Posted on 03/29/2005 9:27:23 PM PST by Former Military Chick
DENVER - President Bush's spokesman says a diversity of views is welcomed at events across the country as the president builds support for his Social Security reforms, even as three people say they were singled out and removed from an event last week because of a bumper sticker.
During a news conference Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president hears different viewpoints on the news, and the events are meant to educate the American people about the problems facing Social Security.
"That's what they're designed for, to talk about the problems that we face and to talk about possible ideas for solving it," McClellan said.
Internet technology worker Alex Young, 25; marketing coordinator Karen Bauer, 38; and lawyer Leslie Weise, 39, were approached by what they thought was a Secret Service agent and asked to leave the March 21 event at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum.
The three said they had obtained tickets through the office of Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo., had passed through security and were preparing to take their seats.
Bauer said the agent put his hand on her elbow and steered her away from her seat and toward an exit.
Tom Mazur, a Washington-based spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, said an inquiry found none of the agents responsible for protecting the president were involved with the group's removal. He said it didn't appear any laws were broken because tickets were issued and a host committee has the right to remove people who might be disruptive.
Young said event officials told them the next day they were identified as belonging to the "No Blood for Oil" group. The three say they belong to no such group but the car they arrived in had a bumper sticker that read: "No More Blood for Oil."
"U.S. Rep. Beauprez thinks it's unfortunate that anyone was asked to leave, especially because of something like a bumper sticker," Jordan Stoich, Beauprez's spokesman.
Young, like Bauer and lawyer Leslie Weise, 39, is a member of the Denver Progressives, a political activist group. He said the three had T-shirts underneath their business attire that read, "Stop the Lies" and they had talked about exposing them during Bush's visit. He said they had scrapped the plan by the time they arrived at the museum.
Dan Recht, an attorney for the three, said the T-shirts did not play a role in the group's removal.
"They hadn't done anything wrong. They weren't dressed inappropriately, they didn't say anything inappropriate," Recht said. "They were kicked out of this venue and not allowed to hear what the president had to say based solely on this political bumper sticker.
"The very essence of the First Amendment is that you can't be punished for the speech you make, the statements you make," Recht said, adding the group is mulling filing a lawsuit.
President Bush has visited at least 17 states to gain support for his plan to change Social Security, meeting with people who are generally supportive.
Some people who have stood up to disrupt Bush while he was talking have been removed. But a group called Americans United to Protect Social Security said there have been at least two instances in which people have been removed or barred from a Bush event beforehand.
In February, a "black list" of people banned from getting tickets was published by The Forum newspaper of Fargo, N.D. The White House and the Republican Party denied such a list existed and Gov. John Hoeven's staff said no one was denied tickets. Fargo police later said the list was created by a local volunteer involved in the ticket distribution.
Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for Americans United, called the Denver example the most egregious violation.
"They're screening the people who are allowed to come and then they're profiling them in the parking lot," he said. "It's quite extraordinary, and disappointing."
No. It's Bush. He's prescreening. I just know it. He's starting to think he's King of America. :)
Denote heavy sarcasm.
And I believe them, don't you?
Sounds like somebody at the DNC is just busy as a bee.
I wonder what would happen if people showed up wearing "Minuteman Project" T-shirts....
I agree. This has DNC fingerprints all over it. "Blacklist." I guess we've gone from memos to blacklists now.
Sheesh.
I'm sure there's more.
I dunno, but if it had been a Terri Schiavo bumper sticker, the reaction around here would be volcanic.
There was a thread about this earlier, and half the people on it were critical of Bush.
I've been checking the address field in my browser a lot lately.
I sure do get sick of lefty retards who start wailing about the First Amendment every time they don't get what they want from somebody else. The "very essense" of the First Amendment is in the first five words thereof: "Congress shall make no law..." Private transactions between private parties are not affected by the First Amendment. You come to my event and start talking crap I don't like and I give you the boot. I can because it's my event.
I commend the Secret Service.Let the "Denver Progressives "whine all they want.
The freedom of whine is guaranteed. :^)
It's gratifying to see that we're actually capable of defending ourselves now and again. So often we just bend over for these prycks.
I hope the Secret Service is investigating the incident not to get anyone in trouble, but to demonstrate that these people were bad news -- or to learn how the same actions might be accomplished in other, perhaps different situations.
As for Republican Congressman's Beauprez' comments in support of the leftist punks: Take your own side, loser. And if you can't do that, then shut up. No one's rights were violated. There is no right to crash a presidential event and yell at him, hog the cameras, or whatever the Rats had in mind.
Heckling is not free speech. Get your own podium.
My bottom-line reaction to situations like this: The Lefties and liberals can dish it out. But they sure can't take it.
Who's he trying to kid. He's upset because the SS was one step ahead of them. Apparently he wants us to believe that sore-loser commies are always entitled to a "freebie" before getting hauled off.
When the event is funded by the federal government, and it's Secret Service agents hauling people off, it's not a private transaction between two parties.
Me too.
Actually, those events are funded by the RNC. The SS is there because Congress mandated them as POTUS protectors. It was a private event.
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