Salon: US Citizens Forced from Public Meeting on Social Security

[fryguy]

Requires Salon premium to read full article . . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/04/25/denver_incident/index.html

A "volunteer" police state

Just over a month has passed since two friends and I were forced out of President Bush's town hall-style "conversation" in Denver about privatizing Social Security.

<snip>

At the entrance to the March 21 event, a man wearing an earpiece and lapel pin was presented to us as a Secret Service agent . . . As he aggressively moved the three of us toward the exit, we kept asking why this was happening. He simply replied that it was a "private event" and we had to leave.

<snip>

We have confirmed that the president's Social Security "conversation" was not a private event but, rather, a taxpayer-funded public event open to anyone with a valid ticket. While all this information is telling, as a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen with the right to peacefully express an antiwar statement on a bumper sticker, I believe I deserve more answers.

<more>

[KoKo]

1. Anyone can get a "Daypass" free by viewing an ad, though.

Thanks for the snip and link.

[fryguy]

4. forgot about that . . .

thanks for the reminder . . .

[CornField]

2. Of all the things Bushco has done... I don't understand the lack

of public outcry about this. It isn't new -- it's been happening now for almost FIVE years.

[acmavm]

3. I don't understand it either. This is the supreme example of how out-of-

control bush** and his handlers have gotten. When a citizen of the United States is ejected from a 'speech' bought and paid for by all us taxpayers, it is frightening. When bush** uses public money to travel around the country just to speak to his supporters, that is theft or fraud. Maybe not technically, but that is what it is.

And for people to sit still with their mouths shut when the bush** people deny knowing about these people being thrown out or having anything to do with it just amazes me. Like someone else said, they've been doing this stuff for FIVE YEARS folks.

[cybildisobedience]

5. why isn't the press SCREAMING about this?

Okay, I know the answer. But just imagine if this happened under Clinton?
You'd be so sick of hearing about it that you couldn't turn on the tv or the radio.

[fryguy]

6. because it has a liberal bias . . .

and you're right, had this - or any one of a number of the things the bushistas and company have pulled - been done by a dem there would be calls for resignations, congressional hearings, and special prosecutors (how convenient that they let that law expire!)