You may have missed it, but yesterday former MLB All Star and current Low Life Softball Salesman Jose Canseco tweeted the phone number of a woman he said was accusing him of rape in Nevada. He then deleted the tweet, and then tweeted that he did not ever delete tweets ever, and that is the last syllable you will have to read about tweets.
Therealstory now, you see, is about how we happened to have what we believed to be Jose's cell number, and just happened to let it accidentally slip into the end of our blog post. Wonkette operative "Sean" took this as a cue to text him and — hey, look at that! — he responded, in a way that is just dumb enough to confirm the number was totally his.
"Is this the number to contact to suggest that you don't publish a rape accusers phone # on twitter?" our anonymous text person sent yesterday.
Somebody from Canseco's number responded about 90 minutes later: "Freedom of speech and confront ur accusers."
Huzzah! Somebody has been reading his pocket copy of the Constitution. Now, Yr Wonket is not as law-smart as some of the other, lawyery types hanging out around here, but it is probably pretty safe to say that the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment does not refer to confronting your accuser, you know,in the road, or anything. It's a cross-examination thing, not a "tweet shit out and ask for polygraph tests on television" thing.
Speaking of tweeting shit out, you will be happy to know that Jose's beloved "freedom of speech" he thinks is in the First Amendment is probably not in there! It's a gray area, but harassment is not an unconditionally protected speech. Actually, hey! Look! Nevada, where the alleged victim lives, has a specific law against this kind of stuff !
1. Any person who willfully makes a telephone call and addresses any obscene language, representation or suggestion to or about any person receiving such call or addresses to such other person any threat to inflict injury to the person or property of the person addressed or any member of the person’s family is guilty of a misdemeanor.
2. Every person who makes a telephone callwith intent to annoy anotheris, whether or not conversation ensues from making the telephone call, guilty of a misdemeanor.
3. Any violation of subsections 1 and 2 is committed at the place at which the telephone call or calls were made and at the place where the telephone call or calls were received, and may be prosecuted at either place.
So in Nevada, if it's illegal to call (or try to call) someone for no actual reason other than to wreck their day, it is presumably also illegal to send out someone's telephone number to half a million followers and suggest they give her a ring.
But, again, we are not experts, not like Jose. And here's the email we got about that text message:
Wait ... what does Brian Kilmeade think of this? Hasn't Fox and Friends covered it by now?
If we put you and the horse in a box, it becomes a question for quantum physicists.