2 Ejected From '05 Bush Event In Court

[sabra]

Source: AP

DENVER (AP) ― A federal appeals court on Wednesday heard arguments that two people who were booted from a Denver public appearance by then-President George W. Bush shouldn't have been excluded from the event because of their views expressed on a bumper sticker.

Leslie Weise and Alex Young claim their First Amendment rights were violated when they were ejected from the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum on March 21, 2005, just before Bush was to appear at a taxpayer-funded town hall to tout his plan to privatize Social Security.

A judge dismissed their lawsuit last year, saying Bush had the right to ensure only his message was conveyed at his own speech. The lawsuit names two volunteers who asked Weise and Young to leave and two members of Bush's White House Advance team that oversaw the volunteers.

Weise and Young say a Secret Service agent told them they were picked for removal because they arrived at the museum in a car with a bumper sticker reading, "No More Blood For Oil," which was a reference to the Iraq war.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chris Hansen, who represents the two, argued that allowing the earlier ruling to stand would mean that government officials could screen everyone and exclude people from public meetings, including school boards, city council meetings, even Congress.

Read more: http://cbs4denver.com/wireapnewsco/2.ejected.from.2.1319448.html

[DrDan]

1. we will be cleaning up after the bush era for decades

[Roland99]

2. Compare that to the openness of the healthcare reform town halls

where the right-wingnuts were showing up in droves.

[AlbertCat]

3. What do anti-war bumper stickers in the parking lot have to do with Bush's SS message?

[valerief]

4. Nuttin' honey. Just fascist bullshit. nt

[Canuckistanian]

5. Wait a minute

A judge threw their case out because ONLY BUSH had a right to have his views heard at the town hall?

And even though there was NO EVIDENCE that the defendants had any intention of expressing their view?

That judgment was BEGGING for an appeal.

[Robb]

6. Yup.

And the ACLU attorney has a great "slippery slope" argument in the can. I like where this is headed. :)