High school senior Allen Lee sat down with his creative writing class on Monday and penned an essay that so disturbed his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct.
"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said the teen’s father, Albert Lee, referring to last week’s massacre of 32 students by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. "I understand the situation."
But he added: "I don’t see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."
Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.
The youth’s father said his son was not suspended or expelled but was forced to attend classes elsewhere for now.
Today, Cary-Grove students rallied behind the arrested teen by organizing a petition drive to let him back in their school. They posted on walls quotes from the English teacher in which she had encouraged students to express their emotions through writing.
"I’m not going to lie. I signed the petition," said senior James Gitzinger. "But I can understand where the administration is coming from. I think I would react the same way if I was a teacher."
Cary Police Chief Ron Delelio said the charge was appropriate even though the essay was not published or posted for public viewing.
Disorderly conduct, which carries a penalty of 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, is filed for pranks such as pulling a fire alarm or dialing 911. But it can also apply when someone’s writings can disturb an individual, Delelio said.
"The teacher was alarmed and disturbed by the content," he said.
But a civil rights advocate said the teacher’s reaction to an essay shouldn’t make it a crime.
"One of the elements is that some sort of disorder or disruption is created," said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. "When something is done in private—when a paper is handed in to a teacher—there isn’t a disruption."
(emphasis mine) I hear they’re going to pass a new law against Disturbing The Peace Of The People In Charge. They say the penalties will be severe.
If you really want to blame someone for trying to destroy the United States, point the finger at… Satan?
The devil, Lucifer… whatever you want to call it, one Utah Republican says it is he who is trying to bring the USA down.
And Satan’s apparent weapon of choice: Allowing illegal immigrants to cross the border.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah County District 65 Chairman Don Larsen has submitted a formal resolution to oppose the devil’s plan to destroy the country — to be discussed this weekend at the Utah County Republican Convention.
“In order for Satan to establish his ‘New World Order’ and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.,” Larsen’s resolution states. “[It is] insidious for its stealth and innocuousness.”
Larsen’s proposal to defeat Satan? Close the borders to illegal immigrants to “prevent the destruction of the U.S. by stealth invasion.”
Somebody wake me back up when the voters start electing grownups again…
We normally think of "High Broderism" as the worship of bipartisanship for its own sake, combined with a fake "pox on both their houses" attitude. But in reality this is just the cover Broder uses for his real agenda, the defense of what he perceives to be "the establishment" at all costs. The establishment is the permanent ruling class of Washington, our betters who know better. It is their rough agenda which is sold as "centrism" even when it has no actual relationship with the political center in a meaningful way. Democracy’s messy, in Broder’s world, and passionate voters are problematic. It is up to the Wise Old Men of Washington to implement the agenda, and the job of the voters to bless them for it. When the establishment fails, the most important issue is not their failure, but that the voters might begin to lose faith in and deference for their betters. Thus, people must always be allowed to save face, no matter what their transgressions, as long as they’re a part of his permanent floating tea party.
While this basic attitude isn’t unique to Broder, his apparent lack of interest in the actual details of policy makes him a more absurd figure than some. For him it’s not about results, but about the right people being in the right places. It is terribly elitist in all the wrong ways. Arguments can be made for certain types of elitism – you do want a brain surgeon conducting brain surgery – but Broder’s elites are simply aristocrats. It’s their town.
Pissing On The Grave Of Edward R. Murrow…(continued)
In case you were wondering why the quality of journalism coming out of Washington is so Piss poor, David Broder explains here…
Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid Hill Country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land.
It isn’t simply that they’re mindlessly parroting the talking points of whoever occupies the White House, as even a faint recollection of the unmitigated hostility Bill Clinton got from them recalls. No. They’re see themselves as part of that republican ruling elite now. There’s David Broder, the man they call the "dean" of Washington journalism, happily recalling his times eating quail…Quail, mind you…with Karl Rove in his historic cabin. And no…I strongly doubt they went out hunting quail beforehand. Not with Cheney anyway.
Sorta puts Broder’s crack about how the Clinton’s came in and "trashed the place" into perspective doesn’t it? Read that Sally Quinn column…it’s one big long inside the beltway bellyache about Clinton and Monica…and ask yourself where the puffed up moral outrage is over…oh say, Guantanamo Bay, the shredding of the Geneva Convention, torture, the destruction of New Orleans, the use of the Department of Justice as a weapon against political opponents and against dissent, being lied into a war that’s killed thousands of young Americans who had their whole lives ahead of them, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of the people we allegedly went to war to liberate. Don’t see it? Well there’s a reason for that. The Washington news establishment all regarded the Clinton team as nothing more then poor southern white trash in Their Town and that’s why they hated them. That’s all that mattered to them then, and it’s all that matters to them now.
OK… Thanks to a blog reader and supporter over in Tennessee, I’ve gotten copies of the articles (which were never online) concerning David Crockett High School senior Curtis Walsh, who was dismissed from school for a day after organizing the Day of Silence at his school.
The Day of Silence is a national event in which middle, high school and college-aged students take a vow to silence, symbolically representing the silence that is forced upon LGBT people every day by our society.
The articles (which can be viewed as photos: Page 1 and Page 2) state, in part:
Senior Curtis Walsh said he was dismissed for the day early Wednesday morning by David Crockett High School principal Henry Marable for his own safety.
…
“I showed up at school and within two minutes (Marable) called me and three others into his office. After first period I was dismissed for the day.”
…
Marable as well as Director of Schools Grant Rowland said they had no comment on anything pertaining to the student of the “Day of Silence,” in which several students reportedly left school early.
However, Rowland was quoted by a local television station later in the day:
“One student and one reporter caused one heck of a mess to be stirred up for no reason,” said Rowland in regard to the article on the “Day of Silence” that appeared in Wednesday’s edition of the Johnson City Press.
This principal has apparently kept Curtis out of his school ever since the Day of Silence…
As it seems, Curtis was kept out of school not only on the Day of Silence (Wednesday, April 18th) but also on Thursday, April 19th and Friday, April 20th.
Just wanted to give you an update on Curtis Walsh, the Tennessee senior who was dismissed for supporting the day of silence. I am Curtis’ mother. On Wednesday, he was sent home as the newspaper article said, but we were given NO REASON (the paper said for his own safety). On Wednesday afternoon about 4:00, I received a phone call from Marable, the principal, and he said that Curtis did not need to come to school on Thursday. I asked if he had been threatened (Curtis) or if it was a punishment. He replied, “It don’t matter, He just don’t need to be here.” On Thursday afternoon my husband, Curtis’ STEP-FATHER, NOT HIS MOTHER, received a call from Marable saying that Curtis did not need to be in school on Friday. As you may guess, this fight is NOT over.
This story hasn’t really gotten all that much attention yet… but I hope it will. What is happening to Curtis is beyond unacceptable.
Gotta love it… “It don’t matter, He just don’t need to be here.” Right. Anyone who agitates on behalf of the dignity of gay kids let alone their safety, doesn’t need to be in Henry Marable‘s school. Sorta gives you a flavor for what life is like for gay kids that have to walk those halls doesn’t it? Meanwhile Pat Robertson’s legal sharks are threatening any school that refuses to support their "Day Of Truth" with litigation.
Contact info for David Crocket High School in Jonesborough, Tennessee can be found, Here. More info on another kid who was punished for organizing a Day Of Silence, and a school in Indiana that was put into a lockdown over threats of violence during the Day Of Silence, Here. You can suppose that Jay Sekulow won’t be stepping up to defend the rights of those students…
…or This Teacher who allowed this student editoral calling for tolerance toward gay students to be published. She stands to loose her job now , for allowing these highly controversial words to be published in the student newspaper, and read by impressionable young minds…
Would it be so hard to just accept them as human beings who have feelings just like everyone else? Being homosexual doesn’t make a person inhuman, it makes them just a little bit different than the rest of the world. And for living in a society that tells you to always be yourself, it’s a hard price to pay.
Well we wouldn’t want our kids taking any of that shit seriously now would we?
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
Only a day after students at Virginia Tech were locked in classrooms as a gunman killed 32 of their classmates, Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills went into lockdown Monday morning after parents reported seeing a suspicious man dressed as a woman near a campus bus stop.
Police described a white male about 6 feet tall, wearing a gray or blond wig, lipstick, a flowered skirt, a dark coat and high heels.
Parents first spotted the man standing near the Kingswood School parking lot around 7:50 a.m., school officials said.
"He was walking up the lot toward Kingswood School," said Lt. Paul Myszenski with the Bloomfield Hills Department of Public Safety.
While he was not observed doing anything illegal, authorities decided to lock down schools after 8 a.m. Students were told to sit in their classrooms with lights off as police did a room-byroom search.
Pam Friedman, a parent from West Bloomfield Township, was attending a mothers’ council meeting with Robin Rosenbaum and Elaine Robins, also of West Bloomfield, when the building they were in – the Institute of Science – was also locked down.
Friedman was able to speak with her son, Jake, a 17-year-old junior, by cellphone, who informed his mother he was OK.
"I wasn’t nervous at all after I talked with him," Friedman said.
DeAnn Ervin of Birmingham – whose 12-year-old daughter, Noa, attends Kingswood School – learned of the lockdown when other mothers began calling her.
Lockdowns aren’t that unusual, she said. The school practices at least twice a year.
Ervin was confident the school would protect her daughter. "They communicate a lot with us," she said. "I was more worried about her emotional health than physical."
Cranbrook’s department of public safety took part in the room-by-room search at Kingswood. No one was arrested.
Officials also checked the grounds "where people can hide," said Thomas Sias, the school’s director of public safety, but were unable to find the man.
"The problem is you have seconds to react," Sias said. "It’s a rather daunting task to check it all."
Sias praised the students who were locked in classrooms for about 30 minutes. "When we were walking the halls, you could hear a pin drop," he said.
At 9:20 a.m., the lockdown was lifted, and by 9:30 a.m., buses packed with students were rolling through the campus.
In other news, schools all across Lower Fuckingnuts County were in a state of lockdown after a woman with a crew cut was seen wearing a leather jacket and driving a Harley-Davidson low rider down Main Street…
One should note here that Step 5, the Final Stage, is almost always sponsored by those who endlessly proclaim how irresponsible and substance-free and unserious political bloggers are, and who thereafter write pieces which do nothing other than repeat the latest Drudge gossip.
You should go read it, because we’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing when the 2008 presidential campaign really gets going.
Those Little Twists Of The Knife That Are Meant To Remind You That You’re Human Garbage
Via Pam’s House Blend… All those happy little amusements that heterosexuals take for granted…because the No Homos sign doesn’t apply to them of course…
I had a hard time getting started on this post. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around how the TN anti-gay marriage amendment weaseled itself into the most mundane aspects of our life.
Back when I first posted on the effects of an amendment within the state, I focused on the obvious problems such as being denied access to or the right to make medical decisions for a partner. Little did I consider at the time, that we wouldn’t even be able to participate in a "vow renewal ceremony" at the Tennessee Renaissance Festival.
The vow renewal ceremony has no legal standing, even for heterosexual couples. It’s purely a declaration of love and devotion. There is no earthly reason to limit it to legally married couples, other then the casual matter-of-fact bigotry that motivated the Tennessee anti-same sex marriage amendment, which the operators of the Tennessee Renaissance Festival apparently share. You just don’t treat devoted dedicated couples like dirt otherwise.
So now we see that all the anti-same sex marriage amendments are meant to act in the way the old sodomy laws used to, before the Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional: by defining gay people as innately depraved and legally unequal. It’s about more then marriage. Even the smallest things in our lives, must constantly remind us that we are different, that we are unequal, that we are hated.
May 12 – 13: Romance Weekend
In the spirit of Romeo & Juliet, love is in the air, along with many a love ballad…
Our vow renewal ceremony is a group ceremony performed by one of our vendors,
who is an ordained minister. Participants in the ceremony must be legally
married under the state laws of Tennessee. We encourage participants to come in costume.
For our homosexual attendees, we suggest something sodomites might have worn back in the middle ages, when they were being burned at the stake…
At least four years of emails sent by White House adviser Karl Rove have gone missing, a lawyer for the Republican National Committee informed congressional staff members Thursday, a front page article in today’s Washington Post reports.
"GOP officials took issue with Rep. Henry Waxman’s account of the briefing and said they still hope to find the e-mail as they conduct forensic work on their computer equipment," Michael Abramowitz reports for the Post. "But they acknowledged that they took action to prevent Rove — and Rove alone among the two dozen or so White House officials with RNC accounts — from deleting his e-mails from the RNC server. Waxman (D-Calif.) said he was told the RNC made that move in 2005."
Some stuff I was meaning to post about this weekend but didn’t have the time…
Wanna See Something Really Scary…?
Jesus Plus Nothing: The Political Right at Bible Study, is an article that was originally published in Harper’s Magazine in 2003. But it’s still worth a read, if you don’t mind getting a peek into the hidden world and machinations of the secretive group of believers who refer to themselves as "the Family"…the folks who have been running the "National Prayer Breakfast" since 1953.
Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.
The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family’s leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.” [1] The Family’s only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February in Washington, D.C. Each year 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations, pay $425 each to attend. Steadfastly ecumenical, too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can “meet Jesus man to man.”
In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and more recently, in 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a clandestine meeting, leading to the two sides’ eventual peace accord last July. Such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa’s postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century’s most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. “We work with power where we can,” the Family’s leader, Doug Coe, says, “build new power where we can’t.”
At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn’t say secret diplomacy,” as an “ambassador of faith.” Coe has visited nearly every world capital, often with congressmen at his side, “making friends” and inviting them back to the Family’s unofficial headquarters, a mansion (just down the road from Ivanwald) that the Family bought in 1978 with $1.5 million donated by, among others, Tom Phillips, then the C.E.O. of arms manufacturer Raytheon, and Ken Olsen, the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation. A waterfall has been carved into the mansion’s broad lawn, from which a bronze bald eagle watches over the Potomac River. The mansion is white and pillared and surrounded by magnolias, and by red trees that do not so much tower above it as whisper. The mansion is named for these trees; it is called The Cedars, and Family members speak of it as a person. “The Cedars has a heart for the poor,” they like to say. By “poor” they mean not the thousands of literal poor living barely a mile away but rather the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom: the senators, generals, and prime ministers who coast to the end of Twenty-fourth Street in Arlington in black limousines and town cars and hulking S.U.V.’s to meet one another, to meet Jesus, to pay homage to the god of The Cedars.
There they forge “relationships” beyond the din of vox populi (the Family’s leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride) and “throw away religion” in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God’s covenant with the Jews broken, the group’s core members call themselves “the new chosen.”
The Family’s leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride… Somebody might want to start asking all the politicians that hang around them and big business leaders who give them money why they’re supporting an anti-democratic cult.
Mr. Sheldon, your nose is growing… Good As You catches Mr. Family Values, Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, in a great big fib. Once again we see a righteous man of God counting on the fact that the pews are unlikely to fact check him.
For the past two decades political correctness has been derided as a surrender to thin-skinned, humorless, uptight oversensitive sissies. Well, you anti-politically correct people have won the battle, and we’re all now feasting on the spoils of your victory. During the last few months alone we’ve had a few comedians spout racism, a basketball coach put forth anti-Semitism and several high-profile spoutings of anti-gay epithets.
And you thought e pluribus unum was this country’s motto…
Finally…a little comic relief from, where else, The Daily Show. You have to figure it can’t be easy for Nancy Grace these days, seeing a fellow out of control prosecutor going down hard like that…
Pissing On The Grave Of Edward R. Murrow…(continued)
Via Talking Points Memo … Today’s Washington Post is not the Washington Post that once brought down a crooked president. Today’s Washington posts runs propaganda pieces on behalf of one…
Okay, this is pretty interesting. I think I’ve found something which reasonably suggests that Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt may have broken his own stated Op-ed policies by publishing a piece yesterday by Liz Cheney attacking Nancy Pelosi without identifying Ms. Cheney as Veep Cheney’s daughter.
When I asked Hiatt about this yesterday, he justified it with an email to me (again, I appreciate his willingness to answer) saying that she’d been selected to write the piece based on her professional qualifications alone and that there was thus no need to disclose her relationship with dad.
Knowing that they were reading a hit piece written by the Vice President’s daughter would only have confused their readers.
Two weeks ago, the University of Florida voted to deny Jeb Bush an honorary degree. By a 38-28 vote, the faculty Senate rejected the former governor’s nomination, citing concerns about some of Bush’s education initiatives, including his dismantling of affirmative action programs in the state:
In higher education circles, Bush’s greatest criticism came over his “One Florida” plan, which ended race-based admissions in state universities. Black enrollment dropped at UF and statewide after the change took effect, as critics predicted.
Bush’s policies of “rewarding and punishing schools according to students’ standardized test results and using vouchers to send certain students to private schools at public expense” also contributed to the rejection of his nomination.
Upset by this lack of Jeb Bush adoration, the conservative-controlled House Schools & Learning Council voted yesterday to force the university to rename its education school the “Jeb Bush College of Education.”
Over the faculty’s opposition, the school will now have “to erect ‘suitable markers‘ noting the college’s new name and include the revised name in all university documents, including catalogues and brochures.” The lawmakers acknowledge they “came up with the idea as an answer” to the faculty’s denial of Bush’s honorary degree.
I’m surprised they didn’t make them give Jeb a few more college degrees while they were at it…maybe a PhD in Advanced Physics or Computer Science or something. This may all seem like the same old, same old and yes it is, but look at it: a group of conservative lawmakers decided to force an institute of higher education to give someone recognition in the field of education that they had not earned from that institution. Yes, yes…often that only amounts to giving them piles of money…but at least the giving of money to a college or university makes it possible for that institution to continue to do its job. Jeb acted to deny minority students an education and drain the public schools of money they desperately need to educate kids, our nation’s future…voted to in other words, make the world poorer then it was before he took office, and he and his Conservative cronies expected that institution to give him accolades anyway. And when they didn’t, they forced them to. Next time you hear a conservative yap, yap, yapping about how people have to earn their place in this world, and that liberals are always giving people stuff they haven’t earned and don’t deserve…laugh in their face.
I don’t know when this aired, and I’ve never seen it on any list of Imus’s racist bits, but it’s pretty awful.
You can listen to it at the link here, and also here and here.
Transcript:
IMUS: Some of you may know, who listen to the Imus in the Morning program on a regular basis, there is a new group being formed called the Black Beatles.
BLACK BEATLES MEMBER (in a stereotypical black accent): That’s right, Don. My name is Tyrone McCartney…
IMUS: Uh-huh.
TYRONE McCARTNEY: … bass player for the fabulous Black Beatles, and me and my friends Leroy Lennon, George Jellybean Darnell Rashad Mustafa Muhammad Harrison, and Bingo Starr, we have a new album out of our very famous #1 hits called Beat the Meatles.
IMUS: What’s that?
TYRONE McCARTNEY: Beat the Meatles. We wanted y’all to get it ’cause it’s got some of our famous #1 hits, like this one: (singing) "When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary come to me and speak those woids of wisdom, ‘What it be.’"
And how ’bout this one? (singing) "I shoulda known better with a bitch like you." "Jo Jo was a man who only had three inches, but he knew it wouldn’t last, Jo Jo never had much luck with all the bitches, but I said, ‘Hey, Jo, get black. Get black, get black, get black and watch your johnson grow.’" "Lucy in the sky with a lot of jewelry on." "Strawberry-flavored malt liquor." "Here come my son, he play football. Here come my son, and I say, ‘He bad.’" "I’m back on the old FDR." "Yesterday, my parole came through just yesterday." "Hey dude, lend me a dollar." "I can play center, I can play forward, I be six foot four."
And, of course, my personal favorite: (singing) "We all live in a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville. And my friends is all aboard, many more of them is in the trunk, vinyl tires with wire wheels, in my yellow Coupe de Ville."
Swell. Just swell.
IMUS: A lot of friends of mine called, but I didn’t want to put up — put anybody on this morning who wasn’t scheduled, because I can make my own case, and it is what it is.
OLIPHANT: But to me, that only means that those of us who, through an accident, were scheduled, who know better, have a moral obligation to stand up and say to you, "Solidarity forever, pal."
Right Tom. "We all live in a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville, a yellow Coupe de Ville.
The Daily Dish: Enemy of the People: Meet Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University. He’s a former Marine, with five years of active service and 19 years in the reserve, and a legal critic of Roe vs Wade and supporter of the Alito confirmation. He’s also on the Terrorist No-Fly List:
I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That’ll do it," the man said."
Just a heads up about what these people are up to.
I am posting the below with the permission of Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University. For those who do not know, Professor Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy, may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions, most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left, he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination. Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.
"On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving."
"When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."
"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That’ll do it," the man said. "
"After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: "I must warn you, they=re going to ransack your luggage." On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was "lost." Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this "loss" could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I’m a tad skeptical."
Nice. Welcome to George Bush’s America. If you’re thinking they "lost" his luggage so they could take it somewhere they could inspect it more thoroughly for evidence of a crime, you’re still not paying attention. This was harassment. State sanctioned harassment of someone who was critical of Bush. And they would have Wanted him to complain publicly about it. So harassment not only punishes its target, but also sends a message to anyone else thinking about speaking out against the Bush administration. One of DeLong’s commenter’s avers the following:
Possibly, just possibly, Walter Murphy might now question his support for the nomination of Samuel Alito.
Yah Think? Another commenter brings up the firing of all those federal prosecutors via this New York Times story:
April 9, 2007
Another Layer of Scandal
As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?
Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state’s Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.
The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle’s opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson’s "corruption" to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.
The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. "It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin," Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic’s office.
For years now critics of those of us who have been warning of the creeping facisim of the Bush administration have been called hysterical, and suffering from something they call "Bush Derangement Syndrome". The only thing surprising about Ms. Thompson’s case is that she was allowed to challenge her imprisonment in the courts at all. Bush, Gonzalas and the republicans have made it quite clear that they think Habius Corpus is a luxury America can no longer afford…
I’m going to steal this shtick from Atrios, but I don’t think he’ll mind…
So I make myself some coffee and open my dead tree version of the NY Times this morning only to see a call for blogger ethics on the front page. How interesting. Another call for "managed civil speech" (which is claimed to be "freer" than unfettered free speech.) There was no word on who would be the managers of such speech, but I think we can count on those who call for it to be the ones who feel they are most qualified to define and enforce it. (Apparently, this will all be done "voluntarily" and will be dealt with through purges and link boycotts and the novel concept of moderated comment sections. Or something.)
Meanwhile, on the media page is a story about the execrable Don Imus and the fact that he routinely makes racist, misogynistic and eliminationist jokes on his show while half the Washington press corps spends time there kissing his ring. For some reason that kind of "incivility" doesn’t upset the journalistic prima donnas half as much as the uncivil blogosphere does.
So what’s up with this? The blogosphere is admittedly an uncivil place. Nobody disputes that. But it is comprised of a bunch of disparate individuals who are arguing amongst themselves with varying degress of seriousness and talent as part of the national (and international) dialog. There is a corner of it that is despicable and revolting, as the misogyny that set off this latest debate clearly demonstrates. But for inexplicable reasons it’s the liberal blogosphere that is being particularly attacked for our alleged incivility by the mainstream media. (I suspect it’s the fact that we drop the "F" bomb too much, which is simply shocking in American life)
However, for almost two decades now, talk radio has been spewing vile racist, misogynistic and eliminationst spew — and their stars have been feted and petted for it among the highest levels of the capital cognoscenti. I don’t know for sure why that would be, but I have my suspicions.
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