posted on August 18, 2004 03:46:15 PM
Bush's thugs at it again. Bush again makes us embarassed to be an Americans.
Ticket ripped because of sticker
Teacher, 55, wanted to see a president
BY IAN C. STOREY
Record-Eagle staff writer
TRAVERSE CITY - Kathryn Mead wanted to see her first sitting president when George W. Bush visited the city.
Instead, Bush campaign staffers tore up the 55-year-old social studies teacher's ticket and refused her admission because she sported a small sticker on her blouse that touted the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards.
"I had my ticket and photo identification, but they would not let me in because of this sticker," said Mead, a teacher at Traverse City West Senior High, who said she has seen Queen Elizabeth and Pope John Paul in person.
"I have never found this kind of screening anywhere in my travels around the world. I can't imagine being denied access to hearing the president of the United States speak."
Several people outside the campaign event tried to console Mead, who was visibly upset.
"It really is comedic," said a man holding a Kerry/Edwards sign. "What absolute nonsense."
Kate Stephan, chair of the Grand Traverse Republican Party, could not be reached for comment after the rally.
But Ralph Soffredine, a Traverse City commissioner, school board member and former police chief who worked security at the front gate, said it is part of the Bush campaign policy.
"We were told that anyone with stickers or shirts would not be let in if they would not take them off," he said. "(Mead) came to me after her ticket was torn up, but I told her there was nothing I could do.
"I know her and it was really too bad, but I would say that we had very few instances of that. I thought it went very well."
Lynn Larson, chair of the Grand Traverse Democratic Party, said the move is typical of other Bush rallies that only allow Republican supporters to see the president.
"The very reason that we are here protesting is to protect our First Amendment rights," she said. "When the Secret Service rips somebody's sticker off and takes their ticket away, it makes me even more determined to march to protect our rights."
Mead, who has taught for two decades, instead stood on the sidewalks with other John Kerry supporters, listening to Bush from behind a fence.
"I really, truly wanted to have the experience of having seen the president and hear him speak, which is very important to me as a social studies teacher," she said. "How can anyone in the United States deny someone entry? Isn't this a democracy?"
posted on August 18, 2004 04:33:02 PM
It's called Security. I honestly doubt that she would have been let into a Kerry area with a Bush sticker on.
It goes both ways. If you go to a Kerry speech and carry a Bush sign you have to go into the area where the Bush people are. You are not allowed around Kerry. Same as with Bush. Keeps the peace better and then the security can keep tabs on everyone.
posted on August 18, 2004 04:35:21 PM
At every site there are protest areas, does not give her the right to disrupt and ruin the Presidential visit for others...
Would you have felt better if the article would of read "Kerry supporter beaten more senseless for disrupting speech"
BC04: Racially Profiling Reporters and Loyalty Testing Rally-Goers
by mbryan
Mon Aug 2nd, 2004 at 20:20:48 GMT
The Bush Administration demanded to know the race of a South Asian Arizona Star photographer , Mamta Popat, assigned to cover a rally in Tucson, AZ. The paper refused, and the Administration relented, allowing the photographer to cover the event. Clearly however, there is no basis for requesting such information other than security (they think the reporter is a potential terrorist because of her name) or politics (they think the reporter is a Democrat because of her name). Either way, this practice is troubling.
BC04's official excuse?
The photographer's race was needed so that staff could distinguish between her and anyone else who might share that name. They don't even bother trying to be credible anymore.
Also of concern is the the way BC04 is handling its rallies. At recent rallies in Albuquerque and Tucson the campaign required tickets to attend the rally. One could only acquire tickets upon signing a Bush-Cheney endorsement form. Thus only devoted Bush supporters are allowed to attend rallies. Thus no hard questions get asked and an appearance of perfect unanimity is maintained. The idea that one has to support the politicians to have access to the office-holder is absurd, un-American, and may even be illegal.
Even if you make it inside the rally, don't express any `subversive' ideas, or wear the wrong thing, or you could be ejected. One local VIP in Wisconsin was ejected from a BC04 rally by police for wearing a Kerry t-shirt... under his clothes!
In contrast, Kerry rallies are open and tolerant. At a recent Las Cruces Kerry rally:
a group of young men in the crowd took off their flip-flops, waved them over their heads and chanted ``Viva Bush!'' The young men contend that Kerry's support of the war has flip-flopped. Kerry urged the crowd to tolerate the young men and said he and Edwards would teach them a ``lesson in values'' during the campaign.
Those men likely would have been weeded out by a Bush advance team long before the rally, been confined to a `free speech zone' miles away, and hustled off to Guantanamo if they somehow made it through the screen.
Contrast that with another recent Kerry rally hosted by Jim Rassmann, one of Kerry's "Band of Brothers" who spoke the the DNC. In response to low guerilla tactics by Bush supporters, Rassmann invited Bush supporters into the rally and answered their questions at length. Such a thing would never happen at a Bush rally.
It seems to me that this sort of exclusionary behavior on the campaign trail, against the press and voters alike, highlights the Bush Administration's desperation and isolation. It is hard to reach out to independents, undecideds, and potential cross-over Democrats if you won't even have a conversation with them. But that has been among the major flaws of the Bush Administration from the begining; their secrecy, their discomfort with real, as opposed to handpicked, constituents, and their obsession with stage-managing all public functions into empty, lock-step spectaculars, marks them as a fascist regime, not a democratic one. I read the increasingly heavy-handed approach they are using as desperation: a very good sign, indeed.
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
posted on August 18, 2004 07:34:39 PM
Traverse City is located in northern Michigan. Their main economy is tourism and the cherry crop. Here in Michigan, Traverse City cherries are somewhat of a big thing. Their summer festival is called, "The Cherry Festival" of all things.
While Bush was their about 3 days ago, he told cheering crowds that he will do his best to export these cherries to other countries. The crowded just roared on that!
Another thing they roared on was when he uttered the statement, I will make sure the water of The Great Lakes is not taken from this area and pumped into other states. Now, I bet he would be telling the people of the southwestern states something of this nature. I will try to provide water from The Great Lakes to this area.
The city of Detroit is about 75 miles south of Lake Huron and it has a water processing plant in Lake Huron. The water main is about 50 feet round and goes into the lake about quarter mile. I wonder if that counts?
Bigots are miserable people. Prevent Bigotry through Education.
posted on August 18, 2004 07:47:44 PM
Bush Sr. had the same attitude in 1992. Remember him looking at his watch during the debates as if they were not important. This could gain Kerry some votes from the teachers friends and family. Keep it up GW!
posted on August 19, 2004 07:06:00 AM
Crowfarm where do you get your information.
"People attending bush campaign events are vetted and forced to sign a loyalty pledge"
What are you drinking. Find a link and post it here.
No Kerry would not let someone in with an anti Kerry sign. Well at least the Security Guards wouldn't let them in. Protesters are not allowed at a political rally. They have a section for them off to the side and they are watched by security. Well not security but by the police department from that city.
posted on August 19, 2004 07:27:00 AM
Well, Libra unlike you neocons, I can use other material besides c&ps. There are things you haven't discovered like radio, newspapers, TV, and personal experiences of people I've talked to, you know, REAL people.
However, because I know neocons will accept nothing but a c&p from the internet in their search for the "truth".....here's one.
August 18, 2004
Bush's crowd control -- Part VIII
Posted August 18, 2004 01:38 PM
I admit it; I'm addicted to anecdotes like these. There are a million of 'em, but I'm collecting them all.
The Washington Post's Richard Leiby spoke this week to John Prather, a "mild-mannered math prof" at Ohio University's Eastern Campus, who came up with a clever idea to see which campaign better tolerates dissent.
Prather's test was simple and perfect: He'd wear a Kerry-Edwards shirt to a Bush rally and a Bush shirt to a Kerry rally, both held on the exact same day in the same state. The result was predictable and true to form for both sides: officials at Bush's event made Prather remove the shirt and then threw him out. Officials at Kerry's event let Prather in and didn't say a word.
Prather...says he carried out this one-man study a couple of weeks ago, attending both rallies in one day. "It really was to satisfy my own curiosity," Prather, 38, told us. "It's been my opinion that George Bush has stifled dissent . . . I think John Kerry doesn't. In neither event was I a threat to anyone." Yet, he says, at the Bush rally, "I was tailed the whole time."
[...]
Prather, who lives in Wheeling, W.Va., calls himself a "moderate Democrat" who voted for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He had a ticket to an afternoon Bush rally July 31 in Cambridge, Ohio. At the first ring of security, Prather says he was told to turn his Kerry shirt inside out. He did. At the second ring, he was told to remove the shirt. He did, then donned a soccer T-shirt. "I was in for 10 or 15 minutes," he recalls, when security escorted him out. It was before the president arrived. "I was so far away I couldn't have even heckled him," Prather notes.
Fortunately, Prather received far better treatment at the Kerry event.
A few hours later, he entered the Kerry rally, in Wheeling, wearing his Bush shirt. "Nobody said anything to me. I took the Bush shirt off after it was clear no one was watching me, and put on the Kerry shirt."
The professor realizes that this limited sample does not provide a sturdy conclusion, and offers an assignment: "I would encourage other people to carry out the experiment."
Libra says, "Protesters are not allowed at a political rally. They have a section for them off to the side and they are watched by security. Well not security but by the police department from that city."
FREE SPEECH ALLOWS protesters at political rallies. Areas were, and will be, set aside at the political CONVENTIONS.
And which is it, Libra, security or police? How dithery can ya get?
posted on August 19, 2004 07:55:50 AM Crowfarm where do you get your information. "People attending bush campaign events are vetted and forced to sign a loyalty pledge" What are you drinking. Find a link and post it here.
Here you go. I think what disturbs me more, though, is the fact that they are keeping a list of non-Bush supporter phones, for Pete's sake.
Bush-backers-only policy riles voters at RNC rallies
By Steve Larese, Globe Correspondent | August 9, 2004
RIO RANCHO, N.M. -- A Republican National Committee practice of having people sign a form endorsing President Bush or pledging to vote for him in November before being issued tickets for RNC-sponsored rallies is raising concern among voters.
When Vice President Dick Cheney spoke July 31 to a crowd of 2,000 in Rio Rancho, a city of 45,000 near Albuquerque, several people who showed up at the event complained about being asked to sign endorsement forms in order to receive a ticket to hear Cheney.
''Whose vice president is he?" said 72-year-old retiree John Wade of Albuquerque, who was asked to sign the form when he picked up his tickets. ''I just wanted to hear what my vice president had to say, and they make me sign a loyalty oath."
Nick Lucy, a 64-year-old veteran and Democrat, said he was turned away from a May 7 rally in Dubuque, Iowa, at which President Bush spoke even though he had a ticket given to him by a local Republican leader. Lucy, who was not asked to sign a form, said he has seen every president since Ronald Reagan, but he was denied access because he is not a registered Republican. He is a Democrat and a past commander of the American Legion in Dubuque who plays taps at veterans' funerals.
''They asked the police to escort me out of there," Lucy said. ''I wasn't going to disrupt anything, but I probably wasn't going to clap a lot, either. Every rally the president goes to everyone is cheering for him because they're handpicked."
Republicans contend they foiled a plot by America Coming Together, a 527 organization that supports the Democratic Party, to disrupt the New Mexico rally. The 527 groups are so named for the provision in the tax code that applies to tax-exempt political organizations that operate outside party and candidate organizations.
RNC spokesman Yier Shi said RNC campaign rallies are not official visits, but party events designed to energize the Republican base . He said everyone is welcome at the rallies as long as they support President Bush.
Shi said similar forms are used at other reelection and fund-raising rallies sponsored by the RNC.
He added that the decision was made to use the forms at the New Mexico rally after the local RNC office received ''suspicious calls" about the event before it was advertised. He said the caller identification indicated some numbers were from cellphones of members of America Coming Together.
''I think the Democrats are just disappointed we thwarted their plans to disrupt our event," he said.
Geri Prado, New Mexico coordinator for America Coming Together, denies her group planned to disrupt Cheney's speech.
The form Wade was asked to sign had a disclaimer saying no public funds were used to produce it.
Wade said he filled out the form, was given two tickets, but had second thoughts about signing an endorsement he didn't believe in. Wade said he explained his misgivings to a supervisor, and the form was quickly located. The supervisor wrote ''Do Not Use" on the form, but Wade insisted it be given to him. In the end, Wade said, he offered to give back his tickets in exchange for the endorsement, which he did.
''Sure I'm a Democrat and I'll go head to head with you one on one, but I would never disrupt a speech by the vice president," Wade says.
Bush-Cheney spokesman Danny Diaz said that RNC rallies are separate from Bush-Cheney events and that he does not know of any endorsement forms being requested of people attending Bush-Cheney-sponsored events. But he says said he understands why the RNC would require such forms at the campaign events.
''They want to make sure people can hear the president and vice president's vision for the next four years," he said. ''There are thousands of volunteers who sacrifice and work hard on the campaign and who deserve to see and hear their president without being disrupted and disrespected."
The campaign of John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee, has had to deal with Republican hecklers at events. The Kerry-Edwards communications director for New Mexico, Ruben Pulido, said that when Kerry visited New Mexico on July 10, several Bush supporters shouted ''Viva Bush" and waved flip-flops.
____________________
"Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim." --Charles Buxton
Prevent Bigotry through Education.