Sunday, February 19, 2012

Mitt's Bully Backer Uses His Billions To Intimidate, Silence Critics - Help Fight Back

Caveat: Everything in post is my Consitutionally protected personal opinion, and if you don't like it, I'm looking at you, Frank, you can sue me. I can always use a good laugh...


Required Reading: Glenn Greenwald has an important story up at Salon about Mitt Romney's billionaire bully Frank VanderSloot. VaderSloot is the CEO of a controversial multi-level marketing company, aka pyramid sales, Melaleuca, Inc., that peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products and is a major power player in right wing politics and the Mormon Church with a long history of anti-gay activism.

VaderSloot is also the finance co-chair of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. In addition, his company, Melaleuca, has donated $1 million to a pro-Romney supposedly independent SuperPAC, Restore Our Future.

Greenwald details how this billionaire bully uses threats of petty, frivolous, but expensive to defend against lawsuits to silence his critics, including major magazines, journalists and even small bloggers that dare to report on VanderSloot's activities. Greenwald writes...
But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuit against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention. In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices
...
This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire.
...
To allow this scheme to continue — whereby billionaires can use their bottomless wealth to intimidate ordinary citizens and media outlets out of writing about them — is to permit the wealthiest in America to thuggishly shield themselves from legitimate criticism and scrutiny.
It's a long piece, and one everyone should read. Greenwald details a number of cases, including the case of a brave blogger fighting back against a Bully's billions. Read the piece, then use your outrage to help journalists and bloggers fight back against this bullying wingnut POS. I, for one, hope this filthy stinking bleephole sues me, too, and I encourage everyone to blog about his despicable actions, spread the word on Facebook and tell everyone you know.

This nasty quackery pushing con-man prick wants to sue anyone and everyone who dares to tell the truth about him? I say let's give him 1 million targets and see how long he can keep it up, then use state laws against using lawsuits as intimidation to prosecute him criminally wherever and whenever possible. Maybe we can give his team of hired Brooks Brothers thugs something to keep them busy when they're not trying to censor VaderSloot's many critics. In the meantime, this bleephole's intimidation, threats and suppression of the free press, and Romney's connection to this POS, will finally get some much deserved attention.

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