Free Speech Under Assault in Landmark Montana Case

• Americans need to be aware: Internet speech rights threatened.

By John Friend —

A 28-year-old man is being charged and prosecuted for “hate crimes” in Flathead County, Montana, after he allegedly threatened children and Jews in a series of posts he made to his personal social media account on the Internet.

Over the years, David Joseph Lenio, formerly of Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been extremely critical of Israel and has openly questioned aspects of WWII, including the so-called “Holocaust,” on the Internet. Now these views are being used against him by a state prosecutor, who is seeking to criminalize speech on the Internet.

It all started when Jonathan Hutson, chief communications officer for the anti-gun Brady Campaign and Center to Prevent Gun Violence, intercepted and monitored what Lenio had been posting on the Internet after Lenio responded to comments Hutson originally made online about a shooting at a synagogue in Copenhagen, Denmark last February.

Hutson reported Lenio to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement authorities, who worked together to eventually locate and arrest Lenio on February 16 in Montana, according to local reports.

Lenio has been charged with intimidation for allegedly threatening schoolchildren.

But even more shocking is that he has also been charged with criminal defamation for remarks he made that were critical of Jews—a charge that has many in the legal profession concerned.

The libertarian-leaning news outlet “Reason” recently published an article questioning the legality of the Montana prosecutor’s decision to pursue criminal defamation charges against Lenio.

The prosecution has argued that “Lenio made defamatory statements about Jews by suggesting that they have degraded the economy and dislike free speech and by stating that the Holocaust was a lie,” according to a commentary written by journalist Elizabeth Nolan Brown and published on Reason’s website.

Lenio is essentially being prosecuted, at least in part, for his opinions about Jews.

As Ms. Brown suggests, the precedent being set in Montana, if successful, is “terrifying,” as anyone making critical remarks about a specific group of people—police officers, librarians, city officials, etc.—could potentially be charged with criminal defamation.




 
 
 

“It is morally repugnant and legally offensive for a governmental actor to proclaim what American citizens must think or say,” attorney Kyle Bristow, who is licensed to practice law in Michigan and Ohio, recently explained to AMERICAN FREE PRESS. “The prosecution of Lenio for his political viewpoints that do not call for criminal activity is unconstitutional.”

Bristow continued: “A state actor’s criminal prosecution of an American citizen due to that citizen’s political speech and beliefs is clearly violative of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Whereas the First Amendment places restrictions against the federal government, the Fourteenth imposes similar restrictions against state actors, and in the Montana case, the Montana prosecutor is certainly stepping over a line. Despite what the Montana prosecutor apparently thinks, there is no such thing as a lawful ‘aggravated thought crime’ prosecution in the United States of America.”

Bristow also elaborated on the importance of free speech.

“Free speech rights—as codified by the Constitution but having existed for well over 2,000 years per our Western legal tradition—exist specifically to protect people like Lenio, because such rights need not be invoked by non-controversial people like old women who decide to form a garden club,” Bristow noted. “As our country becomes less European with less of an appreciation for European ideals—such as individual liberty—constitutional freedoms, which we take for granted, will be jeopardized. This is what is going on now as evidenced by the Lenio prosecution and in other states in which Christian bakers are being told they must bake wedding cakes for homosexuals or face significant fines.”

Lenio’s case is unfolding as the organized Jewish community, both in America and around the world, is attempting to criminalize “anti-Semitism” on an international scale, which in reality constitutes any criticism of Jews or Israel.




In California, pro-Israel groups are lobbying the state’s public university system to deem anti-Israel protests, along with the entire movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, as “anti-Semitic” and thus morally reprehensible and eventually illegal.

At the United Nations General Assembly earlier this year, an informal plenary session was held on alleged “anti-Semitic” violence and attitudes worldwide. It marked the first time that “anti-Semitism” was officially addressed at that international body. As a result of pro-Israel demands to have “anti-Semitism” combated at the international level, the governments of both France and Germany openly called for legal measures to “address the diffusion of racist and anti- Semitic speeches and material,” which really amounts to criminalizing all speech and ideas the Jews do not like.

Dr. Kevin B. MacDonald, editor of The Occidental Quarterly as well as The Occidental Observer, told AFP: “Jewish organizations throughout the West have called for limitations on free speech. Whereas Jewish organizations were strong proponents of free speech in the 1950s and 1960s in order to protect Jews who were members of the Communist Party or other radical groups, they now advocate limitations on free speech because the left is now dominant in the media and culture generally. Interests, not principles like free speech, are important.”

Bristow added: “The Montana prosecutor is engaged in ‘hard despotism’ by using the sword of the state to punish a citizen in the form of possible jail time and fines. What is very common in our country is what non-governmental actors do concerning controversial political speech. ‘Soft despotism’ occurs when a person is ostracized and/or suffers job loss due to non-governmental actors attacking their reputation, which is the modus operandi of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. Soft despotism exists in our country already. Now we get to see if Montana will be the beginning of a regime of hard despotism.”

Americans of all political persuasions who care about genuine freedom would be wise to follow the Lenio case closely, as well as the tyrannical agenda of the organized pro-Israel community.

The basic human rights of freedom of speech and thought, enshrined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, are under frontal assault in America by petty tyrants who expect the masses to uncritically and blindly go along with their agenda. This reporter and this newspaper will certainly not be intimidated or silenced.

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John Friend is a California-based writer who maintains a blog.

12 Comments on Free Speech Under Assault in Landmark Montana Case

  1. The Black Panthers get on CNN and proudly proclaim that they are arming in order to kill all white people. The Jew Gus Hall explicitly states that they long for the day and will eventually murder every Christian whilst strangling the last congressman with the guts of preachers. Towel-heads march and demand death to non-Muslims. La Raza preaches white genocide for imagined wrongs. So why arrest this fellow? Hmmm…
  2. This is absolutely ridiculous and yet another sign both of the corruption and obvious direction toward totalitarianism our government is headed. Many hold the belief that both Judaism as well as Islam are somehow connected to the end times. The Jews essentially rebuked Christ as our savior. Yes, perhaps it was the priests and so not all Jews, but listen, those folks followed the leader rather for fear of death or otherwise. As for Islam, well, it speaks for itself. Frankly in recent times Judaism is also speaking for itself. This is just stupid and again a sign of Christian persecution coming.
  3. But then, on the other hand…

    Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the people of this world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind, and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago. And so I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew, I am defending the handiwork of the Lord.

    —Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

  4. In the present case, political fallout from an actual hate speech conviction should be anticipated as not worth the exposure to wider resentment leading Team Z handlers to make him apologize publicly out of their great well of compassion.

    Leaving him to still go down for threatening to shoot school kids, but it turns out Montana law doesn’t take such banter seriously unless made against specific persons.

    Six months: suspended sentence and loss of face; i.e. required psych treatment.

  5. The ancient Chinese warrior/philosopher, Sun Tzu, put it best in his book, entitled The Art of War. Among the list of guidelines, he put “Know your Enemy and Yourself” at the top.

    If we don’t know who our enemy(ies) is (are), we can never achieve victory; but, instead, suffer defeat. This matters not only in warfare, but also in geopolitics and finance, as well as in winning the hearts and minds of the populace.

    So, among the reasons Sun Tzu was able to unite China’s separate provinces into one nation under Emperor Wong-Di was knowing who his/Wong-Di’s enemies were and who he, himself, was. We all sorely need to follow that principle, before we can speak the truth to the world.

  6. Who has he physically harmed? No one. Thus, according to our real system, he has committed no crime.
  7. How does a criminal mafia protect itself from the laws that govern common man? Make it a crime to question their crimes.

    Make it a crime, too, to question their lies about what really happened in WW2. The perpetual victims can no longer be victims if the truth comes out can it? Victimhood = another ploy to get away with their crimes.

    David Joseph Lenio is a hero and should be treated as such. Not many have his courage.

  8. Claiming to be a white nationalist and tweeting about how you would go on a shooting spree on a school only serves one purpose: Making white nationalists look bad. And make every other American despise and distance themselves from anything the white nationalists stand for.

    100% plant. White people don’t even think about shooting schoolchildren. The idea is simply appalling to them.

    What we are up against is indeed formidable, FJ.

    But let’s simplify: catch them in the act (lying) and prove it beyond any doubt. Make sure people hear and understand why they are lying. Point out *who* is lying too. No one bothers to identify the enemy, and that is a huge part of the problem.

    I think Jews just use variations on ‘formulas’ and know how to create setups off-the-cuff. They’ve had 100 years of modern practice (and longer) and now it’s just standard operating procedure. When a formula for a setup doesn’t work, there’s always a backup plan. If they can’t win their objective, they opt for confusion, mind games, and sabotage. When that doesn’t work, they resort to force, to ruin. But then force and ruin lead to awakenings.

    These Svengalis are running out of variations. They’re scraping around the bottom of their bags of tricks. They can only reach the bottom by getting exposed.

  9. Lenio should not be being prosecuted, he should be being committed to a mental institution and added to the gun list. It matters not whit if you agree with him or not, only a prospective mental patient puts that hate and kill stuff online. Only an idiot denies history, all of which are characteristics of deranged out-of-control individuals.
  10. Someone needs to send Stacy Boman a copy of the U.S. Constitution. Also, she could be potentially charged under Title 18, sections 241-242. She’s guilty of a major felony!
  11. Hate hoax.

    Total set-up. The kook/plant is a crypto, of the Breivik make.

    David Joseph Lenio is a Jewish plant, trying to infiltrate white nationalist communities, tweeting extreme rants to gain credibility and acceptance, either his plan backfired or the arrest is also part of building his credibility among the white nationalists in Montana.

    It’s a set-up. An attempt to delegitimize awakened Americans and the imperatively important subjects which awakened Americans have involved their lives with, by associating the veneer of homicidal insanity and total ugliness with those subjects.

    It too-perfectly fits the typical SPLC/ADL formula of bogusly connecting ‘mental illness’ or otherwise criminal impulses to people who spread truth about the holocaust and false flag terrorism, etc.

    What’s keeping more people from coming out on Facebook and Twitter other than the fact that the Jews in charge of those companies will suspend your account and disappear your posts?

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