State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R), the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader, must have forgotten his talking points while appearing on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show. This afternoon he admitted on-air what many liberals have long-suspected: rescinding collective bargaining rights from state workers is Wisconsin is as much about the 2012 presidential election as Wisconsin’s 2011 budget shortage.
As first reported by ThinkProgress, Fitzgerald told Kelly: “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”
Sweet revenge. Westboro Baptist got run out of town. The citizens of the ‘Show Me’ state showed the Bastions of Hate the door. Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell did not die in vain.
Now the mongrel churchand their sleazels plan on coming to Prince William County to protest at Woodbridge Senior High School on November 15. After that, they will go to the Coast Guard Recruiting Station. Why is Woodbridge Senior High School any worse than any other school? Casual Observer posted their schedule. I won’t provide a link to their hate site. No free advertising here. They should be ignored. Unless they go on private property, the school won’t see them. Knowing the traffic in Old Bridge Road, they will be lucky not to get run over. Maybe they should go out to Nokesville and protest Ken Cuccinelli’s home. Actually, they should love him. He didn’t sign on the amicus brief against them.
All the brouhaha stems from Wednesday, when four teens wore red, white and blue garb on Cinco de Mayo, a day when many Latino students wore red, white and green to honor the defeat of the French military in Mexico in 1862.
Reached by cell phone today, one of the boys, Matthew Dariano, 16, said he was not at school today fearing there might be violence on campus. Instead, he and his mother were at a hotel doing satellite interviews with Fox News. He insisted that despite reports that he and his friends said unkind words to Latino students, “We didn’t say anything at all. We just wore our shirts.”
The assistant principal had asked the boys to turn their shirts inside out or go home, saying the clothing was “incendiary” on the Mexican holiday, and that he feared for the safety of the students. The boys thought that was “disrespectful” and two went home; their mothers called the media.
The boys are Dariano; Dominic Maciel, 15; and Daniel Galli and Austin Carvalho, both 16. Two of the boys are of Mexican heritage and two are not.
Dariano said he and his friends have not received any disciplinary actions for their behavior, but they have not received any type of apology either.
Wesley Smith, superintendent for the Morgan Hill Unified School District, said in a statement Thursday that the incident was “extremely unfortunate” and the boys should not have been disciplined for wearing “patriotic” clothing.
Free speech experts agreed with the district, saying political speech is protected even on a school campus as long as there is no basis that it will cause violence or physical harm.
About 100 Latino students walked out of class Thursday and marched to Morgan Hill City Hall to protest the boys’ action.
When does it just become the better part of valor to wear a neutral shirt?
The NY Daily News reports the same story with a little stronger flavor added:
A handful of California students got an unexpected lesson at their high school this week: Don’t wear your stars and stripes on Cinco de Mayo.
Five Morgan Hill, California students were asked to take off their American flag bandannas and turn their T-shirts inside out after students complained, according to NBC news in San Francisco.
Many members of Live Oak High School‘s large Mexican-American student population that felt it was offensive for the students to wear the American flag on a day that’s supposed to celebrate Mexican heritage.
When the boys refused to take off their flag t-shirts and bandannas, they were ordered to go to the principal’s office.
“They said we could wear it on any other day,” Live Oak student Daniel Galli said, “but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it’s supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today.”
The alleged concern was that the T-shirts would lead to fights on campus.
“They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended,” said Dominic Maciel.
The chastised teens’ parents were furious.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Julie Fagerstrom, Maciel’s mom, said. “All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They’re expressing their individuality.”
Morgan Hill Unified School District released a statement saying it does not agree with how Live Oak High School administrators handled this incident and that the boys would not be suspended.
Funny how 2 different reports seem to give a totally different version of an incident. I still want to know why kids are being allowed to wear bandanas. Gang attire alert.
This area is a suburb of Silicon Valley. It is not a barrio. It sounds to me like kids are being kids and schools are being schools. And some folks on both ‘sides’ know exactly which buttons to push. And the entire nation is at war over it.
Good for the kids who wore neutral white. It looks like maturity set in. No one wants their school to be an armed camp.
UPDATE: according to a video on Foxnews.com, the students say they were not suspended over the shirts. They chose to go home rather than change their shirts.
People like congresswoman Michele Bachman and Andrew Breitbart, ‘proprietor’ of the far right blog site biggovernment.org, just keep digging themselves in deeper and deeper. They need to take a page out of the Bill Clinton book and stop digging. According to Yahoo News: (highlighting mine)
Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists say the lawmakers are lying.
The Herndon Mayor Steve DeBenedittis and Councilman Dennis Husch both took exception to being dressed down by several citizens during ‘citizens’ time’ during a recent Herndon town council meeting. Apparently both men had participated in a demonstration outside a fund raising event for Democratic hopeful Steven Miller, attended by Governor Tim Kaine.
2 women both spoke of their disappointment that their elected respresentatives during their 3 minutes of time to discuss items that were not on the agenda. The councilman and mayor both attempted to speak over the citizens who were not going to have any of that!
Day after day, the lies roll out and the truth is twisted. Finally, Rick Sanchez of CNN speaks out:
The newscasters aren’t–they are commentators. Beck and Hannity spew hate. Even Greta is not longer fair and balanced. Shepherd Smith is still fairly trustworthy and Bill O’Reilly is looking almost mainstream. Operative word: almost.
From that great inspirational book in cyberspace, Wikipedia–
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The “ideas” or “cognitions” in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one’s behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
A congressman was madder than a wet hen last Saturday when Metro didn’t do to suit him and his constituents. Congressman Kevin Brady (R-Tx) demanded to know why government run Metro didn’t prepare for the arrival of a group of protestors from the southwest who were there to protest too much government involvement in their lives.
According to the Wall Street Journal the Texas Republican sent an angry letter to Metro compaining
that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion.
His letter further stated:
“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration,…These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them.”
From the march on Saturday, a spokesman for Brady tweeted,
“METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro,…”
What a nerve. Let’s see…these folks were going to protest government expansion and services and bitched about Metro? Welcome to our world. According to Wiki, Metro is a tri-jusristictional agency authorized by congress and funded by Washington DC government, Maryland and Virginia.
What are they protesting again? Government doing too much or government not doing enough…for them. Maybe this is where the cognitive dissonance comes in to play. For me, it is easier just to say ‘hypocrites!’
So how did the big march go in Washington? Apparently quite well, from what I could tell. The protestors all seemed happy and having a great time. Many of the signs were creative.
Some signs seemed to be not so tasteful. Many of these signs were handed out at the rally. (see below)
Conservative activists, who organized a march on the U.S. Capitol today in protest of the Obama administration’s health care agenda and government spending, erroneously attributed reports on the size of the crowds to ABC News.
Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance.
At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as “tens of thousands
60,000-70,000 participants certainly isn’t too shabby. Protestors always get into it with the Capital Police and D.C. Fire Department over numbers.
Fox News Commentator/host Glenn Beck was a big supporter of this initiative. He was not in attendance.
According to sources, most of the protesters were conservative, disliked President Obama, didn’t want health care changes, and hated government spending. Isn’t America grand when this many people can get together to express their opinions. Where were they a year ago? Where were they before the election? President Obama was very clear as to the changes he wanted.
It seems like a lot of hoopla after the fact to me. Perhaps they are gearing up for the midterm congressional elections. Help us understand. What is the objective? What do the protesters hope to achieve? I understand they don’t like Obama, any of the proposed health care plans, spending, big government. What are the positives they want? Someone please explain.
People are carrying weapons to Obama events in both Arizona and New Hampshire. These weapons include an AR-15 and various loaded handguns.
One of the New Hampshire men was arrested because he was not licensed to be carrying a loaded handgun. A different man was not arrested because he had a license in NH to be carrying the weapon. He also carried a sign expressing the sentiment: ”The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” (Thomas Jefferson) (See video for exact quote.)
Arizona has less restrictive gun laws. About 15 different people attended the VFW Obama event walking around with various loaded weapons. The reason? Because they could. Perhaps the reason for bringing weapons to an event is to intimidate Obama/health care supporters. How do we seperate these knuckleheads from someone who means to do harm to the President or others?
Just because you can do something, does that mean it is advisable, smart, or wise to do? I have not heard Obama on the subject of guns. I believe walking around with a loaded gun at a presidential event is just asking for trouble, dangerous, and frankly, asking for more restrictive gun laws to to be enacted. This behavior is tantamount to yelling fire in a crowded building.
Time to slap a new federal law into place that outlaws guns within a certain distance of any president of the Unitied States except military and secret service. This behavior truly pushes the envelope way too far and it proves nothing. This behavior is extremist, in my opinion.
In the following video with Neil Cavuto of Fox News, John McCain (of Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran fame) admonishes President Obama for not being encouraging enough to the protestors in Iran. Congress has passed a resolution condemning violence against the protestors.
On the other hand, senior statemen like Henry Kissinger have come out praising President Obama and praising for his stance regarding Iran. Kissinger and like-minded others feel that the United States is in no position to be meddling in the affairs of other sovereign nations.
The Iran portion of the video goes from 00:00-5:10. (Then the topic changes to health care.)
The House went first, voting 401-5 to adopt a measure (H Res 560) expressing “support for all Iranian citizens who struggle for freedom … condem[nation] of ongoing violence against demonstrators by the government of Iran … and affir[mation] of the universality of individual rights.”
The Senate later adopted by voice vote two measures (S Res 193; S Res 196) backing the protests and calling for free speech in Iran, respectively.
“The time has come for the United States Congress to speak out unequivocally in support of the fundamental right of the Iranian people to determine their future for themselves in freedom,” Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., in a joint statement. “With this resolution, the Senate joined with our colleagues in the House of Representatives to affirm our shared commitment to the universal values of democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law, and to condemn the unacceptable violence against the peaceful demonstrators taking place in Iran.”
How do you feel? Should Obama have been more forceful from the beginning in defense of the protestors, especially with strong evidence that the democratic process had been tampered with?
Is Senator McCain right about the U.S. showing more support for the protesting Iranians? Should the President speak only about the civil rights issue of peaceful protest and the human rights issue of allowing protest without violence from the government?
