Ever met a Judge in America who is against Free Speech? We have.

 

As regular readers will know, a sitting Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Judge Grine of Centre County, sued The McShane Firm and Attorney TC Tanski to try to muzzle protected political speech. As I wrote earlier (Justice or an Abortion of Justice? Are some Judges and the Elected DA in Centre County out of Control? and #SpeakTruthToPowerInCentreCounty hearing is at 9 am April 2, 2015 at the Centre County Courthouse Annex and Does Bruce Castor’s association with Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller rightfully raise eyebrows? Is Castor’s acceptance of being appointed as a “Special Deputy District Attorney” call into question his decision-making?):

In his now unsealed documents, Grine seeks the unprecedented and never before granted outcome of forcing a member of the public (Tanski and The McShane Firm) to shred, return and never mention any documents that it may or may not have obtained from the lawful Right-to-Know request.

No other member of the public or elected official would ever argue for such a remedy, let alone possibly attain it.

If presidents Richard Nixon and Barack Obama could not manage to get permanent injunctions against the publication of the Pentagon Papers or Wikileaks, how can a county judge think he could obtain an even more drastic outcome and attack against the First Amendment?

Two sitting presidents dealing with matters of national security could not get this type of relief, but a county court judge who claims that this is a matter of reputation can file his petition and get this emergency injunction granted by a fellow judge in that same jurisdiction within two minutes. That’s right; two minutes!

No other litigant in Centre County would get such a speedy, unprecedented result.

 

Here is Judge Grine’s amazing argument to erase the First Amendment in the United States of America. Read for yourself: Time-Stamped Supplemental Brief in Support of Plaintiff’s PI (A4437474)

 

 

After you read it, consider this great quotes through history:

“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. ― George Washington

“The only security of all is in a free press.” ― Thomas Jefferson

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”  [Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]” ― Harry S. Truman

“The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.”  [Beauharnais v.Illinois, 342 U.S. 250, 287 (1952) (dissenting)]” ― William O. Douglas

“Truthfully, wicked people reveal themselves in words first, to inhibit speech would inhibit us seeing the wicked before they act.” ― Leviak B. Kelly

“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession

“Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth.” ― Liu Xiaobo

“The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.” ― Hugo Black

“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” ― Frederick Douglass

“Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.” ― William O. Douglas

“All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let’s get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States — and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!” ― Kurt Vonnegut

“When the public’s right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered.” ― Christopher Dodd

“Freedom of speech is, to all Americans, as oxygen is to the human condition. It is a right that has been irreversibly programmed into our hard drive. We are free to speak our minds.” ― John C. McGinley

 

Judge Grine wishes to silence critics and erase The First Amendment

Finally, many have asked us our view of why don’t we just give up. I am reminded by this one quote:

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” ― William Lloyd Garrison