8/24/17 National Review:
Yesterday Nancy Pelosi granted an interview to a San Francisco television station, and the first ninety seconds are something to behold. She repeated her request that the National Park Service deny a permit to an alleged “alt-right demonstration” called Patriot Prayer. Pelosi said “not allow these elements to use a national park to spew forth their venom.” She then said that “protecting people” was the Park Service’s “first responsibility.” When the interviewer, Pam Moore, pressed Pelosi to consider Patriot Prayer’s First Amendment rights, Pelosi responded, “The Constitution does not say that a person can yell wolf in a crowded theater. If you are endangering people, then you don’t have a constitutional right to do that.”
Third, the quote is wrong. She’s obviously referring to Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous statement in Schenck v. United States that “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Fire. Wolf. Whatever. It’s not important compared to the next point below.
Fourth, anyone who quotes Schenck is quoting bad law. In fact, it’s one of the most “odious free speech decisions in the Court’s history.” The court upheld the Espionage Act conviction of the secretary of the Socialist Party of America for writing and distributing a pamphlet opposing the draft during World War I. Schenck could never be sent to jail for this conduct today.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/450809/yelling-wolf-crowded-theater-nancy-pelosi-flunks-constitutional-lawCan't the Democrats get someone competent?
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