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Title: Cleveland Is Paying $225,000 to a Man Who Burned the American Flag
Source: [None]
URL Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/c ... lag/ar-AACTGY2?ocid=spartandhp
Published: Jun 15, 2019
Author: Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Post Date: 2019-06-15 21:04:01 by BTP Holdings
Keywords: None
Views: 275
Comments: 9

Cleveland Is Paying $225,000 to a Man Who Burned the American Flag

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs 7 hrs ago

© John Minchillo via Associated Press A Cleveland police officer took Gregory L. Johnson into custody after Mr. Johnson set an American flag on fire outside the Republican National Convention in 2016.

After Cleveland police officers arrested Gregory L. Johnson in 2016 as he burned an American flag outside the Republican National Convention, Mr. Johnson sued the city, saying the officers had violated his First Amendment rights.

He should know.

The Supreme Court had ruled decades before that flag burning was a protected form of speech. The case was Texas v. Johnson, and the defendant was the same Gregory L. Johnson. He had doused a flag with kerosene in 1984 during the Republican convention in Dallas.

This week, three decades after the court invalidated prohibitions on flag desecration in 48 states, the city of Cleveland agreed to pay Mr. Johnson $225,000 to settle his claim that officers had retaliated against him for an exercise of free expression.

Mr. Johnson, 63, said in his lawsuit that officers had used fire extinguishers to put out the burning flag and pushed him to the ground during the protest outside the convention hall in July 2016. He was charged with misdemeanor assault after two people claimed they had been burned in the incident. The charges were later dropped, and a judge dismissed charges against 15 other people arrested at the protest.

© David Leeson/Image Works/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images In 1984, Mr. Johnson was arrested for burning a flag outside the Republican National Convention in Dallas. It was a crime in Texas at the time.

Cleveland did not admit to any of the claims in Mr. Johnson’s lawsuit and denied liability, a city spokesman said, adding that the city’s insurer will pay the settlement.

Mr. Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has spent decades protesting what he describes as American imperialism and inequality, and said that he planned to use the settlement money to support causes in line with his ideology. “I’m a full-on volunteer for the revolution,” he said.

Legal experts said they were surprised to learn that Mr. Johnson had been arrested again, in part because the legal precedent for flag burning is clear — and also because they were surprised by his commitment.

“I didn’t know he was still at it,” said Amy Adler, a professor at the New York University School of Law.

The city’s agreement to pay Mr. Johnson to settle the lawsuit was announced just before Flag Day, which has been observed on June 14 for more than a century, although it is not an official federal holiday.

In 1989, when the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that the Texas law under which Mr. Johnson had been charged with burning a flag was unconstitutional, the decision was met with fierce opposition. Months later, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which the Supreme Court overturned the next year.

A Gallup poll in 2005 found that a majority of American adults wanted to allow states to outlaw flag burning. In 2006, a proposed constitutional amendment failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed to be sent to the states for ratification by just one vote.

Leading politicians and presidential candidates from both parties have supported proposals to outlaw some forms of flag burning. On Saturday, President Trump backed a constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Steve Daines of Montana that would ban the practice outright. Mr. Trump suggested after the 2016 election that flag burners should be punished with jail time or loss of citizenship.

There are no signs that the current court will reconsider the issue any time soon, and at least two members of the court’s conservative majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, have indicated that they hold the court’s 1989 decision in high esteem.

Ms. Adler said the most difficult First Amendment cases often involve speech or expression that a large portion of the public finds reprehensible. “It was a very painful case for the court and the country,” Ms. Adler said.

Katie Fallow, a senior lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said many Americans often disagree with court rulings on “lightning rod” issues like flag burning.

“The First Amendment and the Bill of Rights have long been viewed as — and were intended to be — somewhat counter-majoritarian to protect the rights of a minority,” she said, citing opinions that restrict prayer in schools or allow protests near funerals.

One of the nation’s foremost flag wavers, John Janik, chairman of the National Flag Day Foundation, said that although he found flag-burning protests despicable, he does not support laws that seek to criminalize the act.

“Anyone who would disgrace that flag or harm the flag is terrible and deserves all the disrespect you can give him, but this is the land of the free,” Mr. Janik said. “I’m not for a law that takes away that freedom.”

Mr. Johnson said he has burned many flags since he was first arrested for doing it in 1984, but he always does it deliberately, as a form of protest — not on a whim.

“It’s not a gimmick,” he said. “It’s something to make a serious condemnation of this system.”


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#1. To: All (#0)

I missed my calling. This bum is 63 years old and far better off than I am.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2019-06-15   21:05:20 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: BTP Holdings (#0)

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡

"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson

ghostdogtxn  posted on  2019-06-15   21:07:27 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: ghostdogtxn (#2)

Still wanna kick the commie’s ass a bit.

This stunt has paid off for him twice now. Perhaps someone might slip him the yellow submarine. ;)

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2019-06-15   21:10:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: BTP Holdings (#0) (Edited)

Mr. Johnson, a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, ... said that he planned to use the settlement money to support causes in line with his ideology. “I’m a full-on volunteer for the revolution,” he said.


@ Posts #2 and #3 of 4um Title: 50 U.S. Code § 842 - Proscription of Communist Party, its successors, and subsidiary organizations

Communist Control Act of 1954 - Wikipedia

the CCA of 1954 portrayed the American Communist Party as an “agency of a hostile foreign power.”[2] The Party was described as “an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the government,” and as a “clear, present, and continuing danger to the security of the United States.”[2] The Act made membership to the Communist Party a criminal act and stipulated that all Party members would be sanctioned with up to a $10,000 fine or imprisonment for five years or both. Additionally, according to the third section, the Communist Party would be deprived of “the rights, privileges, and immunities of a legal body.” [4]

suspended the citizenship rights of the Communist Party members

The provisions of the act "outlawing" the party have not been repealed


Full text of the Communist Control Act of 1954

U.S. Statutes at Large, Public Law 637, Chp. 886, p. 775-780 | Excerpts:

Findings of Fact

Sec. 2. The Congress hereby finds and declares that the Communist Party of the United States, although purportedly a political party, is in fact an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States. It constitutes an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic, demanding for itself the rights and privileges accorded to political parties, but denying to all others the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

Sec. 4. (b) For the purposes of this section, the term ''Communist Party'' means the organization now known as the Communist Party of the United States of America, the Communist Party of any State or subdivision thereof, and any unit or subdivision of any such org.

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"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC

GreyLmist  posted on  2019-06-16   13:24:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: GreyLmist (#4)

Communist Control Act of 1954 - Wikipedia

the CCA of 1954 portrayed the American Communist Party as an “agency of a hostile foreign power.”[2] The Party was described as “an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the government,” and as a “clear, present, and continuing danger to the security of the United States.”[2] The Act made membership to the Communist Party a criminal act and stipulated that all Party members would be sanctioned with up to a $10,000 fine or imprisonment for five years or both. Additionally, according to the third section, the Communist Party would be deprived of “the rights, privileges, and immunities of a legal body.” [4]

suspended the citizenship rights of the Communist Party members

The provisions of the act "outlawing" the party have not been repealed

That's very interesting. I didn't know that. But it doesn't seem to have slowed down the lawyers:

Transcript: Information from 81st Congress - the National Lawyers Guild is a Communist Party along with the Bar Association

http://www.truedemocracy.net/hj36/16.html [short story]

http://www.rayservers.com/blog/rod-class-transcript-info-from-81st-congress--- the-national-lawyers-guild-is-a-communist-party-along-with-the-bar-association [long story]

THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD - Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party ...

[Congressional Report - 1950 investigative committee on un-American activities]

debs.indstate.edu/u588r47_1950.pdf

This reminded me of the original Thirteenth Amendment:

The Original Thirteenth Article of Amendment To The Constitution For The United States

This Article of Amendment, ratified in 1819 and which just "disappeared" in 1876, added an enforceable strict penalty, i.e., inability to hold office and loss of citizenship, for violations of the already existing constitutional prohibition in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 on titles of nobility and other conflicts of citizenship interest, such as accepting emoluments of any kind for services or favors rendered or to be rendered, and is particularly applicable today in the 21st Century as government is increasingly FOR SALE to the highest bidder, as foreign and multinational corporations and individuals compete to line the pockets of politicians and political parties to accommodate and purchase protection or privilege, i.e. honors, for their special interests.

...Since the creditors of this bankruptcy [of the United States government] are foreign powers and this "unacountable committee of lawyers'" spoken of by Robert H. Bork have accepted and retained the "office of trustee" for these creditors and foreign powers, their Citizenship has been forfeited by this acceptance...

The prohibition of titles of nobility estops the claim of eminent domain through fictions of law. Eminent domain is the legal euphemism for expropriation, and unreasonable seizure given sanction by the targets of this amendment.

Here is the original 13th amendment to the United States Constitution that was ratified in 1819. Then attorneys caused it to disappear in order to establish their claim of superiority with Titles of Nobility over the people. The total ramifications of this earlier 13th Amendment being unlawfully removed are very serious.

Article 13, ratified in 1819, reads as follows:

"If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them."...

Analysis of the Real 13th Amendment

This amendment was meant to keep citizens of the United States from accepting titles of nobility from foreign powers. The best example of this would be honorary "knighthoods" given by the rulers of England to people around the world who have performed a service for humanity...

Esquire

A title applied by attorneys to themselves, to officers of the court, to members of the bar, and others of ill repute. No one in the United States is entitled to it by law, and therefore, it confers, no distinction in law.

In England, it is a title next above that of a gentleman, and below a knight. Camden records four kinds of esquires, particularly regarded by the heralds:

1. The eldest sons of knights and their eldest sons, in perpetual succession.

2. The eldest sons of the younger sons of peers, and their eldest sons in like perpetual succession.

3. Esquires created by the king's letters patent, or other investiture, and their eldest sons.

4. Esquires by virtue of their office, as justices of the peace, and others who bear any office of trust under the crown.

NOBILITY. An order of men in several countries to whom privileges are granted at the expense of the rest of the people.

The constitution of the United States provides that no state shall " grant any title of nobility; and no person can become a citizen of the United States until he has renounced all titles of nobility." The Federalist, No. 84; 2 Story, Laws U. S. 851. .....

* First, "titles of nobility" were prohibited in both Article VI of the Articles of Confederation (1777) and in Article I, Sections 9 and 10 of the Constitution of the United States (1787);

* Second, although already prohibited by the Constitution, an additional "title of nobility" amendment was proposed in 1789, again in 1810, and according to Dodge, finally ratified in 1819.

Clearly, the founding fathers saw such a serious threat in "titles of nobility" and "honors" that anyone receiving them would forfeit their citizenship. Since the government prohibited "titles of nobility" several times over four decades, and went through the amending process (even though "titles of nobility" were already prohibited by the Constitution), it's obvious that the Amendment carried much more significance for our founding fathers than is readily apparent today....

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/13th.htm

The Communist Control Act of 1954 came close on the heels of the Congressional Report on the National Lawyers Guild. It seems to me that is whom this Act was intended for, one more attempt since the founding to curtail the power of the lawyers. At any rate, while I can certainly appreciate some people's animosity toward flag- burners, I think the Lawyers Guild is a much bigger concern and threat to our freedoms. Sheesh. How many lawyers are there in Congress anyway?

Luke 11-46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers

"...as long as there..remain active enemies of the Christian church, we may hope to become Master of the World...the future Jewish King will never reign in the world before Christianity is overthrown - B'nai B'rith speech http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/luther.htm / http://bible.cc/psalms/83-4.htm

AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt  posted on  2019-06-20   23:58:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#5)

one more attempt since the founding to curtail the power of the lawyers.

Remember that when the French Revolution started they killed all the lawyers first. ;)

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2019-06-21   6:48:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: BTP Holdings (#6)

I guess it's too late for that, and they're the toadies of the banksters anyway, who have already absconded with our wealth. I woke up today thinking that even if we rolled back all the fraudulent laws back to 1812 which is when Virginia actually ratified [records being destroyed when the British burned DC...how convenient], it would probably just cause chaos, which would of course play right into their WWIII plans, which are nothing short of Satanic. The lawyers in Congress have probably converted their billions they have stolen into gold and other holdings so they think they won't be affected when it all comes crashing down, but....

Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death.

https://biblehub.com/proverbs/11-4.htm

"...as long as there..remain active enemies of the Christian church, we may hope to become Master of the World...the future Jewish King will never reign in the world before Christianity is overthrown - B'nai B'rith speech http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/luther.htm / http://bible.cc/psalms/83-4.htm

AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt  posted on  2019-06-21   10:13:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#7)

bump those thoughts

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken

Lod  posted on  2019-06-21   10:20:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#5) (Edited)

The Communist Control Act of 1954 [4um Refs.] came close on the heels of the Congressional Report on the National Lawyers Guild. It seems to me that is whom this Act was intended for, one more attempt since the founding to curtail the power of the lawyers. At any rate, while I can certainly appreciate some people's animosity toward flag-burners, I think the Lawyers Guild is a much bigger concern and threat to our freedoms. Sheesh. How many lawyers are there in Congress anyway?


How many senators and congressmen are lawyers in 2018? - Quora.com Answer:

167 members of Congress [38%] and 55 senators [55%] are.


The 2nd link that I included above is for a Wayback Machine copy of the Congressional Report on the National Lawyers Guild. Short excerpts:

September 21, 1950.

COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The National Lawyers Guild is the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, its front organizations, and controlled unions.


Re: the original Thirteenth Amendment

Here's a Wikipedia link with excerpts on the Titles of Nobility Amendment aka the missing Thirteenth Amendment:

a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The 11th Congress passed it on May 1, 1810, and submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. It would strip United States citizenship from any citizen who accepted a title of nobility from an "emperor, king, prince or foreign power." On two occasions between 1812 and 1816, it was within two states of the number needed to become part of the Constitution. Congress did not set a time limit for its ratification, so the amendment is still pending before the states. Ratification by an additional 26 states is now needed for its adoption.

Text

If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.

This proposed amendment would amplify both Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, which prohibits the federal government from issuing titles of nobility or honor, and Section 10, Clause 1, which prohibits the states from issuing them.


Thanks for the interesting info. On the flag-burning issue, I'm going to guesstimate that the vast majority of "protesters" burning the American flag in violation of Fire Hazard Laws, Public Safety Laws and Property Laws also want Conservative Americans confined to "Free Speech Zones" in the boondocks, far away from Leftist subversives -- and also want to ban them entirely from the public squares of cyberspace, too. If garbage with a hammer and sickle flag on top was burned in the U.S. in front of a Communist locale, would the Police, Fire crews and the "Supreme Court" call it simply a 1st Amendment Freedom of Expression Right or not? I'm going to guess: not.

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"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC

GreyLmist  posted on  2019-06-21   11:05:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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