Another Lawsuit Filed Against Bush Team Claiming Free Speech Violations

Denver residents Leslie Weise and Alex Young allege in a lawsuit filed this week that their First Amendment rights were violated when they were removed from a March 21 "town hall meeting" with President Bush, because of a bumper sticker on their car.

It's the latest battle over First Amendment rights. The question, argued in several different cases around the country, is simply: Do Americans have the right to dissent? Do Americans have the right to attend political events if there's a chance they will dissent?

First Amendment issues have popped up around the country over the past year. A Wisconsin man was arrested last year for holding up a sign as a presidential motorcade drove by. A married couple was removed from a Bush event last summer in West Virginia after revealing anti-Bush T-shirts. A Utah man was visited last fall by the Secret Service for an anti-Bush bumper sticker on his car.

This spring, the Secret Service sent agents to investigate a college art gallery exhibit of mock postage stamps, one depicting Bush with a gun pointed at his head. And just last month, a Washington State woman was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt.

It makes me think of a speech given by Michael Douglas' character, President Andrew Shepherd, at the end of the 1995 film, The American President:

DOUGLAS: America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've got to want it bad, because it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil who is standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.

I doubt that movie gets played much at the current White House. This is, after all, an administration that stages events -- like the Orwellian-named "town hall meetings" -- with pre-screened audiences signing loyalty oaths.

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The Colorado suit was filed Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union against White House event staffers Michael Casper and Jay Klinkerman. It accuses Casper and Klinkerman of detaining Weise and Young and ejecting them from the event at the direction of federal officials.

After the event, the Secret Service told Young and Weise they were ejected because of "No more blood for oil" bumper sticker on their car, the suit says.

Weiss and Young say they had tickets to the event discussing Social Security and had no intention of disrupting it.

"He's the president of all Americans. He should feel comfortable talking to all of us," Weise told the Denver Post.

Weise's words are simiilar to those offered by Jeff Rank, one half of the married couple arrested last July in West Virginia after revealing T-shirts at a Bush event with Bush's name crossed out on the front. The shirt worn by Jeff's wife, Nicole, had the words "Love America, Hate Bush" on the back and Jeff Rank's had "Regime change starts at home" on the back.

"What is at stake here transcends politics," Jeff Rank said. "What is at stake is the right of all Americans — Democrats, Republicans and Independents, all Americans — to peacefully voice their dissent to their government."

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This item first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.

Bush boy only likes cronies and syncophants. All others should line up for the death camps.

:mad:

This is certainly not the America I remember. Chimpy boy has turned it into a Stalinist state. I keep expecting the Bush SS to show up at my door and take me off to Guantanamo.

anti-government, uber-patriots, etc, are standing by silently, or, even more disgusting, with loud approval, as this country becomes more and more fascist. and when you point this out to them, they whine and say, "but this isn't fascism--that is something else entirely"

They make every excuse in the book for why they're supporting something despicable. In the end, there really isn't any excuse except ignorance, stupidity, and sometimes conspiracy.

The Secret Service only investigated the two cases, and no arrests were made. And the Wisconsin case is local authority, not Bush Administration. And the airplane situation is unrelated to the administration.

But I do think that there's a common thread in the "watch what you say and where you say it" idea.

I was recounting how last year on my blog, I offered a series of entries regarding my family's trip through the south, including several days at Disney World.

We had made t-shirts with anti-Bush or pro-Kerry slogans on the front and Kerry/Edwards logos on the back. Nothing threatening, but nonetheless very partisan stuff.

We never feared being kicked out of Disney World, or any of the restaurants or other places we attended while wearing the shirts (such as the Ripley's Believe or Not museum in Sevierville, Tenn. or the North Carolina Aquarium, in Wilmington, N.C.) But could some Bush supporter have argued that our shirts were threatening, and thus had us escorted out? Could just the fear of offending fellow Americans have been enough of a reason to call the cops?

Like I said, I didn't think of it at the time, but after reading about the woman booted off the Southwest Airlines flight for wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt, it makes me think twice.

Why? Because they actively encourage - and I'd even say demand - ideological lockstep. Think it's an accident that BushCo have been rallying the 'puke troops with 'bad liberal this' and 'bad liberal that'? It's to increase the intolerance for a liberal point of view. This has gone to an extreme, encouraged and endorsed by the administration.

Bush and his pals aren't innocent in this - even if they weren't directly involved. Propaganda works. And it doesn't make the agents behind the propaganda innocent.