The son of the shirt.
Some facts about Cindy Sheehan’s arrest last night:
- It wasn’t a protest.
I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; “Protester.” He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs…. I was never told that I couldn’t wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things…I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later.
- Even if it were a protest, it wasn’t illegal.
As the Bynum court explained: “Believing that the Capitol Police needed guidance in determining what behavior constitutes a ‘demonstration,’ the United States Capitol Police Board issued a regulation that interprets ‘demonstration activity’,” and that regulation specifically provides that it “does not include merely wearing Tee shirts, buttons or other similar articles of apparel that convey a message. Traffic Regulations for the Capitol Grounds, §158” (emphasis added).
- Nor is it fair they’re doing it to Republicans, too. (And everyone else, it seems.)
Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom.”
She was sitting about six rows from first lady Laura Bush and asked to leave. She argued with police in the hallway outside the House chamber.
“They said I was protesting,” she told the St. Petersburg Times. “I said, “Read my shirt, it is not a protest.’ They said, ‘We consider that a protest.’ I said, ‘Then you are an idiot.’”
You might want to counter the crazy-ass email Rep. Lynn Woolsey is doubtless getting as a result of all this. Were you so inclined.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Plying her needle and thread,—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
Can’t have the Politburo be interrupted by crazies, now can we?
Alas, according to the website’s autobot, only residents of her Congressional district can submit letters. Guess I’ll have to concoct a mock-local address, like all the no-neck monsters in Freeperland are doing.
Heh (as some obscure blogger would say).