Thursday, February 02, 2006
The President's Gestapo
Maybe we need a banner to be shown each time Bush-Cheney appears. It would say, “Silence Makes Free,” sort of like the sign at the gates of Dachau. The administration claims to welcome dissent, but it has a gang of white-shirted suits to act as Gestapo. Anyone who’s at least checked the news, or talked with anybody who’s paid attention, knows that Cindy Sheehan was evicted and busted for wearing a t-shirt that listed the number of Americans killed in the occupation of Iraq. Yes, another woman, a Republican, was removed, too, but after Sheehan, because the cops didn’t want to appear to take sides. But it seems like the cops were keeping a very close eye on Ms Sheehan. Also, Ms Young, the Republican, was not handcuffed...and she even called the cop “idiot.”
It stinks, you know. I hear Michelle Malkin posted that Ms Sheehan is less than a true-blue American for saying she’s against the war. Ms Malkin, you remember, wrote a book about what a good idea it was to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II (I look forward to reading what she has to say about the Massacre at Wounded Knee).
- The Carpetbagger Report - http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com -
The T-shirt scourge on America
Posted By Carpetbagger On 1st February 2006 @ 10:50
Think whatever you want about Cindy Sheehan; there isn't much of a defense for this.
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.
"She was asked to cover it up. She did not," said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman, adding that Sheehan was arrested for unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail, Schneider said.
Sheehan was an invited guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) last night and was not disrupting the address when she was taken away by police. There were rumors on the networks that Sheehan held up an anti-war banner, but she did not. She sat in her seat, wearing a T-shirt that read, "2,245 Dead — How Many More?"
This, apparently, is now a crime. Again, this isn't about Sheehan, so much as it's about why the Capitol Police believe a law-abiding citizen can be taken into custody based on the non-obscene political message on a shirt.
______________________________________________
Indeed, it's worth noting that when it comes to Bush's "bubble," T-shirts have become quite a public menace.
* In August 2004, John Prather, a mild-mannered math professor at Ohio University, was removed by security from a presidential event on public property because he wore a shirt that promoted John Kerry.
* On July 4, 2004, Nicole and Jeff Rank were arrested at a Bush event in West Virginia for wearing T-shirts that criticized the president. (About the same time the Ranks were being taken away in handcuffs, Bush was reminding the audience, "On this 4th of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds." Gotta love irony.)
* In August 2004, campaign workers removed a family from a presidential event in Michigan because one woman, a 50-year-old chemist, carried in a rolled-up T-shirt emblazoned with a pro-choice slogan. She later said, "I just wanted to see my president," and brought the extra shirt in case she got cold.
* In July 2004, Jayson Nelson, a county supervisor in Appleton, Wis., was thrown out of a presidential event because of a pro-Kerry T-shirt. An event staffer saw the shirt, snatched the VIP ticket, and called for police. "Look at his shirt! Look at his shirt!" Nelson recalled the woman telling the Ashwaubenon Public Safety officer who answered the call. Nelson said the officer told him, "You gotta go," and sternly directed him to a Secret Service contingent that spent seven or eight minutes checking him over before ejecting him from the property.
* In October 2004, three Oregon schoolteachers were removed from a Bush event and threatened with arrest for wearing t-shirts that said "Protect Our Civil Liberties."
In each instance, the "accused" had tickets to see the president. Moreover, none were disturbing the peace, disrupting the event, or causing a ruckus. Their crime was their shirt.
In this sense, Sheehan's arrest was predictable. Sad, but inevitable.
URL to article: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6500.html
OK, now this, from John Nichols’ blog at The Nation:
Beverly Young, the wife of Representative C.W. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, showed for the State of the Union address up sporting a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops--Defending Our Freedom." When Capitol Police asked her to leave the gallery because she was wearing clothing that featured a political message, Mrs. Young says, she argued loudly with officers and called one of them "an idiot."
But Mrs. Young was not handcuffed. She was not dragged from the Capitol. She was not arrested. She was not jailed.
Sheehan, who caused no ruckus, was arrested not because she engaged in "unlawful conduct." Rather, by every evidence, she was arrested because of what her T-shirt said--and, by extension, because of what she believes.
That makes this a most serious matter. Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is one of the senior members of the House, is right when he says that Sheehan's arrest by officers he refers to as "the President's Gestapo," tells us a lot more about the George Bush and the sorry state of our basic liberties in the midst of the President's open-ended "war on terror" than anything that was said in the State of the Union address. "It shows he still has a thin skin," Stark says of the President who claims to welcome dissent.
It also shows that the father of the Constitution, James Madison, was right when he warned that, in times of war, the greatest danger to America would not be foreign foes but Presidents and their minions, who would abuse the powers of the executive branch with the purpose of "subduing the force of the people."
It stinks, you know. I hear Michelle Malkin posted that Ms Sheehan is less than a true-blue American for saying she’s against the war. Ms Malkin, you remember, wrote a book about what a good idea it was to intern Japanese-Americans during World War II (I look forward to reading what she has to say about the Massacre at Wounded Knee).
- The Carpetbagger Report - http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com -
The T-shirt scourge on America
Posted By Carpetbagger On 1st February 2006 @ 10:50
Think whatever you want about Cindy Sheehan; there isn't much of a defense for this.
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.
"She was asked to cover it up. She did not," said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman, adding that Sheehan was arrested for unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail, Schneider said.
Sheehan was an invited guest of Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) last night and was not disrupting the address when she was taken away by police. There were rumors on the networks that Sheehan held up an anti-war banner, but she did not. She sat in her seat, wearing a T-shirt that read, "2,245 Dead — How Many More?"
This, apparently, is now a crime. Again, this isn't about Sheehan, so much as it's about why the Capitol Police believe a law-abiding citizen can be taken into custody based on the non-obscene political message on a shirt.
______________________________________________
Indeed, it's worth noting that when it comes to Bush's "bubble," T-shirts have become quite a public menace.
* In August 2004, John Prather, a mild-mannered math professor at Ohio University, was removed by security from a presidential event on public property because he wore a shirt that promoted John Kerry.
* On July 4, 2004, Nicole and Jeff Rank were arrested at a Bush event in West Virginia for wearing T-shirts that criticized the president. (About the same time the Ranks were being taken away in handcuffs, Bush was reminding the audience, "On this 4th of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds." Gotta love irony.)
* In August 2004, campaign workers removed a family from a presidential event in Michigan because one woman, a 50-year-old chemist, carried in a rolled-up T-shirt emblazoned with a pro-choice slogan. She later said, "I just wanted to see my president," and brought the extra shirt in case she got cold.
* In July 2004, Jayson Nelson, a county supervisor in Appleton, Wis., was thrown out of a presidential event because of a pro-Kerry T-shirt. An event staffer saw the shirt, snatched the VIP ticket, and called for police. "Look at his shirt! Look at his shirt!" Nelson recalled the woman telling the Ashwaubenon Public Safety officer who answered the call. Nelson said the officer told him, "You gotta go," and sternly directed him to a Secret Service contingent that spent seven or eight minutes checking him over before ejecting him from the property.
* In October 2004, three Oregon schoolteachers were removed from a Bush event and threatened with arrest for wearing t-shirts that said "Protect Our Civil Liberties."
In each instance, the "accused" had tickets to see the president. Moreover, none were disturbing the peace, disrupting the event, or causing a ruckus. Their crime was their shirt.
In this sense, Sheehan's arrest was predictable. Sad, but inevitable.
URL to article: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6500.html
OK, now this, from John Nichols’ blog at The Nation:
Beverly Young, the wife of Representative C.W. Bill Young, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee, showed for the State of the Union address up sporting a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops--Defending Our Freedom." When Capitol Police asked her to leave the gallery because she was wearing clothing that featured a political message, Mrs. Young says, she argued loudly with officers and called one of them "an idiot."
But Mrs. Young was not handcuffed. She was not dragged from the Capitol. She was not arrested. She was not jailed.
Sheehan, who caused no ruckus, was arrested not because she engaged in "unlawful conduct." Rather, by every evidence, she was arrested because of what her T-shirt said--and, by extension, because of what she believes.
That makes this a most serious matter. Representative Pete Stark, the California Democrat who is one of the senior members of the House, is right when he says that Sheehan's arrest by officers he refers to as "the President's Gestapo," tells us a lot more about the George Bush and the sorry state of our basic liberties in the midst of the President's open-ended "war on terror" than anything that was said in the State of the Union address. "It shows he still has a thin skin," Stark says of the President who claims to welcome dissent.
It also shows that the father of the Constitution, James Madison, was right when he warned that, in times of war, the greatest danger to America would not be foreign foes but Presidents and their minions, who would abuse the powers of the executive branch with the purpose of "subduing the force of the people."
