As you have probably seen
upon your entry into the
VFJ Home Page, there is
a troubling and harrowing
story about a guy named
Joe Oliver devoting his every
waking minute to stalking
and harassing our VFJ founder,
Billy Ray Kidwell.

In the past weeks I have had
my own nose-to-nose showdown
with a small group of retarded
assholes who felt the need
to sabotage our news and
email exchange in The Veterans
Circuit after I added them to
our list, not really knowing
what their motives were.

We are in a political protest
environment where assholes
seem to come out of the
woodwork everywhere and have
to be shut down and dealt with
pronto, as they threaten
the very things that we
do to push ahead our cause
for medical justice in the
VA system. These moments
are not fun for us.

More often than not, these
asshole crowds are mental
illness cases, illiterates
who cannot read, Parrot-Head
bravado Nazi's who feel that
we should be rubber-stamping
every little Blip that the
VA boneheads put out, and
low I.Q. morons who can't
seem to think their own
way out of a wet paper bag.
LOL !!! What to do?

There's a fine line between
issuing arguments and
political "rhetoric" to
the government, and crossing
over the breaches of state
criminal law into misdemeanor
and felony La-La-Land.

So for the assholes and would-be
assholes who are plotting
their next move in our national
Veterans protest and advocacy
arena, Heads Up to YOU and
get a load of what you are
flirting with.

One of the most abused
and heavily prosecuted criminal
law statute in the State
of New York is the state
Harassment laws. I have
seen this abused with
my own eyes against developmentally
disabled people who had no
definitive understanding of
the legal procedings that they
had found themselves involved
in.

It's not until you open
the state Criminal Penal Code
of where you live, that you
find all the careful wording
distinctions between the
various "Degrees" of this
prosecution category. So
I bring you this message
with caution as the words
really do set up the boundaries
on what is legal and what
is not.

In New York it is under
CPL 240.25 Harassment (general)
where the law says as follows:

"A person is guilty of
harassment when with intent
to harass, annoy, or alarm
another person:

1. he attempts or threatens to
subject him to physical contact OR

2. He engages in a course of
conduct or repeatedly commits acts
which alarm or seriously annoy such
other person and which serves no
legitimate purpose.

In Aggravated Harassment in the
Second Degree which is a Class
A misdemeanor under CPL 240.30
the statutes get a little narrower:

A person is guilty of
aggravated harassment in the second
degree when, with intent to harass,
annoy, threaten, or alarm another
person, he:

1. Communicates, or causes a
communication to be initiated
by mechanical or electronic
means, by telephone or telegraph
mail or any other form of written
communication, in a manner
likely to cause annoyance or
alarm OR

2. Makes a telephone call, whether
or not a conversation ensues,
with no purpose of legitimate
communication.

A caveat here is worth mentioning.

If you are the asshole who is
starting all the trouble, then
those of us who turn around
and call you an asshole to make
you stop all the trouble is
NOT subject to prosecution under
these laws.

Defensive language is totally
legal once the perpetrator has
set things into motion.

The Harassment laws vary from
state to state only in slight
wording changes, but the
boundaries are nearly the same
in result.

It's not until you have had
your life tied up in Police
Court for 1 or 2 full years
on a lousy misdemeanor charge
that eventually goes to criminal
TRIAL that you start to understand
the full and complete mudhole
that you have just stepped into
just by running your mouth
in what you and your pea-sized
brain "thought" was "free-speech".
It isn't.

One police report is all it
takes to have your sorry ass
slapped with a criminal court
SUMMONS and Buddy you are in
for the legal hassle of a lifetime
on a charge that is small in
nature, but big in PROCESS.

Anybody who thinks that it's
open season on political
Veterans in this arena, whether
they are protesters or advocates,
doesn't matter -- criminal law
is the law -- and your Motor-Mouth
may very well be your ticket
to certain doom if any one of
us decides to strike back.

The law is on OUR side, not
yours. So heads up to the
Tweedle Dee's of America who
think they can slime all over
this Vets arena to those
who are rightfully doing a
good job in advancing our
national political goals.