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Appeals Court Hands Win to Man Sent to Jail Over Hillary Clinton Meme

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Joke around about Hillary, go to jail.

Indeed, it’s gotten that bad.

Except maybe when an adult steps in and rules Douglass Mackey can remain free while he appeals his case.

You may recall Mackey, also known as Ricky Vaughn, was convicted earlier this year for posting a comic meme in 2016 that told voters for Hillary Clinton to avoid lines and “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925 Vote for Hillary and be a part of history,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.

It was, of course, a joke.

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But Democrats were not amused, and their Justice Department said with a straight face that Mackey was involved in “election interference,” and Mackey was looking at 10 years in prison after a Brooklyn, New York, jury convicted him of “conspiracy against rights.”

These are the same Democrats who weren’t joking when they used their, um, creative efforts to suppress the Hunter Biden story during the 2020 election.

In October, Mackey received a seven-month sentence in federal prison. But Monday, the U.S. Second Court of Appeals stayed his surrender date and ruled he could remain free while appealing his conviction, Just the News reported.

Has the federal government become weaponized against conservatives?

There’s a lot riding on the case, as defined by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who took to X, formerly Twitter, to call it “One of the worst violations of free speech of our time!”

Tucker Carlson agreed in his X post, saying “The First Amendment is done” and included a compelling interview he recently did with Mackey.

To many, Mackey’s obvious crime was being a Trump supporter, and he told Carlson he thought that was his right as an American.

The meme he posted was not original with him but was already on the internet, and as a joke Mackey posted it as satire, he told Carlson

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He said he was unaware of having done anything wrong until more than four years later when, seven days after Joe Biden was inaugurated, about eight or more law enforcement agents came to his door at 7 a.m. and arrested him, handcuffing him without telling him the charges until they arrived at a courthouse.

Mackey said he had no idea what was going on and told Carlson his initial thoughts were “I knew that politicians could be vindictive and the federal government sometime could be influenced by those politicians … and I know that they can sort of get very creative with the federal statutes, so if I was the enemy of their candidate, then I thought maybe they could cook something up.”

Patrick Casey, writer and host of “Restoring Order,” posted “Had Douglas Mackey burned down a building for BLM instead of posting memes he wouldn’t be facing seven months in prison.”

Casey’s post was accompanied by a post from The Blaze indicating two individuals who burned an Atlanta Wendy’s in a BLM riot and were subject to only a $500 fine and no jail time.

A defense fund for Mackey can be found here.

Here’s hoping the legal appeals will eventually free both Mackey and what remains of the First Amendment.


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[v] 7:39 of Carlson X video

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Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.




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