Trio Kicked Out of Bush Social Security Event May Sue Republican Party

According to 9News.com, the three people kicked out of President Bush's Social Security "town hall" session last week are considering a lawsuit.

"We were there to take part in this dialogue on social security," says (Alex) Young. He says, "The gentleman came up to us and asked me to come with him. He refused to say who he was, where we were going, anything to that extent and he began shoving and pushing me to the door."

Special Agent, Lon Garner, who is in charge of the Secret Service office in Denver says, "The Secret Service had nothing to do with that. We are very sensitive to the First Amendment and general assembly rights."

"The Secret Service does know who this is, but they're not sharing it with us," says Dan Recht, the attorney representing Bauer, Weise and Young. Recht says the group met with the Secret Service on Monday and were told a Republican staffer had removed them from the event because of a bumper sticker on Weise's car. One bumper sticker says, "Save the environment, plant a bush back in Texas." A second sticker says, "No more blood for oil." It was apparently this sticker that caused the staffer to act.

It will be interesting to see if the three really do try a lawsuit, because a successful claim could force candidates to rethink the organization of their campaign stops in the future. This doesn't help Congressman Bob Beauprez, either, because his office was in charge of distributing many of the tickets.

Comments

[Ter Ducken]

Hotpants and Righton, it really scares me to read those comments. You wouldn't be up in arms if it were a Democratic President doing the same thing? This isn't about partisanship anyway, it's about the people not being silenced. Besides, they hadn't even made a commotion. If they had started acting belligerently, I could see removing them. But they were singled out beforehand. That's not right, period.

[alfalfa]

Ter Ducken is right (do you prefer Ter or Mr. Ducken...?). Had any sort of disturbance actually taken place, a case could be made for removing them. But, no disturbance took place. There are no grounds for removal of people based on what bumper sticker is on their car or what t-shirt they are wearing.

Using the logic of the Republican defenders on this site, do we start removing people from taxpayer funded Bush events because they fit some sort of profile of being against the President?

Women voted 51-48 for Kerry - ooooooo, maybe we don't want any women at Bush events. They might cause a disruption!

African Americans went for Kerry 88-11 - so I guess they're out.

18-29 year olds voted 54-45 in favor of Kerry - keep those damn kids out of the events!

I guess us white males will be OK in being able to attend an event where the democraticaly elected President of our nation is appearing - as long as we leave our thoughts that this actually is a government for the people, by the people, at the door.

[Vic]

Let's be honest. These folks went in with an agenda to make a stink for the president. I know they are claiming that they came to Jesus at the door and weren't going to make Michael Moore proud, but no one is buying that.

They got caught, plain and simple. The R's got them in time, and now the D's can claim their right to free speech, yada yada.

If they weren't caught, they disrupt the event with their cute t-shirts, then they're kicked out and the R's have grounds to complain.

Let's call it a draw. Nice try, better luck next time.

[Phoenix Rising]

No, Vic. No draw here. No "we'll be good now". No "they came for the Colorado Progressives, but I wasn't a Colorado Progressive".

These people were peaceful. They were quiet. Their sole indiscretion known to the staffer (who IMPERSONATED A FEDERAL OFFICER and ASSAULTED them) was the bumper sticker. They committed no crime, nor did they plan on committing a crime. If their plan was to display their T-shirts, then that still wasn't a crime. If they planned to ask "where is the $2 trillion transition money going to come from", that isn't a crime either.

This isn't about "R's" vs. "D's". It's about citizens having a government Of the People, For the People, and By the People. If this government doesn't serve its people, it isn't a democracy anymore, and we can just tear up the Constitution as a failed idea.

[Alfalfa]

Why call it a draw? If Republicans are so certain of being right in this case, then why give an inch to us whiny yuppie event-disrupting liberals?

You call things a draw when you know you're wrong. This incident smells and it smells bad for Republicans.

And, I guess we can now add mind-reading to the long list of things Republicans think they are good at. It seems every defender of what happened at the Bush rally knows with absolute certainty that the people removed were there to cause a disruption. I don't know how anyone could know that without being able to read the minds of the three people involved.

Maybe you all can take your mind-reading act on the carny circuit this summer - should be a great draw.

[GoodGrief]

At the end of the day it doesn't matter if there was an overzealous volunteer or not. Nothing is going to happen. Policy is not going to change and the protesters won't sue. Let's move on to a productive discussion. This is boring.

Who is running in the 4th? I've heard Al Yates is up for the job?

[Bob]

Really scary, we can't even question this adminstration with tee shirts or bumper stickers, or anything remotely critical of this adminstration. They didn't hinder Presidents Bush's right to free speach. He was able to say everything he wanted to say but yet someone wearing a shirt that say no to privatization of social security I guarantee would not be let in. Can we have anything on our shirt or car? This is censorship of something that has no impact on other peoples right to free speach. Lets call this what it is, thought police sponsored with out tax dollars.

[Hot Pants]

So you can distrupt an event with no penalty but being escorted out (ooooh) excuse me while I laugh and anyone who thinks they did not go with an intent to disrupt is lying to themselves or willing to buy a bridge in the desert. When I go to see and hear the President I don't want to have the event ruined by the Progressive Coalition so Mike Huttner can prove his worth to his boss Polis

[Whatever]

I'd rather have my tax dollars pay for Bush town hall meetings than some goofy liberal program that does nothing but promulgate the welfare state.

[Alfalfa]

Lake Havasu City in Arizona did pretty darn well with their bridge (the London Bridge) in the desert, so if you're selling that one, there might be some interest.

[Phoenix Rising]

The brown shirts will be handed out at the next CD-7 GOP meeting, I guess. Loyalty oaths were already taken during the campaign season.

[Bytheway]

By the way, who really wears a smiley faced tie?

[Bob]

Of course you would rather have our tax dollars go to propraganda that supports moving as much money as possible into Wall Street regardless if this exciting new program will actually do anything to protect social security. Why are we debating something that will do nothing to solve the problem, end of story, privatizaiton does nothing to solve this "crisis"... absolutely nothing, Bush admitted it. Wow almost sounds like class warfare, you give us more of your money to make us richer even though we could really careless about solving the "problem" while we will give you more propaganda, sounds fair. Republicans love class warfare as long as it goes in their direction and makes them richer.

[Colorado_Underdog]

I heard the GOP staffer who kicked them out was Kelly Maher!

Doesn't she work for Beauprez?

[Colorado_Underdog]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10969-2005Mar29.html?nav=rss_politics/administration

[Jimmy]

Kelly is woman, a man throw them out.. did you even read the article Under Dog?

[zzzzz]

Silly Underdog, how could it be a "she" when the article you shared says it was a guy?

[Bytheway]

It was a Bush Advance guy that booted the trio out. But, several volunteers fingered them.

[Colorado_Underdog]

It's a he she!

[Colorado Underwear]

Who is so stupid to shake and tremble when a man in a smiley face tie approaches them and then so stupid to think a secret service agent wears a smiley face tie? Answer... a car load of self proclaimed "no blood for oil Denver progressives"

[Manbra]

Nice one underwear! I am a die hard Jackson D but I have to admit it was pretty lame to say they feared for their life when a man wearing a smiley face tie approached. Made us look pretty whimpy, what happened to the kickass WTO protesters we need some schooling on how to protest.

[James C. Hess]

The same thing took place when Bill Clinton was in the White House and the mainstream news media REFUSED to report on it.

Obviously it only matters when the whores of the Democratic party--a.k.a. the MSM--can use it to spin for the Dems.

[Aquaman]

Wow, I've never seen a blog where presumably grownup professionals use the comments to gossip like prepubescent schoolgirls. "Yuppies"? "Pretending to be federal agents"? "He she"? The same people slapping each other's limp little hands giggling about who is "a real Colorado cowboy". You guys need some glittered nail polish and a copy of Shrek 2 for the weekend?

[ajax slayer]

Are you even an American? We put our punctuation inside quotation marks. moron.

[Aquaman]

"We put our punctuation inside quotation
marks. moron."

We only do that when the punctuation is part of the quote, and it would be "Moron.", seeing as how we also capitalize new sentences.