was critical to national security and should run. We are constantly being clubbed with the claim that “moderate Muslims” abhor and reject the acts of terrorism that are constantly committed in the name of their religion, so why would they object to a wanted poster featuring Islamic terrorists who supposedly have twisted and hijacked their peaceful religion? Why would “moderate Muslims” provide cover for jihad terror? Why, indeed.
AFDI submitted a virtual copy of the FBI ad to run on Seattle transit. The cowards at Seattle King Metro refused to run the ad, claiming that it was disparaging to Muslims. Reality is disparaging to Muslims?
We sued Seattle King Metro. Predictably, the liberal fascists in Seattle sided with the supremacists. We appealed to the clowns on the notorious 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And now they, as expected, ruled in favor of sharia and supremacism.
Of all the free speech legal battles I am embroiled in, this one is the most absurd. It illustrates the crippling submission and capitulation of government authorities to Islamic supremacist demands. In this ruling, Judge Susan Graber presented the facts in a ridiculously skewed manner: “The FBI is not offering a reward up to $25 million for the capture of one of the pictured terrorists,” she claimed in her ruling. “The FBI is not offering rewards at all, and the State Department offers a reward of at most $5 million, not $25 million, for the capture of one of the pictured terrorists.” She went on to claim that we had not refuted “those basic facts,” which she claimed was “beside the point.” She asserted that it was “indisputable that Plaintiffs’ proposed ad is plainly inaccurate as a simple matter of fact.”
Everything Graber says here is absurd. Yet AP said in the same vein: “The FBI is not offering rewards at all, and the State Department offers a reward of at most $5 million, not $25 million, for the capture of one of the pictured terrorists.” It added that “the judges said Metro’s rejection ‘likely was reasonable.’ ‘Nothing in the record suggests either that Metro would have accepted the ad with the same inaccuracy if only the ad had expressed a different viewpoint or that Metro has accepted other ads containing false statements,’ the ruling said.”
The truth, however, is that we simply ran the FBI ad, with no substantive changes. Seattle Metro accepted the FBI ad and then rejected ours after the FBI caved to Muslim demands to take the ad down. The AFDI ad is exactly the same as the FBI ad that was taken down, except for the attribution and the background color. We didn’t change the amount of the reward for capture of the terrorists, or the source of that reward: our information came straight from the FBI ad, and any assertion to the contrary is a product of Graber’s febrile imagination.
The mainstream media, meanwhile, is just as clueless and compromised. The Associated Press piece that the Seattle Times picked up bore the headline, “Federal court: Anti-Muslim group can’t post ads on buses.” (I was not called for comment — of course.)
The headline reads “anti-Muslim” when in fact we are not anti-Muslim but anti-jihad – that is, against the jihad terrorism that we are always told Muslims in the U.S. reject. But quisling members of the mainstream media can’t say that we are anti-jihad, because most people are anti-jihad, and they want to make sure that no one sympathizes with a cause they have deemed outside the bounds of political correctness.
The AP article read: “The group — whose leader, Pamela Geller, organized the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas that exploded in violence in May — has similar bus ads in other cities and has gone to court with mixed results after some transportation officials rejected them.” Our contest didn’t “explode in violence,” it was attacked by Islamic jihadists. And it wasn’t called the “Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest.” We don’t recognize Muhammad as a prophet. Is the AP a Muslim media company? Does it refer to Jesus Christ as “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”?
AP also claimed that our law firm, the American Freedom Law Center, “has a mixed record on court fights over ads in other cities.” Is a record of consecutive wins a “mixed record”? We won them all — with exception of Boston. We won Detroit, they appealed, and we are still in the throes of that process.
Also, why didn’t AP show the actual ad, so that people could make their own judgments?
We will never give up fighting for the freedom of speech and we will never stop telling the truth about the global jihad. We will appeal to the US Supreme Court.
Paleologos says
This is very sad, Robert.
Is the U.S. going down the slippery slope that is traveled by the U.K.?
(Embracing islamic law, and thereby putrefying its legal system.)
I hope not.
Furthermore, has the world gone mad? We absolutely should be … not only angering muslims, but physically defeating these scum that are slaughtering infidels worldwide.
Oh yes, ladies and gentlemen … Isn’t it obvious?
We must bring back the Crusades!
R/
Paleologos … a Catholic Crusader 🙂
john spielmaan says
so, change the dollar figure to 5 MILLIION not 25 million AND RESUBMIT!!
david wilson says
Don’t blame us, we’re following you.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
What in our AFDI ad is factually false?
What is false here is your belief that facts have anything to do with reality. The judge was looking at your motivation, your intent. We live in an age of Robertsonian justice. The Chief Justice based his decision on the clear intent of what was meant in the ACA, and ruled accordingly. The law isn’t what is says, it is what was meant. And then he had to spend 23 pages explaining why “established by the state” doesn’t really mean established by a state. These are difficult times in which we live, and this poor judge was forced to “adopt a reading” that dealt with your intent and meaning. These two things are malleable, but remember that the U.S. Constitution is a living document, which is to say malleable.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
The headline reads “anti-Muslim” when in fact we are not anti-Muslim but anti-jihad…
There is no separating Islam from Jihad mass murder. To paraphrase Judge Susan Graber, it is a “basic fact” that Jihad mass murder is inseparable from Islam, one of the world’s great religions, one of the three Abrahamic faiths, which makes the distinction between Moslems and Jihad “beside the point” and that this distinction is false is “indisputable and plainly inaccurate as a simple matter of fact.”
So there.
IQ al Rassooli says
Dear readers
“one of the world’s great religions, one of the three Abrahamic faiths” is not only an absurd and false statement but also obscene for the following~
The only conclusion that explains the enormous number of Discrepancies, Distortions, Abnormalities and Stupidities that fill Muhammad’s Quran is that no angel called Gabriel and no god called Allah ever revealed anything to Muhammad because~
Every letter, word, verse and chapter in the Quran are the sole product of Muhammad’s imagination, the secretions of his warped mind but cleverly projected into the unsuspecting mouths of Allah & Gabriel to give them the aura of sanctity & divinity
Therefore Allah is most certainly NOT the God of Jesus Moses and Abraham hence Islam is NOT a religion but a CULT belief system, the cult of Muhammad
Case CLOSED!
IQ al Rassooli
Kafir & Proud!
Wellington says
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is either the most liberal or just about the most liberal of all Circuit Courts. This is why for a very long time now it has regularly been known as the 9th Circus Court of Appeals. If I’m not mistaken, it has had more of its rulings overruled by the Supreme Court than any other Circuit Court, though the Supreme Court nowadays is no real cause to celebrate since there are only really three truly sensible and reliable people left on it (Alito, Thomas and Scalia).
Kathy Brown says
You read my mind Wellington-in the legal community, the 9th is indeed the ‘9th Circus’. Bear in mind that they’re the court which-notwithstanding TWO referendums by the good people of California BARRING same-sex marriage (Prop 8), nonetheless overruled it. TWO separate referenda!
So this is small change for them.
And you’re right, again, in disparaging the Supremes. Indeed-in its present configuration, it lacks all authority. And it’s the CJ himself-Roberts-who’s reduced it to a standing joke.
God help us and save us, these United States of America. Very hard-hitting post Wellington-are you sure you’re not hiding a JD from us?
Wellington says
I do indeed have a JD, Kathy, as some old-time commenters here at JW already know. I believe you are a lawyer too. Hope you are doing well.
Angemon says
Wellington posted:
“This is why for a very long time now it has regularly been known as the 9th Circus Court of Appeals.”
An expected decision, then, seeing which side the clowns are – Reza Aslan, Keith Ellison, etc.
gravenimage says
Good to hear from our two lawyers here.
And of course, there is nothing “liberal” in the true sense about this, Wellington. I would instead characterize this decision as hard-leftist. More appalling appeasement of savagery.
Westman says
It’s amazing how easily a new generation can throw away the rights and freedom paid by the blood, tears, and sacred honor of their ancestors. And for what – a few more years of appeasement with an exponentially increased cost or capitulation at the end?
There has never been another ideology that literally refers to members as, and intends to make everyone it allows to live, a slave. Would the Civil War and Civil Rights simply be footnotes in history or will that history be blotted out by the supremist ideology as if it never existed?
The former slaves of the South were controlled by rulings and legislation referred by the name “Jim Crow”. Perhaps in the same spirit we should coin the term “Grabber” as in “Freedom Grabber” in honor of the honorable Judge Susan Graber. Additional “b” intended. Future laws, rulings, and actions promoting Islam could be called the “Grabber Laws”.
Stephanie says
I am UPSET of their ‘God’ allah’s sadistic qur’anic paragraphs 4:56, 8:12, 47:4, 9:5, 9:29, 9:111, 10:4, 6:70, …
http://192.96.206.71/quranic-amputations-to-sadist-allah.html
PRCS says
The Seattle Times article states:
“The group — whose leader, Pamela Geller, organized the Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas–”
And then states”
“an ad that included the winning entry of the “Draw Mohammad Contest.”
It’s obvious that either staff writers-or an editors-are very confused about the event’s name and it’s purpose.
The Times is not alone in doing this, of course.
mortimer says
Law of hurt feelings. How can a judge be so unintellectual?
An ideology that calls for genocide should be critiqued and condemned by all right-thinking people…especially judges.
Does the judge remember the Nuremburg Trials? Genocidal Nazism was put on trial. Today genocidal jihadism is on trial.
Dave J says
Exactly.
Since when is (speech that) “might upset someone” grounds for censorship, repression and criminalization?
Behold the vacuousness, intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice on the part of those midgets advancing the Liberal/Sharia mindset.
Meanwhile the Muslim Murderers continue, hundreds of innocents are being slaughtered every day.
That definitely upsets me.
Oliver says
Who appointed this judge? I would bet it was a dem.
Champ says
FACES OF GLOBAL TERRORISM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
obama’s face should be pictured there …
templar says
What else would you expect from a junky hippie art fagg city like Seattle.
Timothy says
The Dhimmii in the Western world continues. Here in Florida yesterday I watched on the news how an exclusive muslim prayer room is soon to be opened at the Orlando International Airport. This is despite the fact there already exists an all faith chapel. This was not good enough for the muslims, and the airport, to appease a new airline coming from Kuwait soon, capitulated. It appears that the Western world truly has gone mad. Robert, keep up the good fight, and stay safe please. I’m sure you’re under a hateful watch by the stealth jihadists.
CC says
Simply omit any specific dollar figure and say “the FBI is offering huge rewards for any information leading to the arrest of these most wanted men”