UNITED STATES Court of Appeals
for the
FIRST CIRCUIT
*Sam Sloan, )*
* Plaintiff-Appellant ) 16-1885*
*v. ) Civil Action No.*
*Hearst Media Company, ) 16 CV 052 (PB)*
*WMUR TV Station, and )*
*Deborah Wasserman Schultz )*
* )*
* Defendants-Appellees )*
*Appellants Brief*
*Statement of the Case*
*The plaintiff-appellant was and still is a registered candidate for
President of the United States. He is registered with the Federal Election
Commission as a Democratic Party Candidate. *
*As is well known, candidates for election run in primary elections and
appear in caucuses in order to get enough delegates so as to receive the
Democratic Party nomination. Candidates run TV ads and try to make as many
public appearances as possible.*
*This case arose first when Plaintiff went to Iowa in January to compete in
the Iowa Caucuses. He had been invited to compete in the Iowa Democratic
Caucuses by Dr. Andy Maguire, Chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. *
*Plaintiff came to Iowa with TV ads that had been prepared by his
videographer to run on TV there, just as the other Democratic Party
candidates were doing. Plaintiff had 21 campaign ads available on youtube
by searching for “Sam Sloan for Presidency”. *
*Plaintiff contacted KCCI, the major TV station is Des Moines Iowa.
However, on February 1, 2016, after several exchanges of emails, Plaintiff
seemed to be making progress in having KCCI to book his ads, when the sales
manager Amanda B Hull <**AHull@hearst.com* <AHull@...>*> wrote by
email stating his ads would not be broadcast “because the information you
have provided does not give us a basis to consider you a legally qualified
candidate; i.e., you have not provided a sufficiently substantiated claim
of bona fide candidacy in Iowa for President of the United States.”*
*Plaintiff thereafter received telephone calls and emails from counsel for
Hearst Media Stephen Hartzell <**SHARTZELL@...*
<SHARTZELL@...>*> who stated:*
*"we are agreeing to disagree over whether you have met your burden to
substantiate bona fide candidacy for the office of President in the state
of Iowa under the threshold established by the Communications Act and FCC
regulations and decisions. Even if we agreed on that point, the timeliness
issue was still problematic for your request today, based on the timing of
your request, the timing of the Caucus, and the deadlines set forth in
KCCI's Disclosure Statement and consistently enforced by KCCI with respect
to opposing candidates.*
*"As Plaintiff mentioned on the phone, Plaintiff can assure you that every
Hearst Television station that receives a request for time from you will
fairly evaluate the bona fides of your candidacy in the state at issue. And
they will also abide by the terms of their Disclosure Statements.*
*"And, as we discussed, if you make another request for time from KCCI in
connection with the General Election, the station will make a judgment at
that time about your status as a "legally qualified candidate" for that
election, under applicable FCC regulations and case precedent. Of course,
KCCI's Disclosure Statement and applicable deadlines for advertising will
be applied to any such future request as well.”*
*"Sincerely, *
*"Stephen Hartzell*
*"Brooks Pierce*
*"Counsel to KCCI"*
*Plaintiff replied to Hearst Media as follows on Feb 1, 2016, at 5:13 PM,
Sam Sloan <**samhsloan@...* <samhsloan@...>*> and wrote:*
“*I spoke to Mr. Hartzell just now. I explained that last month I met with
Dr. Andy Maguire Chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party and she said that I
was eligible and welcome to run in the Iowa Caucuses. Therefore I am
shocked that you would suggest that I was not a bona fide Democratic Party
candidate. This is my third trip to Iowa pertaining to my candidacy. I came
to Iowa both for the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in November and for a debate
a few weeks later.*
“*In our telephone conversations, Mr. Hartzell said that in order to
establish that I was a bona fide candidate for President of the United
States I would have to be on the ballot in ten different states. I pointed
out that almost none of the existing recognized candidates were on the
ballot in ten different states yet they were running their ads non-stop on
TV.”*
*Plaintiff informed Mr. Hartzell that Plaintiff would be going to New
Hampshire next. Following his lack of success in Iowa, Plaintiff drove his
rental car to New Hampshire where Plaintiff was already on the ballot for
the New Hampshire Primary. Plaintiff felt that surely they could not refuse
to run his TV ads there as Plaintiff was on the ballot.*
*The major TV station in New Hampshire is WMUR TV Station in Manchester.
Plaintiff sent them several emails and made telephone calls leaving voice
messages. Receiving no reply, Plaintiff went to their TV station which was
surrounded with Secret Service Agents. They opened the door to let another
candidate in. Plaintiff gave them his card and told them that Plaintiff was
a candidate too. The lady at the door said “We know who you are”. She had
obviously been informed by Mr. Hartzell that Plaintiff would be coming.
Plaintiff asked her to ask her superiors to let him in. She said she would
find out and come back. She came back a few minutes later and said
Plaintiff would not be admitted and asked him to leave the building.
Plaintiff was escorted out by the Secret Service.*
*By then, Plaintiff had found out that Hearst Media Company owns both TV
stations, KCCI in Des Moines Iowa and WMUR in Manchester, New Hampshire.*
*Having no other options, Plaintiff went to the federal courthouse and
filed this case. At the time Plaintiff filed this case, the primary
election was taking place. The polling places were open. Had Plaintiff been
allowed to run his ads on TV and gotten his message to the people,
Plaintiff is confident Plaintiff would have won the primary election.*
*The reason is his message is the message the vast majority of Americans
want to hear. Plaintiff wants to pull all of our troops out of the Middle
East. Plaintiff wants to let the people over there fight their own wars.
Plaintiff says we Americans should stay out of it.*
*All the other candidates are War Hawks. Most of the Republican candidates
want to bomb the countries of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. They
compete with each other and brag about how many bombs they plan to drop
here and there and how many US troops they will send to remote places we
cannot even find on the map. They even want to bomb Iran, although Iran has
declared no war against us.*
*It became apparent and obvious that the real reason Hearst Media Company
and its two TV stations KCCI in Des Moines Iowa and WMUR in Manchester, New
Hampshire would not allow paid ads to run favoring Sam Sloan for President
was that the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Deborah
Wasserman Schultz was only allowing two candidates to appear in the
Democratic Party Debates. Strangely, one of those two was not even a member
of the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders who says he is a “Democratic
Socialist” had never joined the Democratic Party.*
*The general public has been under the impression that only two Democrats
are running. This is not true. 232 people filed with fec.gov
<http://fec.gov> to run for President as Democrats. One of them was
“Bernard Sanders”. On January 19, 2016 Saint Anselm College in Manchester
NH held a “Lesser-known presidential candidates debate” in which 18
Democratic Party candidates participated, including Plaintiff. The names of
25 candidates appeared on the ballot in New Hampshire Democratic Party
Primary, including the name of Plaintiff.*
*Meanwhile only two Democratic Party Candidates had ads running on TV. The
TV ads for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were running back-to-back
non-stop 24 hours from morning to night on WMUR TV, a station owned by
Hearst Media. *
*Plaintiff was not the only candidate shut out. Rocky De La Fuente , a
medical doctor in San Diego California, spent more than three million
dollars according to FEC filings running for President and got his name on
31 primary election ballots, yet he was not able to get his ads running on
TV.*
*The Relevant statute 47 U.S. Code § 315 - Candidates for public office
states:*
*(a) Equal opportunities requirement; censorship prohibition; allowance of
station use; news appearances exception; public interest; public issues
discussion opportunities. If any licensee shall permit any person who is a
legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting
station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates
for that office in the use of such broadcasting station.*
*This seems to be an open-and-shut case. Plaintiff was on the ballot in New
Hampshire. Plaintiff had professionally produced video ads ready to run.
Some of these same ads had already run on the major TV channels in New York
including NBC, Telemundo and Univision when Plaintiff was running for
United States Congress. Plaintiff has 25 professionally produced campaign
ads running on youtube.com <http://youtube.com> now that can be seen by
searching for “Sam Sloan for Presidency” and “Sam Sloan for Congress”.*
*Plaintiff is the publisher or author of more than 700 books many of which
can be found by searching amazon.com <http://amazon.com> and bn.com
<http://bn.com> as well as bookfinder.com <http://bookfinder.com> Plaintiff
is one of the best known and strongest players in the world of both Chinese
chess “Xiangqi” and International Chess, and has played at the world
championship level in these games. Each of these games has more than 100
million active players and Plaintiff is at the household word status among
players of each of these games, as well as among players of Thai Chess
“Makrook” and Japanese chess “Shogi”.*
*Plaintiff is also known for arguing orally and winning as case before the
United States Supreme Court SEC vs. Samuel H. Sloan, 436 US 103 (1978) and
was the last non-lawyer ever to do so especially since the US Supreme Court
changed its rules so as to prohibit anybody else from ever doing it.
Numerous articles on this subject can be found by searching for “Sam Sloan
Supreme Court” and “Only lawyers now can argue before Supreme Court”.*
*There is a Wikipedia Profile about Sam Sloan at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sloan
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sloan>*
*At the same time that Plaintiff was active as an anti-war and
pro-liberation activist on the campus of the University of California at
Berkeley, Bernie Sanders was an active protester on the campus of the
University of Chicago. There was a difference. Bernie Sanders was a member
of Communist and Communist Front organizations such as the “Students for a
Democratic Society”. Bernie Sanders received invitations from the Soviet
Government to visit and did visit the Soviet Union during this period
including a visit on his honeymoon.*
*Hillary Clinton and other candidates and commentators are well aware of
the history of Bernie Sanders as a card carrying member of the Communist
Party, but they are afraid to say so because they know that they are going
to need the votes of the backers of Bernie Sanders in the general election
race against Donald Trump in November. They also fear a third-party or
Green Party run by Bernie Sanders remembering that is was the Green Party
run by Ralph Nadir that caused Al Gore to lose the close 2000 election to
George W. Bush and caused the long suffering people of the United States of
America to labor for eight years under the oppressive yoke of Bush.*
*Because of this fear of a third party run by Sanders, Sanders has been
able to blackmail Clinton by making an increasingly long list of demands
which Clinton must meet in order for Sanders to agree not to run in the
general election against Clinton. All of this was based on the screwball
economic theories of Sanders which if carried out would destabilize the
world economic and monetary system.*
*All this happened because of the misguided decision by Deborah Wasserman
Schultz, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former Chairman
of the Clinton Campaign for President, not to allow anybody other than
Bernie Sanders to campaign against Clinton. *
*On November 2, 2015, Deborah Wasserman Schultz increased the requirements
to be in the debates thus forcing out Larry Lessig who had been in the
debates until that time. See “The Democrats Have Now Changed the Rules, And
Forced Larry Lessig Out”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-jarding/the-democrats-have-now-ch_b_8445202.html
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-jarding/the-democrats-have-now-ch_b_8445202.html>*
*Larry Lessing, a college professor, had raised more than one million
dollars to run for president but was forced out by Deborah Wasserman
Schultz.*
*Ironically, Bernie Sanders kept complaining that Deborah Wasserman Schultz
was biased against him. Sanders repeatedly called for her removal. Sanders
did not realize that Deborah Wasserman Schultz was his best friend because
if Deborah Wasserman Schultz had allowed Plaintiff and other Democratic
Party members to run against Sanders and Clinton, Plaintiff would have
pointed out Sanders' long standing membership in the Communist Party, an
issue that Clinton knew about but was afraid to raise.*
*ARGUMENT*
*The district court in its decision and the magistrate judge in her report
and recommendation cite a number of cases but none of them are published
and all of them are inappropriate to this case.*
*The cases cited are:*
*See Ealy v. Buckley, No. 15-cv-00373-PB, 2015 WL 6134188, at *2 (D.N.H.
Oct. 19, 2015) (dismissing complaint seeking to compel the New Hampshire
Democratic Party to allow plaintiff to speak at an event for Democratic
presidential candidates, in part because the New Hampshire Democratic Party
is not a governmental agency, and plaintiff could not assert a claim for
relief against a private party for a violation of his federal
constitutional rights); Levinson v. N.H. Pub. Television, No. 11-cv-589-PB,
2012 WL 1148259, at *3-*4 (D.N.H. Mar. 6, 2012) (dismissing action against
television station because plaintiff had no First Amendment right to
broadcast his ideas on public television station, and because 47 U.S.C. §
315 provides no private right of action to enforce the “equal
opportunities” provision). *
*The court notes that the February 9 Order (doc. no. 4) denying a TRO
stated that Sloan, in his complaint “failed to identify the statutes or
constitutional provisions on which his claims are based.” Despite being put
on notice of this pleading deficiency, Sloan has filed nothing further in
this case. *
*See Ealy v. Buckley, No. 15-cv-373-PB, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141798 at *3,
2015 WL 6134188 at *2 (D.N.H. Sep. 15, 2015), R&R approved by No.
15-cv-00373-PB, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141802, 2015 WL 6134188 (D.N.H. Oct.
19, 2015) (dismissing complaint seeking to compel New Hampshire Democratic
Party (“NHDP”) to allow plaintiff to speak at Democratic presidential
candidate event, in part because plaintiff could not assert claim for
relief against private party, NHDP, for violation of his federal
constitutional rights). Nothing in the complaint allows the court to infer
an actionable violation of Sloan’s constitutional rights. See Jarvis v.
Vill. Gun Shop, Inc., 805 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2015) (“If there is no state
action, the plaintiff’s [constitutional] claim fails.”), cert. pet. filed,
No. 15-1132 (U.S. Mar. 14, 2016). *
*B. Communications Act *
*To the extent Sloan seeks to assert a claim alleging that defendants have
violated the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 315, which requires
federally-licensed broadcasters to provide all candidates running for a
public office equal opportunity to utilize the broadcast station, that
statute provides no private right of action. See Levinson v. N.H. Pub.
Television, No. 11-cv-589-PB, 2012 WL 1148259, at *3-*4 (D.N.H. Mar. 6,
2012) (dismissing action against television station because 47 U.S.C. § 315
provides no private right of action to enforce that statute’s “equal
opportunities” provision). “The proper course for raising a claim under
section 315 is to file a complaint with the F[ederal] C[ommunications]
C[ommission].” Schneller v. WCAU Channel 10, 413 F. App’x 424, 426 (3d Cir.
2011); see also Rosenberg v. City of Everett, 328 F.3d 12, 16 (1st Cir.
2003). “The Communications Act ‘requires an application for review to the
full [FCC] as a prerequisite to judicial review of decisions made under
delegated authority.’” Schneller, 413 F. App’x at 426-27 (citation
omitted). *
*None of these cases are applicable to the case before this court.
Plaintiff is not seeking free equal time to broadcast his ideas. Rather
Plaintiff is seeking to buy time at the standard ad rates for political
candidates, the same rates that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were
paying. It is to noted that Jeb Bush spent $145 million dollars (one
hundred forty five million dollars) running ads for President of the United
States and still got less than 5% of the votes. He was forced to drop out
when he ran out of money and nobody was willing to give him any more.*
*Plaintiff spent more than $10,000 (ten thousand dollars) running ads for
US Congress and believes that even if spending this relatively small amount
running for President as opposed to the hundred million dollars in total
that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders spent running ads on New Hampshire
and Iowa TV, Plaintiff would have beaten them both because Plaintiff has a
better message, the anti-war message, that the people want to hear.
Plaintiff has also offered to play them both at chess blindfolded
simultaneously.*
*Plaintiff has been against the war or wars for a long time, since the
1960s. Plaintiff is also anti-Communist. This means Plaintiff is against
Bernie Sanders. You are entitled to question this. Plaintiff attended the
University of California at Berkeley during the great student revolutions,
1962-1967. Plaintiff used to walk past Sproul Hall every day on the way to
class. On the steps of Sproul Hall every day, Leftists were making
speeches. People like Bettina Aptheker and Peter Camejo were standing there
making speeches almost every day. They were the hardest of the hard core
card carrying Communists. They were real members of the Communist Party who
with Bernie Sanders had traveled to the Soviet Union.*
*Since Plaintiff heard them speaking almost every day, Plaintiff knew their
rap. Nowadays, Plaintiff hears the same rap from Bernie Sanders. Sanders
obviously has audio recordings or transcripts of those speeches made by
Bettina Aptheker and Peter Camejo and has memorized them and is just
reciting back the speeches made by them.*
*Young people today have probably never heard of Bettina Aptheker and Peter
Camejo and when they hear Sanders speak they think that they are hearing
new and original ideas. They do not realize that they are just hearing a
replay of discredited speeches made decades ago.*
*The result of the New Hampshire primary election was Bernie Sanders won
with 60.4 % of the vote. Plaintiff believes that if Plaintiff had been
allowed to run his campaign ads on TV, Sanders would not have won the
Primary Election and he certainly would not have gotten as many votes as he
did. The public needed to know and Plaintiff needed to have the right to
inform them that the speeches by Sanders were just repeats of old speeches
made fifty years ago. Sanders could not have denied this even if he wanted
to because Plaintiff has the proof and anybody from that time with a good
memory will remember them too.*
*Regarding Hillary, Plaintiff happens to agree with Hillary on the two
biggest issues. Hillary was absolutely 100% right on the email-gate issue.
The most secure place for Hillary's emails was Hillary's own personal
server that she alone controlled. The idea that Hillary should have used
the Government's server rather than her own server is ridiculous. Nothing
the government does is secure or will remain secret for long. Do you
seriously believe that the Chinese, the Russians, the Japanese and the
Germans have not long ago hacked into the US Government's servers and have
read every email there. Only Hillary's own server where she alone knew the
encrypted passwords was secure from break-ins.*
*Regarding the Benghazi Attack, in no way can Hillary be blamed for that.
Here is the complete statement by Hillary:*
“*I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi
today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed
that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by
this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those
who have suffered in this attack.*
“*This evening, Plaintiff called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate
additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf
expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s
full cooperation.*
“*Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to
inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores
any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our
commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our
nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent
acts of this kind.”*
*Donald Trump and the Republicans use the BIG LIE TECHNIQUE, popularized by
Hitler. Turns out, this is not a coincidence. Plaintiff has just learned
that Trump has been studying the speeches by Hitler as set forth in the
book “My New Order”, a book published in 1941 of Hitler's speeches. Trump
keeps that book by his bedside. Plaintiff is a book publisher and will be
reprinting that book within two weeks. By saying over and over again
hundreds of times that Hillary misled the public with the above statements
and that Hillary was in some way guilty of allowing the Benghazi attack to
take place, Trump is misleading the public. None of this was true. There
was nothing wrong with Hillary's statement. It was completely accurate.*
*In short, Plaintiff supports Hillary on these big issues but she is still
a war hawk, although not as much of a war hawk as the crazy Republicans who
not only want to continue the wars we already have but who want to start
new wars such as by bombing Iran. Anybody who doubts his credentials should
consult **https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sloan*
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sloan>* his Wikipedia Biography.
Plaintiff did not write any part of that biography incidentally.*
*It is obvious that the report and recommendation is wrong. None of the
decisions cited by the Report and Recommendation involve issues such as the
case here. For example, the decision denying the right of a candidate to
speak at a campaign event is reasonable because there is simply not enough
time to allow everybody to speak for as long as he wants to speak. However,
here, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were spending millions of dollars
running non-stop campaign ads in the TV stations of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Obviously, any candidate who was not allowed to run paid advertising
against them had no chance to win. Surely, there would not have been any
problem to allow Sloan and a few other excluded candidates to run their
paid ads too, paying the same rate.*
*The court notes that Communications Act 47 USC 315 requires federally
licensed broadcasters to provide all candidates running for public office
equal opportunity to utilize the broadcast station. But then it states
there is no private right of action. This is nonsense. The statute states:*
*(a) Equal opportunities requirement; censorship prohibition; allowance of
station use; news appearances exception; public interest; public issues
discussion opportunities. If any licensee shall permit any person who is a
legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting
station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates
for that office in the use of such broadcasting station.*
*The Report and Recommendation suggests that the appropriate remedy was to
file with the Federal Communications Commission. However, agency
proceedings take months and years and are not appropriate for a case like
this. Plaintiff happens to know about this because Plaintiff once filed an
agency proceeding against the nefarious Securities and Exchange Commission.
Plaintiff won the case, but it took him seven years from 1971 to 1978 to
win it. SEC vs Samuel H. Sloan, 436 US 103 (1978). Here the primary
election was taking place the same day and the general election will take
place in November. There was no time to wait.*
*It will be suggested that the election is over. Actually, it is not over.
There is a looming problem. Both of the approved candidates are elderly and
have medical problems. Anybody can look at the approved candidates and see
they are unlikely to survive a term of office. Deborah Wasserman Schultz
was the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton for President. She resigned
that position in order to become Chairwoman of the Democratic National
Committee. This was an obvious conflict of interest. It was her decision to
increase the requirements to run to force the other candidates out and
leave only two candidates left. As bad as the Republicans are, none of them
were forced out of the race by rules decisions.*
*It seems probable that Deborah Wasserman Schultz allowed Bernie Sanders to
run because he was polling only 3% in the polls and she assumed Hillary
would make short work of him. She did not anticipate that all the
anti-Hillary votes would be thrown to Bernie Sanders and he would become a
serious threat.*
*WHEREFORE, for all of the reasons set forth above the decision and
judgment of the district court should be reversed.*
*This brief contains 4218 words.*
*Sam Sloan*
*1664 Davidson Ave 1B*
*Bronx NY 10453*
*917-507-7226* <917-507-7226>
*917-659-3397* <917-659-3397>
*samhsloan@gmail.com* <samhsloan@...>