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May 11, 2011 
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It's a well-known fact that all libertarian and libertarian-esque thought on this series of tubes is secretly funded by the Koch brothers through their various shadowy, malevolent enterprises. Every time I say something positive about the free market, I get a check for $100 and a hippie gets punched in the face. Every time Patrick criticizes the War on Drugs or police abuse (with, of course, the secret agenda of defunding Medicare and privatizing Social Security), the Kochs send him a bottle of freakishly expensive Scotch, and a union member loses his benefits. We're part of a foul dark army, like Juggalos, only better dressed and less angry at magnets. Serious Deep Thinkers like John Cole have long seen through the crass financial motives of glibertarians like us, and has painstakingly explained that we're all either rich or suffering from false consciousness.
So I want to make it clear that I'm throwing away my chances at a new summer home, and dashing Patrick's hopes of a lavish Fort Sumter theme park, by pointing out that the Koch brothers just got their censorious asses handed to them by Public Citizen in a marvelous First Amendment Ruling.
I've mentioned before how Public Citizen fights the good fight, and why you ought to support them. In this case, they took up the cause of a blogger who made a parody website suggesting that Koch Industries had suddenly gone green — green to the point of Al-Gore-craziness. It was an obvious parody — yet Koch retaliated with a frivolous lawsuit in which they threw a great double-handful of censorious shit against the wall to see what would stick: cyber-squatting, trademark infringement, unfair business practices, and other causes of action commonly used by thuggish businesses who don't want to admit that their true cause of action is "butthurt over being criticized in the first degree." Public Citizen made short work of them, and this week the federal court dismissed the complaint and quashed the Koch subpoenas seeking the identity of the anonymous bloggers who made the parody site. You can read all about it — and read the district court's thorough opinion — over at Public Citizen. Throw them a few shekels while you are there if you can.
The Koch brothers promote any number of causes that support individual freedom over government intrusion — including sorts of freedom not typically supported by Republicans and conservatives. But whether they do or not, this sort of censorious bullshit ought to be called and ridiculed out by everyone — even if it means that Patrick and I will no longer get our free passes for the special showing of Atlas Shrugged at the Paulville A is A Cinemas. Moreover, the sort of law firms and lawyers who bring such SLAPP suits ought to be called out and ridiculed. In this case, the censorious goon — strike that, entirely unsuccessful censorious goon — to be ridiculed is Juliette P. White and of Parsons Behle & Latimer.
This sort of suit is exactly why we should have a federal anti-SLAPP statute that, at a minimum, allows prevailing defendants in cases brought in federal court to recover attorney fees.
We now return you to your normally scheduled efforts to undermine the most important institutions of free America, like the tax system and the Department of Education, through crypto-fascism disguised as concern for individual rights.
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Free Speech, Frivolous Lawsuits
