Representing himself, a Los Banos, California citizen won a 1$17,500 judgment in federal court against the former mayor, Tommy Jones, who cut off his mic at a city council meeting in the middle of his reading from a recall petition directed at Jones. (The Fresno Bee, June 18, 2014, by John Ellis)
The citizen, Gene Forte, celebrated the judgment on his website, The Badger Flat Gazette, and described Jones’ cutting off the mic before his allotted five minutes was up, “I was reading his answer to the Certified Recall petition I had organized against him. Jones violated my First Amendment Right and had me thrown out of the meeting under threat of arrest by then LB Chief Chris Gallagher.” Forte has another lawsuit pending against those he alleges joined with Jones to violate his rights.
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The results are in of my testing the belief of Americans that if a citizen reporter was under attack by the government for exposing public corruption, the newspapers would be up in arms about it…. and regrettably, it is one huge PR hoax orchestrated by the newspapers carnival shilling for the government. . . .
Congratulations to Mr. Forte. He has done a service on behalf of us all. Anytime a citizen can obtain relief from the federal court system without the use of an attorney we are all empowered. This is even more true when you have to fight a government with virtually unlimited resources. While not everyone can accomplish this task because of all of the rules in court, we now know it can be done because of this case. This is what makes America great, the citizen willing to fight to protect his rights.
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