Patterico's Pontifications

6/18/2014

Patent Office Revokes Redskins’ Trademark

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:49 am



It’s been around for 82 years, but it turns out that the name was disparaging and illegal all along!

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the football team’s name “disparaging to Native Americans.”

The landmark case, which appeared before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, was filed on behalf of five Native Americans. It was the second time such a case was filed.

No word yet on whether this will force a change to the name. If the team sticks with the name, fighting knockoffs will become well-nigh impossible.

If the fans were really offended by the name, the fans could have expressed that — and it would have changed. It didn’t take the NBA long to deal with Donald Sterling, and we didn’t need government to get involved — the NBA acted quickly because failure to do so would have had immediate market repercussions for the franchise and the league.

I don’t want to say that federal agencies simply do Obama’s bidding, but he didn’t like the name, you know.

He also said the IRS scandal was made up, and sure enough, Republicans have failed to find a single Lois Lerner smoking gun email.

Coming next: that grinning Cleveland Indians logo.

UPDATE: SPQR reminds us of the First Amendment implications here. I agree with him that this decision violates the First Amendment. This is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum. More on that in a future post.

90 Responses to “Patent Office Revokes Redskins’ Trademark”

  1. Yay PC!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. They will get my Blackhawks sweater when they can pry it off my cold, dead body.

    carlitos (05f67f)

  3. You will bow to the will of the Minority or you will be crushed!
    They should change their name to The Savages just for shits & giggles.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  4. I’m glad their taking the load off the court system and those over burdened congressmen.

    David (f4eccb)

  5. I’ve always thought this doctrine unconstitutional as a viewpoint based restriction on speech. I’d love to see this silly TTAB decision appealed.

    SPQR (c4e119)

  6. I don’t want to say that federal agencies simply do Obama’s bidding, but he didn’t like the name, you know.

    A bureaucracy or any large organization or company contains many people that take their cues from the person in charge, from the big man on campus. But I’ve read that the creeping idiocy of political correctness run amok was starting to affect, for example, the US military (no less) even back when George W Bush was in the White House. IOW, if it was beginning to corrupt things over 6 years ago, it will be far, far worse today.

    Mark (7b4a56)

  7. Rename it the Washington Fap

    Hadoop (7fc17e)

  8. UPDATE: SPQR reminds us of the First Amendment implications here. I agree with him that this decision violates the First Amendment. This is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum. More on that in a future post.

    Patterico (7a8761)

  9. HteWon is really getting desperate. There’s only so much bandwidth, and this will consume a lot over the next few weeks. So this is beneficial to HIM. Look for some “rogue” patent bureaucrats in distant cities to eventually get the blame, er, credit, after it’s discovered that the head of the Patent and Trademark office spent 82 days meeting with unnamed officials in the White House. I’d say that this will have limited legs unless Congress takes the bait. If they do then we can go thru the whole “dog ate my computer” charade. Far better to let this fester and watch the PC crowd trumpet their triumph. This will not go down well with those Democrats who still work for a living. It is a timely lesson in the sort of thing we can expect when the Federal Government abandons the Rule of Law. And it is relatively harmless. Better yet, once the trademark is withdrawn, the market place will be flooded with Redskin stuff, most of it unrelated to the football team. But it will all be reminder of how instrusive our masters wish to become.

    bobathome (5ccbd8)

  10. It’s been around for 82 years, but it turns out that the name was disparaging and illegal all along!

    Something roughly similar happened also in the Reagan Adminsitration, when a tax exemption was removed from a college because opinion had changed. The Reagan Administration actually didn’t want to do it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University_v._United_States

    Under pre-1970 IRS regulations, tax exemptions were awarded to private schools regardless of their racial admissions policies, and Bob Jones University was approved for a tax exemption under that policy. Pursuant to a 1970 revision to IRS regulations that limited tax-exempt status to private schools without racially discriminatory admissions policies, the IRS informed the University on November 30, 1970 that the IRS was planning on revoking its tax exempt status as a “religious, charitable . . . or educational” institution. In response, the University filed suit in 1971 in Bob Jones University v. Schultz

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University

    On January 8, 1982, just before the case was to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, President Ronald Reagan authorized his Treasury and Justice Departments to ask that the BJU case be dropped and that the previous court decisions be vacated. Political pressure quickly brought the Reagan administration to reverse itself and to ask the Court to reinstate the case. Then, in a virtually unprecedented move, the Court invited William T. Coleman, Jr. to argue the government’s position in an amicus curiae brief, thus ensuring that the prosecution’s position would be the one the Court wished to hear.[112] The case was heard on October 12, 1982, and on May 24, 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Bob Jones University in Bob Jones University v. United States (461 U.S. 574).

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  11. So, are they going to force Oklahoma to change its name?

    JNorth (ed90e3)

  12. I’m crying. /sarc

    nk (dbc370)

  13. Is Matamoros still called that, BTW?

    nk (dbc370)

  14. People in government seem to be crazed with their own importance and simply cannot be trusted with “power” these days.

    elissa (433a2d)

  15. Is Matamoros still called that, BTW?

    🙂

    carlitos (05f67f)

  16. He also said the IRS scandal was made up, and sure enough, Republicans have failed to find a single Lois Lerner smoking gun email.

    Are you completely ignoring the fact that the IRS claims to have lost the emails in a “system crash”, despite the fact that no one elses email was lost and all of their email is hosted on centralized servers?

    foobarbaz (5f170f)

  17. Jesus F*****g Christ.

    Glenn (647d76)

  18. 8. …Better yet, once the trademark is withdrawn, the market place will be flooded with Redskin stuff, most of it unrelated to the football team. But it will all be reminder of how instrusive our masters wish to become.

    bobathome (5ccbd8) — 6/18/2014 @ 8:30 am

    ?!?!

    So, let me get this straight. The US Patent & Trademark Office is trying to make a point about the offensiveness and unacceptability of the name “Redskins” by stripping the team of its trademark. Thus hurting the franchise by depriving it of revenue, since now anyone can use the name and I presume the logo.

    And if the franchise loses money as a result of knock-off products flying off the shelf, that would prove the Redskins name and logo are popular. Thus proving the US Patent & Trademark Office wrong when it deems the name and logo offensive and unacceptable.

    I honestly don’t understand the logic. The government has decided to force the Redskins to change their offensive and unacceptable name and logo by letting everyone who wants to do so use their popular and acceptable name and logo?

    Again, ?!?!

    Steve57 (d38ceb)

  19. “New Mexico” sounds like a slam on immigrants. I mean, if it didn’t exist and they tried to call the McAllen area that…

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  20. They should change their name to the Bloods, assuming that hasn’t been trademarked.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  21. 17. Well, refusing to register a trademark on grouds of offensiveness would kind of make sense if it had never been used, and then it would never catch on.

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  22. 15. It’s sarcasm.

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  23. Besides the first amendment, it’s also a fifth amendment violation. Trademarks are not like patents or copyrights; they’re not a gift from the government to encourage desirable activity, their purpose is to protect consumers from fraud. As such, it’s not within the government’s scope to “grant” a trademark or not, but merely to recognise that something is being used as a genuine trademark, and therefore deserves protection. Refusing to protect a trademark not only cheats consumers, but also takes a valuable asset without compensation.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  24. This is why the first priority of a New Republican Admin should be remove every Liberal from Government and defund every single NGO or Non-profit with ties to Liberalism. Number 1 Priority is to starve the animals of sustenance.

    Second priority to cut 10% of Federal workforce within 2 years in office so that way we thin the heard even further. Sorry but we need a war on on the Liberal Brown Shirts and a vicious one to boot. Ruin them, no matter the cost and they will disburse.

    Rodney King's Spirit (e9cae7)

  25. Herd

    Rodney King's Spirit (e9cae7)

  26. Disperse.

    Oy.

    Rodney King's Spirit (e9cae7)

  27. So then, Milhouse, wouldn’t sports fans have standing to sue? And not just Redskins fans, and not just football fans, but all fans of all teams of all sports, since the feds can simply revoke any trademark of any team name and logo they don’t deem sufficiently aligned with 21st century sensitivities.

    Steve57 (d38ceb)

  28. 17. Well, refusing to register a trademark on grouds of offensiveness would kind of make sense if it had never been used, and then it would never catch on.

    Steve’s point is that if it’s truly offensive to the public, as opposed to a tiny elite, then it will never catch on even if registered. The point of not registering an allegedly offensive name is to spare people from being offended while it fails to catch on. But if it does catch on then by definition it must not be that offensive, and the refusal to register will turn out retroactively to have been wrong. Here we have a trademark that’s already popular, and therefore by definition not offensive.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  29. So then, Milhouse, wouldn’t sports fans have standing to sue? And not just Redskins fans, and not just football fans, but all fans of all teams of all sports, since the feds can simply revoke any trademark of any team name and logo they don’t deem sufficiently aligned with 21st century sensitivities.

    I think fans would only have standing to sue the knock-off makers, for fraud. They thought they were buying official gear, and were sold something else. That is the point of trademark law, after all. I don’t think they’d have standing to sue the government for not enforcing this protection against fraud, any more than a burglary victim has standing to sue the government for not lax policies that fail to prevent burglaries.

    The team, on the other hand, has had something valuable taken away, and surely is entitled under the 5th amendment to fair compensation.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  30. There’s nothing that is guaranteed not to offend someone, someplace, some time. There’s a guy who comments here who finds “compassion” offensive, for crying out loud. Not that I feel sorry for the NFL, but I feel even less sorry for thin-skinned motherf***ers.

    nk (dbc370)

  31. I say the NFL because, if I remember the lawsuit by the players for a cut of the memorabilia revenues correctly, the trademarks belong to the NFL and not the individual teams.

    nk (dbc370)

  32. #17, Steve, I’m hoping that this will become a “remember the Alamo” moment. It’s easy to understand (our masters in the Federal government have run amok,) it is relatively harmless, and the logo is memorable and respectable. And in the meantime, the team would be well advised to focus on their play. A Super Bowl appearance will do them more good than any conceivable marketing and PR campaign.

    bobathome (5ccbd8)

  33. This is all part of Obama’s parting shots. He will transform the country whether Congress or the people want it.

    If the aggrieved don’t step up and go to court, it’s pretty much all downhill from here.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  34. == There’s a guy who comments here who finds “compassion” offensive, for crying out loud==

    nk–Ah, I see you caught his most recent drivel from last night over on that other thread.

    elissa (433a2d)

  35. There’s a guy who comments here who finds “compassion” offensive, for crying out loud.

    To be specific, nk, cheap, excessive, knuckleheaded type of compassion: Compassion for compassion’s sake. Such as what’s behind the belief that “redskins” is such an offensive and hurtful word, that it should be legally challenged and publicly excoriated, publicly repudiated. At a time when the “n” word is, oddly enough, commonly and casually (and happily) embraced in one segment of popular music—if rap can be characterized that way.

    The same type of cheap, mindless compassion that made people in the US military, no less, believe that Nidal Hasan, because he was a member of a sad, dejected, suffering minority or whatever, deserved to be tolerated until, of course, it was too late.

    Mark (7b4a56)

  36. mr. creeper: “I find the government’s actions here patently offensive.”

    creeper (627ac8)

  37. When the primary identifying characteristic of your people is “victims” you’ve got a serious problem.

    CrustyB (69f730)

  38. This already happened once before, in 1999, in a case filed in 1992.

    Did it ten years for a final decision, 17 years in all?

    The article says in 2009 a federal appeals court ruled the plaintiff didn’t have standing/.

    This new case is 8 years old already (going back to 2006?)

    Sounds like Jarndyce and Jarndyce.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarndyce_and_Jarndyce

    By the way, did you know that transcripts of all cases at Old Bailey in London from 1674 to 1913 are available online?

    http://www.oldbaileyonline.org

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  39. The PI report indicates that one of the major reasons for California desalination’s ‘immaturity’ is its lack of affordability.

    “Urban Environment and Heritage,” Hyderabad City Development Plan. The treatment begins by
    filtering the raw wastewater through the fine screen, and the refined fluid is then sent to the anoxic basin, and lastly to the MBR basins.

    http://theedu.kr/board_FUwZ58/26834 (4ab6c0)

  40. Thought Police exam: If a gay couple open-carries a firearm into a bakery and demands a Redskins wedding cake, can they be refused?

    Icy (eeaa5b)

  41. It depends on whether or not they want to pay for it.

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  42. As to whether or not the Washington Redskins entirely lose trademark protection, that isn’t really clear.

    A trademark can exist independently of the registration thereof.

    The Lanham Act allows people to protect unregistered trademarks as well as registered ones, so the team could continue to attempt to protect their mark even should they ultimately lose the registration.

    SPQR (c4e119)

  43. They could also be refused if there is a general policy of refusing to serve gun owners, unless they say: “This is a stick-up”

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  44. If a gay couple open-carries a firearm into a bakery and demands a Redskins wedding cake, can they be refused?

    It depends on how much — and how beautiful is — the compassion of the shopkeeper.

    Mark (7b4a56)

  45. You can continue to write that media/agenda-driven PC and human compassion are the same thing, but you will continue to be wrong and look quite silly each and every time you say it and try to conflate the two. Language is important. Lashing out at people who try to clarify this does not make you look less silly. Your #35 above describes corrosive PC. Not a single one of your examples has a thing to do with “compassion” as it is commonly defined and understood.

    elissa (433a2d)

  46. They will get my Blackhawks sweater when they can pry it off my cold, dead body carlitos (05f67f) — 6/18/2014 @ 7:56 am

    — Or they could just ask the Kings to take it off you while you just stand there helplessly.
    [Runs for cover!]

    Icy (eeaa5b)

  47. Set me straight. The trademark only protects their exclusive right to use the image and name right? The team can still use them but now so can other people right? So the unintended consequence is that you are going to see a lot more Redskins merchandise on the street thus promoting the supposedly offensive Redskins term.

    phaedruscj (dc2574)

  48. Thought Police exam #2: If a friend or close acquaintance at work invites you to a swingers club or a wife-swapping party — involving purely consenting adults, of course — should you happily accept it, pretend you’ll be busy that day, feel unsure about it but take him/her up on the offer anyway, or grimace and say fuggedabout it?

    Mark (7b4a56)

  49. 48.Thought Police exam question #2: Refuse it if it makes you uncomfortable, or some person you are intimate with would object, but don’t tell him he’s doing something wrong. You may say, if applicable, that psychologists advise against it.

    Sammy Finkelman (95e288)

  50. So I guess Winnebago will be next, right? And the Atlanta Braves…

    Gazzer (6a76d0)

  51. Mark, you obsess a lot with non-normative sex. Get a grip, Mark!

    nk (dbc370)

  52. Get a grip, Mark!

    Yea, you’re correct, nk. I’ll up my quotient of love and compassion.

    Mark (7b4a56)

  53. but don’t tell him he’s doing something wrong.

    That apparently was the MO of the military enlistees listening to and dealing with Nidal Hasan.

    Mark (7b4a56)

  54. America is an immensely silly country but the priorities of her aboriginal pipples are sillier by far

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  55. The Lanham Act allows people to protect unregistered trademarks as well as registered ones, so the team could continue to attempt to protect their mark even should they ultimately lose the registration.

    True. Registration is only a convenience.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  56. America is an immensely silly country but the priorities of her aboriginal pipples are sillier by far

    Really? I’ll bet a greater percentage of white people than of Indians support this decision.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  57. that’s undoubtedly true Mr. Milhouse owing to Indians not having the same educational opportunities to become properly indoctrinated

    but that doesn’t seem to be high on the agenda does it

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  58. this article says that the Indian groups what are “offended” by the name opposed a new poll of indians cause they were pretty sure they wouldn’t get the result they wanted

    Intriguingly, neither the team nor Native American groups that oppose the name are eager to see a new poll.

    The team’s position is easy to understand. Why risk seeing new results that might undermine your best argument?

    Resistance also came from Indian groups I asked, including the National Congress of American Indians, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Oneida Nation.

    They said one shouldn’t rely on polls to settle a moral issue. They stressed that Native American leaders were overwhelmingly critical of the name.

    “Changing the mascot of the D.C. team should not be determined by public opinion,” said the National Congress, which represents about three-quarters of enrolled tribal members.

    so please to forgive me i should have said that it’s the priorities of the leaders of the american indian pipples what are surpassingly silly

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  59. so please to forgive me i should have said that it’s the priorities of the leaders of the american indian pipples what are surpassingly silly

    What percentage of Indians do these people actually lead?

    Milhouse (b95258)

  60. probably about the same percentage of americans the fascist patent bureau flunkies lead

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  61. the humerous thing to do would be for the owner to change the team logo

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  62. And move them to Idaho?

    Milhouse (b95258)

  63. Snyder should rid himself of all on-field personnel lacking Native-American Heritage, replacing them with those that do.
    That might give him a Truth In Advertising defense.
    Think of the Promo possibilities:

    “Hi, I’m linebacker Richard Bone Crusher, and I’m a Washington Redskin!”
    Of course, it would help if the N-A names of the players related to their position.
    Remember, it’s not what they’re saying about you in the media, only if they spell your name right.
    (kudos to George Raft)

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  64. I think California should change all the city names that refer to saints or angels or other symbology of the oppressive, racist, anti-science Catholic Church (just watch the new Cosmos for details on these horrible people)!!

    Patricia (5fc097)

  65. i’m more concerned about the outspokenly redistributionist and anti-capitalist church than the putatively anti-science one

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  66. Since daniel snyder and roger goodell or both jewish they can rename them jewskins.

    warhoop (9cdd8f)

  67. 66- Or, ShortSkins!

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  68. Perry sure is full of hate. Buh-bye. Seek help.

    JD (08d44e)

  69. this debate does so much to obscure the appalling state of absolute squalor in which so many native americans live

    these problems of trademarks and sports teams, they are not their problems

    Not even in the ballpark.

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  70. I like many things about Canada. Their referring to the natives as “First Nations” strikes me as quite noble. Redskins, not so much.

    Here is a very serious article on the topic.

    carlitos (05f67f)

  71. the appalling state of absolute squalor in which so many native americans live

    Brought to them courtesy of their Great Black Father in DC.

    askeptic (8ecc78)

  72. it seems to this pikachu that the free market is an apt, almost tailor-made mechanism by which the proper namings of sports teams can be ably adjudicated

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  73. Maybe a showing of solidarity— Mr. Snyder could place some slot machines on the stadium concourse and maybe hold bingo games at halftime.

    Gramps, the original (29ecf6)

  74. Don’t forget cheap smokes. Is anyone else old enough to remember when they handed out free cigs outside NFL games? I choked on my first Kool that way.

    carlitos (05f67f)

  75. I remember when there were cigs in the C-ration boxes….
    The cheap cigs were sold from single-wides on the edges of the Rez…

    Gramps, the original (29ecf6)

  76. From the Washed-up Post article:

    Federal trademark law does not permit registration of trademarks that “may disparage” individuals or groups or “bring them into contempt or disrepute.” The ruling pertains to six different trademarks associated with the team, each containing the word “Redskin.”

    Who said that the name “Redskins” “bring[s Native Americans] into contempt or disrepute? I contend that in the cases of all but a handful of team names, the purpose is NOT to adopt a name or a mascot that has as its goal making the team seem weak or silly, but one that inspires determination, strength, even fear.

    In the case of the Washington Redskins, the intent was certainly not to demean natives, but to honor them in the same way as did the owners of the first patch of grass the team played upon: The Boston Braves, later known as the Milwaukee Braves, and now known as the Atlanta Braves. In the early days of the NFL — back when baseball really was “America’s pastime” — pro football teams were the stepchildren of the Major League Baseball teams that hosted their games. From the New York Giants history webpage (italics mine):

    WHY GIANTS? HOW THE NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS GOT ITS NAME

    [Original Giants’] Owner Tim Mara “borrowed” the Giants’ name from the city’s Major League Baseball team of the same name. This was not unusual among early day pro football franchises. At one time or another there were NFL franchises named the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, and Detroit Tigers.

    Such was the case with the then-Boston Braves football team, who played at the National League Boston Braves’ Field in Boston. So where did “Redskins” come from? When the football Braves moved out of the baseball Braves’ stadium to the stadium built by the Boston Red Sox of the rival American League — Fenway Park. They couldn’t use the Braves’ name while playing in the Red Sox’s park, so they changed the name of the team from “Boston Braves” to “Boston Redskins.” The team retained the nickname when they moved to D.C.

    It’s that simple. No “contempt.” Zero “disrepute.” There was no purpose in the switch from “Braves” to “Redskins” of reminiscing about the days when there were bounties put on the severed scalps of natives, or any other story that the detractors are using to ply their arguments.

    Speaking of which: In answer to the earlier question of who said “Redskins” brings anyone into contempt or disrepute, the answer is five activist Native Americans who filed the complaint with the Patent and Trademark Office. But they are representative of the majority of the people they claim to represent, aren’t they?

    In 2004, the Annenberg Public Policy Center (yes, from Walter Annenberg, the guy behind FactCheck.org and who was responsible for putting Barack Obama and Bill Ayers in charge of a Chicago education reform project) published their election-year survey of Native Americans asking this question (verbatim):

    “The professional football team in Washington calls itself the Washington Redskins. As a Native American, do you find that name offensive or doesn’t it bother you?”

    As it turned out, the answer from the Native Americans was crystal-clear. A whopping 91% said that “Redskins” was offensive.

    WHOOPS! Check that — 91% said that the “Redskins” was NOT offensive.

    Let me repeat that for emphasis: NINETY-ONE PERCENT OF NATIVE AMERICANS SURVEYED SAID THAT “WASHINGTON REDSKINS” WAS NOT, NOT, NOT OFFENSIVE TO THEM! With a margin of error of 2%, only 9 percent of the respondents were bothered by it.

    Oh, but it must have been some white conservative guy who was in charge of that survey, right? Well, you’ve got the white part right. See if this name rings a bell: Adam Clymer, listed in the press release as the “political director” of the survey.

    If you used to frequent Free Republic as I did in the late nineties, you know who he is: He’s the former New York Times reporter that then-candidate Governor George W. Bush referenced in an unfortunate “open-mic” moment. Maybe one of the reasons why Bush was so moved to that description is because he (or his father) was the victim of Clymer’s “Major League” hackery, which in later years produced this aromatic nugget about Ted Kennedy:

    [His] achievements as a Senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne…”

    Even though he presided over the survey, Clymer has recently been dismissing it as irrelevant. Here he is quoted in a March 10, 2013 column by Washed-up Post sports scribe Mike Wise:

    “Look, let’s suppose my numbers were 100 percent right, that 90 percent of American Indians were okay with it and that the people on the other end of the phone were actually what they said they were,” he said. “Given that, what if you had a dinner party and you invited 10 people. And by the end of the night it’s pretty clear that nine of them have had a tremendous time and really enjoyed the food and company. But one of them you managed to completely insult and demean, to the point where people around them noticed and it was uncomfortable. So, ask yourself: Were you a social success that night?”

    That is a lame, silly simile, since this is not a matter of whether everybody had a great time at a dinner party. It ultimately is about whether or not an extreme minority opinion about a trademark is sufficient to make it a priority of the President of the United States to create a First Amendment crisis out of whole cloth. *Exhale*

    This raises another question for Clymer: If it doesn’t matter what the results of the survey were, why the hell did you bother conducting it in the first place? Seems to me that you invested eleven months (October 2003 -September 2004) in the hopes that your pre-conceived notions of tribal outrage would be confirmed, perhaps making it suitable for a divisive campaign issue. When it wasn’t, you pretended it was meaningless that your point-of-view came up the loser.

    Lucky for you, Clymer, you have a fellow “major-leaguer” in the White House, who doesn’t care what the facts are. Screw the First Amendment. He’s got a pen, and he’s got a phone, and he’s going to what he wants on his own. And from your remarks about Kennedy, we know you don’t mind if a few rules are broken on the way to policy changes you desire.

    L.N. Smithee (cd6dde)

  77. Watch the above space for a long, link-laden comment now in moderation.

    L.N. Smithee (cd6dde)

  78. Fixed

    JD (08d44e)

  79. Eugene Volokh points out the limitations of this ruling, and also why it’s unconstitutional anyway.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  80. Won’t the removal of Trademark protections lead to an increase in usage of the term Redskins?

    So now, everyone has the ability to disparage Indians equally.

    Plus, the Redskins still hold a trademark on their logo correct?

    DejectedHead (a094a6)

  81. Here’s a serious question about the Washington Redskins: Does anyone actually think about indians when referring to the football team? I know I don’t. I have to constantly hear my faith and heritage ridiculed. I couldn’t care less. It’s called coexisting. Don’t like the Redskin name, don’t support their team. I’d be down with the NFL changing the NY Giants to the NY Capos. Us Eye-talians wants us some representatin” in the NFL!

    Hadoop (f7d5ba)

  82. I am eagerly awaiting the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United Negro College Fund to step forward and voluntarily renounce their names.

    The Other Andrew B (3dd9cc)

  83. I am waiting for snyder or goodell to go up to a native american war veteran and call him a redskin or black veteran and call him a blackskin.

    warhoop (9cdd8f)

  84. “Won’t the removal of Trademark protections lead to an increase in usage of the term Redskins?”

    Yep. Copy-catters will abound, The name and logo will be everywhere.
    Oh, and the Redskins organization might lose some dough. They can afford it.

    mojo (00b01f)

  85. It’s a great country we live in when the government is more interested in revoking a trademark because five injun’s objected than finding out the truth about Benghazi, locating the “Lost” IRS emails or taking care of our veterans. Well done Obama, well done indeed! Cause after all the government has the authority to tell a franchise that it’s name of 82 friggin’ years is now “offensive”. Any body ever hear of ex post facto? Or perhaps statutes of limitations? You would figure the government would bend over backward to defend free speech, being a First Amendment right and all, but I guess that’s just another “right” which no longer exists under the Régime.

    Brown shirts 1, citizens 0.

    Hoagie (4dfb34)

  86. He also said the IRS scandal was made up, and sure enough, Republicans have failed to find a single Lois Lerner smoking gun email.

    Are you completely ignoring the fact that the IRS claims to have lost the emails in a “system crash”, despite the fact that no one elses email was lost and all of their email is hosted on centralized servers?

    Come on, man. Even Sammy could tell that was sarcasm.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  87. I have a new post on the First Amendment implications.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  88. The Chi Trib has an online survey (unofficial of course) on whether people find the mascot and team name Redskins offensive or not. The current tally is:
    26% yes I do
    74% no I don’t
    Obviously, this looks very much like a manufactured “thought police” issue, not a genuine issue of concern for Americans. Squirrel!

    elissa (62e211)

  89. You know thus significantly in the case of this subject, made me individually imagine it from numerous varied angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be interested unless it’s one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs excellent. All the time deal with it up!

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  90. I know my imagination is too numerously viewed from singularly different angles causing males and females to be indifferent with the exception of Miley Cyrus.

    Hadoop (f7d5ba)


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