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Senate candidate charges city of Cambridge is out to get him; sues
By adamg on Tue, 04/24/2018 - 9:56am
Shiva Ayyadurai, who is now running as an independent against Elizabeth Warren, filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Cambridge this week, alleging it is harassing him over his campaign bus now that it features the "resonating campaign slogan" of "Only A Real Indian Can Defeat The Fake Indian."
At issue is Ayyadurai parking the bus and its slogan in the parking lot of his Concord Avenue campaign headquarters.
Ayyadurai, who claims he invented e-mail as a 14-year-old - which he details in his complaint filed in US District Court in Boston - charges Cambridge is threatening him with $300-a-day building-code fines, in violation of his First Amendment rights . He alleges he'd been parking the bus, with other slogans emblazoned on it, for more than a year with no complaints and that the city only went after him after he added the anti-Warren banner to the bus in March.
On April 4, 2018, Branden Vigneault, a City of Cambridge building inspector telephoned campaign volunteer Michael Mosca. Mr. Vigneault informed Mr. Mosca that the City had received a number of anonymous complaints about the bus, and instructed Mr. Mosca that the bus was in violation of city codes and the banner must be removed.
Mr. Mosca explained to the inspector that the banner was on the bus, not on the building, and questioned how the City's building ordinances could have jurisdiction over a message on a moving vehicle. He also said that the banner contained political speech and, as such, was protected by the First Amendment.
The next day, Mr. Mosca and Dr. Ayyadurai received an emailed letter from Mr. Vigneault.
The letter stated that the City had inspected the property and determined that the premises were in violation of Article 7, Section 7.10 of the City of Cambridge Zoning Ordinance because there were signs displayed without approvals and permits from the Inspectional Services Department. If the signs were not removed, the letter warned, the City could Pursue legal action and levy fines of up to $300 a day.
As of the time of filing this Complaint, the only signs at the address were the banners on the campaign bus parked in the parking lot. There was and is no signage on the outside of building.
Ayyadurai's complaint seeks to have a judge order the city to knock it off, let him park in his bus and its banner in the parking lot - and to pay him attorney's fees and other costs.
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 Complete complaint | 148.87 KB |
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Comments
He claims to have invented E
He claims to have invented E-MAIL not e-mail. Subtle difference, but important to the scope of his claim.
Shiva did invent email.
Shiva did invent email. Texting was already existed but the format of To:, From:, CC:, etc. that he coded as a 14 year old is what he invented. Great guy!
My carbon compliments
This is peak UHub comedy gold. Not only did this gentleman invent email, he also invented to, from, and cc ! (And possibly the colon as well, I’m not quite clear on that.) I wonder how interoffice memos were addressed back in the 50’s. Did they write “Ahoy! You there!” ?
It is a little mysterious what “cc”, which stands for “carbon copy”, could mean in the context of email, which is not particularly carbon-intensive.
Anyway, this comment is so brilliant that I think only a true genius like Shiva Ayyadurai could have written it, or one of his carbon copies.
cc:
"cyber copy"
As wacky as this guy is he
As wacky as this guy is he might actually have a case since the City of Cambridge has allowed another fellow to park park busses next to those semi-abandoned buildings a block behind Central Square for years in violation of zoning.
You are of course referring
You are of course referring to Nadeem Mazen who by virtue of his status as a city council member gets special privileges in Cambridge.
well no, its not that Nadeem
well no, its not that Nadeem gets special privileges, since this loser admits "he'd been parking the bus, with other slogans emblazoned on it, for more than a year with no complaints." The issue is vulgar hate speech, go back to your old slogan, or even better, put it on your house.
What signs
Are on that guy's bus?
Credit where credit is due.
That's a damn good slogan! Better than everyone is getting "Hammered."
A real Indian?
Gonna have to see the birth certificate.
It's an interesting question
It's an interesting question and possibly a precedent setting decision: what constitutes a sign? There are many large vehicles with advertising wraps--are those also subject to sign ordinance while parked? What might hurt The Real Indian's case is he crudely attached his bus sign however if it's legal to drive as constructed then arguably it's not much different than other more sophisticated wrapped vehicles. If the sign was painted on the bus then would that be okay?
FWIW, political signs are permitted but limited to 10 to 20 sq ft in area for permanent and temporary signs respectively.
I thought this asshole was funnier when
he was pretending to have invented email.
I guess it's hard to find serious people to run as Republicans in MA: nothing but clowns available.
Independent, not Republican
.
Now
He started out as a Republican.
I thought the clown
ran as a democrat? Mr. Payaso, your comment?
Payaso ran as an Independent
So as not to be associated with any of the allegedly organized Insane Clown Posses.
Pat Payaso's thoughts and ideas are independently formed, as Ms. Shirley Chisholm said well:
"Unbought and Unbossed"
Payaso strongly defends Freedom of Speech which seems to be at issue here.
That's what deplatforming gets you
Don't act so surprised. If you shout down everyone with an R next to his name as a clown and a racist, then the only people willing to run with an R next to their names are the ones who don't mind being called clowns or racists.
Now's where you tell me to kill myself.
"You" meaning Cantabridgians?
They are a special bunch, and you are right they equate any Republican with the devil. But this is a big state with a long tradition of electing centrist Republicans. The only need to appear moderately sane and they do well. Its that last hurdle that the state GOP can't seem to get past.
Snowflake is melting
So now the world owes you a platform, and a quiet respectful audience, all with hands folded? Special rights for Republican snowflakes?
Yes it does.
It's not a special right, it's a universal courtesy that we expect to be extended to everyone by everyone.
That's the foundation of a democracy and a free society.
You don't have to come, you don't have to agree, but you may not disrupt.
This is where the party ends
This is where the party ends 'cause I feel like a hypocrite talking to you and your racist friends. I know politics bore you but I can't stand here listening to you, you and your racist friends.
John and John would concur.
John and John would concur.
The irony is slathered on with a trowel here: "Be
courteous, or only the worst among us will stand for office!", when conservatives are led by an incessantly lying, bullying, insulting, racist clown, complete with garish face-paint, and the rest of his party are either active supporters or cowardly, mute enablers.
I got yer safe space *right here*.
You don't get it, and that's why you're part of the problem
You honestly believe that people shouldn't be allowed to think differently from you. You don't think that's what you're doing, you just think that They are so beyond the pale that no quarter can be given. But that's exactly what's happening. You're just too deep inside it to be able to tell.
That's unfortunate, because if enough people share your outlook, it will be ugly all around. I say "will" instead of "can be" not because I'm inviting it or because I relish the concept (quite the opposite, actually), but because history is replete with examples of how ugly it invariably gets.
Live and let live, dude. Let God judge people. Don't assume He's on your side; pray that you are on His. That's the only way to live.
I remain amazed at how some conservatives
can be so deeply intellectually dishonest -- spinning one strawman after another -- while playing aggrieved victims.
Ayyadurai is an obvious crook and a clown, and yet exactly no one here is saying that he should be shut up or prevented from having his own opinions: that's your own absurd invention to serve your own bad-faith argument.
Go play with matches in traffic, you silly, transparent child. You're just as much as waste of time, a drag on discussions here, as you ever were.
It's not that amazing, or surprising, at all, really.
Many, if not most conservatives have always done that, to some degree or other, but it's gotten way, way worse now.
Fancy word for this
Mendacious.
As in Roman pretends to be gracious, but his nice language used to cover hate and lies is mendacious.
God you're thick
"Ayyadurai is an obvious crook and a clown"
With you so far
"and yet exactly no one here is saying that he should be shut up or prevented from having his own opinions"
They're telling him to take his sign down and they look like they're stretching the building code to cover motor vehicles in a way they might not otherwise. Clearly the city of Cambridge is giving him more of a hard time than he would catch if he weren't an obvious clown.
"Go play with matches in traffic"
Took a while, but you got there. Good for you.
The comical, specious arguments of the
nakedly intellectually dishonest
You spend all day accusing uHub posters of being "part of the problem", like I and others here were suggesting that Shiva Baby-Trump Assclown should be censored, which is pure strawman bullshit. When called on it, you backtrack and try to pretend you were talking about the City of Cambridge all along.
What a feeble little weasel you are.
Um no
You seem to have a hard time following the thread here.
You said Rs are running clowns in Mass. I told you why.
You said my point was irrelevant and I rebutted by pointing to this very uHub story as an example of how it isn't irrelevant.
Then you finally got around to telling me to go kill myself again. And now you're confused and you take that to mean that I'm dishonest.
Like I said before, I hope you're more normal in person.
I'll leave it to good-faith uHubbers to read what you wrote
and draw their own conclusions. I don't think you're fooling anyone.
Again, shame on me for relenting to the temptation to engage with a teenaged troll, or an arrested-development adult who somehow thinks it's a lark to pose as one.
Not to worry, McSlim
Roman is a pure shit-talking bigot troll. FWIW I'm going with an adult who's stuck at Kohlberg's stage 0.5.
Wrong
We honestly believe that those who traffic in hatred, evil, and more hatred do not get a pass for using nice words to express evil, vile, and horrible thoughts that history tells us lead to degredation and genocide and slavery.
Asshole.
Trouble is you see it everywhere
Even where it doesn't exist. And turning the zealotry up to eleven on a nothing-burger is just as evil, vile, and horrible as anything you'll find in history. You just don't see it 'cause you're in so deep.
We're in MA, Roman
You know, the state with a Republican governor?
Nobody is calling Baker or any other non-racists/non-clowns a racist or a clown. We're not calling Mitt that. Never heard anyone call Jane Swift that?
Guess what? Act like a racist or a clown you're gonna get called out on it here.
You're being disingenuous if you don't see these dog whistles for what they are.
I suppose you think Trump's birtherism jihad against Obama and his rise thru the GOP is a coincidence, huh?
BTW, I'm not in deep at all.
I'm quite moderate. While I like a lot of what Warren is doing domestically I'm not in favor of her running for president at all.
I can find plenty of examples
Is everyone doing it? Of course not. I can see that. I can count votes same as you. And believe it or not I do hold out hope that we've all got more that unites us than divides us. That said, I do see the shrill accusations coming from a vocal minority of people who in my estimation have outsized influence at many of the leading institutions in Massachusetts.
As an example, the Town of Brookline where I reside has a Warrant Article for the next Town Meeting to rename Washington Street on the grounds that our first president was a slave owner. To me it's asinine and in my head that kind of thinking is identical to the act of tarring everyone with an 'R' next to his name as a racist.
It is literally not the same thing, of course, but it's the same mentality. Slim's gonna ding me for back-pedalling, but yeah: I use shorthand and hyperbole in my posts. It's easier and more succinct to bang out what I said about deplatforming up top here than to continually make the longer explanations and to refine my rhetorical point to ten decimal places of precision. People will stop reading if I did that every time. I suspect a good number of people have stopped reading before they got up to this point.
For the record, Shiva's a troll and has little to recommend him for elective office, but Warren is not an innocent victim. Color me naive but a white person claiming to be a minority for professional gain is distasteful and it does look an awful lot like that's what our senator has done.
And me being me, I don't agree with her legislative agenda either and that's why I voted against her and why I will be voting against her again. The CFPB was a power-grab for the federal government, which was bad policy, no matter how noble the intent behind it.
Also for the record, I do think the birtherism is incidental and what carried Trump over the top was a combination of economic issues, Hillary Clinton's baggage (emails included, but not only emails) and his straight (if crude) talk on PC culture.
Actually you're the clown....
He is running as an independent not a republican. He isnt talking about email like we know it- he is talking about a software program he invented called "EMAIL". I definitely do not support this guy in any way but you people like you who make uninformed statements are pathetic.
If you're going to assert facts, you need to get them right
Sophistry is not an appealing look.
Ayyadurai IS asserting he invented the system in common use by millions of people around the world.
He's even sued two Web sites that dared to contradict him. In his complaint against one of the sites (which you can read by clicking on the link at the bottom of this story), he (well, his lawyer) wrote:
Those are his own frickin' words. He claims to be the father of everything that underlies Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, etc., etc., period, end of story.
One of the sites he sued paid him a settlement, because it was part of the Gawker network, which was in the process of disintegrating in the wake of the Hulk Hogan verdict. But the other site, TechDirt, persisted, and won after a federal judge concluded there was no way to really discern who the true father of e-mail is:
You can, of course, read the judge's complete order dismissing Ayyadurai's lawsuit at that last link. Ayyadurai did appeal the order; it's currently before the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.
Oh, you poor bunny. You think how he spelled it matters?
For someone who's not a supporter, you sure seem worked up about criticism of Ayyadurai as an obvious charlatan and clown.
Anyone who is not a patently money-grubbing, attention-whoring liar like Ayyadurai and knows a jot of the history of the Internet understands that Ray Tomlinson invented email in 1971.
(At least you can stop worrying about people confusing you with me. I'm known for being able to write the occasional coherent sentence. But a tip o' the hat for your second-grader's Trumpian comeback: "No, you're the puppet!" )
We should not be a one party state
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. America, and MA, needs multiple viable political parties. Our two party, allegedly left of center and right of center, political parties, no longer work.
Perhaps
But you won't get that with this candidate - he's running as an independent, not as the father of a new political party.
No, we shouldn't
We deserve a better other party than the lame-ass Republicans and their corporate agenda, though.
Ordinance
Defines "sign" as:
Sign shall mean and include any permanent or temporary structure, device, letter,
words, model, banner, pennant, insignia, trade flag, or representation used as, or which
is in the nature of, an advertisement, announcement, or direction and which is designed
to be seen from the outside of a building.
Not sure if a bus counts. I guess that's up to the courts now...
http://www.cambridgema.gov/~/media/Files/CDD/ZoningDevel/Ordinance/zo_ar...
Not just "a bus"
It is a bus that has not moved for quite a while.
If it were driving around in traffic, that's one thing. What he has done is created a de facto billboard by parking it in a prominent spot and leaving it there.
If I put a bumper sticker on my car
And park it in my driveway for nine months...am I in violation?
What if it's a big decal on my rear window?
What if I wear a campaign T-shirt and park myself in a lawn chair where I can be seen from the street? What if I pay a dude to sit there wearing the shirt 24/7?
The city is in the wrong here. Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean you get to twist the meaning of the law to go after him. The one and only piece of political power you get to exercise is to cast a vote for someone else.
You are a lawyer?
The City may or may not be in the wrong.
All those things you mentioned are not giant billboards. They are not giant banners. They are within the zoning regulations.
You can't hang one of these banners off a building, either.
This is America - we have rights, but there is also a body of law regarding what those rights actually mean and how regulation works. Stick to Skousen.
All of things are smaller
All of things are smaller than the maximum size allowed by Cambridge zoning regulations.
Assuming that the bus constitutes a "free-standing sign" and it is parked at a non-residential property, it absolutely exceeds the limit of 30 square feet. Whether or not the bus does constitute a free-standing sign when parked is for the City of Cambridge and/or a court to decide.
Actually, the bus was in
Actually, the bus was in Brockton today. But, of course, you know more about it than the people who actually operate it...
Brockton, Okay
And I saw it for something like 60 straight days, parked in the spot where it is being dissed.
Oh, but I just imagined that it was there for 60+ as I passed by it every day. Yep.
herefore and to wit
Dear Mr. Ayyadurai,
When I was 13 years old, I did invent the means of conveying a political message by the combination of text and graphics on a solid surface. The original manifestation of my invention I nailed to a telephone post and so it became known to all versed in the arts as a "poster". Please cease and desist from your non-licensed use of my "poster" technology.
As an aside, those of us of Native American blood are unhappy with your appropriation of the term "Indian" to describe your ethnicity. Please in future refer to yourself as Southeast Asian not to be confused with Native American.
regards,
Lanny Budd
Kikapoo Sioux tribe
I love Shiva!!!
First off for being so stupid, he let Howie Carr of all people light him up on the air and for the fact that I've been trying to get him to sue me for ages and he just won't.
Look for him at the next faux "Free Speech" rally run by a bunch of Proud Boys, as that seems to be his biggest group of supporters.
Different Format
From the pictures I just googled:
The previous message was spray painted on the bus, the new message is a banner draped over the bus. The banner likely makes the bus undrivable - that seems like an important difference.
Aha!
Thank you for zeroing in on what seems to me to be the crux of the matter. I am quite active in My Fair City on the subject of signs, and I couldn't figure out how this could constitute one until you supplied this useful bit of information. Now if we could get them to go after the permanent oversized "For Rent" signs on big apartment buildings.
the bus does get driven
the bus does get driven around. I've seen it and it's been photographed moving as well: https://www.varindia.com/uploads/2018/02/5acdce3d36a4a.jpg
Photo from the web
Just thought this was relevant to the discussion. I don't like the guy, but I think he's found a way to speak his message that's probably legal.
He photoshopped her image?
I'm not a lawyer, but that use of her picture -- pasting on a headdress she never wore for the purpose of implying that she did -- doesn't look kosher to me. I'm not a fan of faking pictures of politicians to make them appear to be doing things they didn't do.
Could be infringement
If he were selling something then definitely would be. If he's using it to make a political statement about a public figure...I doubt it. Not that she couldn't file a (probably) nuisance suit against him.
How about the racism factor?
Think I liked looking at that shitbag and his offensive sign every time I drove up Concord Ave?
Add to that, that scumbag Geoff Diehl has more of a chance and Warren kicks his ass by over 30 points last I looked.
Please, tell us what else should be banned
on the grounds it's "racist" or "offensive"
These guys
Well...let's see....
where I said I wanted it banned? And please,tell me how it's not racist or offensive and leave out the quotation marks.
You implied there was a reason to sue him for displaying it
smartass.
Which is why I implied you wanted to bring the banhammer down on him, smartass.
Roman's running out of words!
Haaaaahahaha, Roman sounds like somebody's mom from the 1950s! His seemingly bottomless font of pseudo-intellectual right wing pejoratives seems to be running a tad dry.
Sorry, "Roman"
but if you know anything of my history here, if I wanted that scumbag sued, I would have said it. And again, I never once said that I wanted it banned.
Geez, and people actually spend time engaging with you?
I've got to hand it to you
That's one impressive post to post with a straight face.
Roman:
Brian:
...
...
And nothing I left out contradicts that. I'll extend you and lbb the same courtesy I extended to Slim: I suspect and hope you're all normal people in real life.
We'll extend the same favor to you,
hoping in real life that you're not what you appear to be here: the kind of socially maladjusted twelve-year-old who thinks it's hilarious to drop a deuce in the punch bowl at a grownups' dinner party.
I've cracked the code
I can age backwards of forwards whenever I feel like it.
I love this guy!!
Classic avoidance and over defense techniques clearly designed to give himself and others the illusion that he knows what the fuck he's talking about.
Well done?
The other thing I can do
is I can pop my head out of the leftie bubble whenever I want. Makes it possible for me to say things that make your head explode without having my head explode. Wouldn't want to make a mess inside the bubble. Wouldn't be sporting.
Honestly....?
The only thing your posts make me do is laugh.
A vehicle with this sign (not
A vehicle with this sign (not sure if he was in it), was in the St. Patrick's Day parade. But they won't let the Veterans For Peace march.
The Bus
Trump's bus had "Make America Great Again" on it, so...
The picture of the bus on http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/24/real-indian-running-against-s..., appears to show a banner, hanging from the bus. That could be Cambridge's issue, it's a banner (or a large sign).
If Shiva painted that on the bus instead, then Cambridge would clearly be in the wrong, no question.
As for the banner, could be a gray area, but I believe free speech prevails.
The Real Problem
Even though our latest miracle appearance by a psychophant notes that the bus and banner have moved along to Brockton, this mess was prominently displayed in a Cambridge parking lot from mid-February to earlier this week.
That makes it a billboard, not a banner, not a bus.
Shiva's an idiot
Shiva's an idiot and a lunatic, and when he uses racist dogwhistles in order to try and advance his laughable cause, he's an idiot child playing with matches. A lot of racist sexist white guys like to use this fraudulent ass as a stalking horse, and I can understand why, it furthers their purposes and won't rebound on them. But Shiva's not immune to racism himself, and he should know better than to provide aid and comfort to bigots. If he has any friends, which I doubt, they need to be pulling his coat, like five years ago.