“Then why do you get choices and a voice, and other people don’t?”

2Mar/110

“Then why do you get choices and a voice, and other people don’t?”

Solitary Walker demonstrator gets harassed by union supporters:

Watch it till the end, considering how the voters are disenfranchised by the absence of the Dem State Senators.

When does speech become harassment? How about when you're mobbing a specific individual or family? How about when the only reason your free speech is being broadcast on the airwaves is specifically because you chose to harass a private individual with it? That is, no one would carry footage of these people if they had a regular protest in front of, say, the local Army recruiting station; no, it's that they're specifically choosing an outrageous and brutal means to inflict their message on a grieving family that makes it newsworthy.

The thing that makes their message remarkable from a news perspective is that it is in fact harassment.

So should that be the rule? I guess those union protesters can physically menace people so long as they're chanting slogans as they do so.

Oh wait; that is the rule, isn't it?

Should have been pounding on a drum. Or telling them, "You're f*cking dead."

Runaway Senators can use campaign funds to pay for their vacation, rules ethics board:

One still-unanswered question in the Wisconsin budget standoff is who is paying the expenses -- hotel, transportation, etc. -- of the 14 Senate Democrats who fled the state rather than allow debate and a vote on Gov. Walker's budget proposal. "We have no idea how they're funding their out-of-state costs," a Republican Senate aide said a few days ago. "We would love to know."

Now, it turns out at least one of the fleeing Democrats asked the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the state's key interpreter of campaign and ethics laws, for an opinion on whether Democrats can use campaign funds to pay their expenses in exile. The Board said yes.

"The Government Accountability Board staff has been asked whether campaign funds may properly be used by the 14 Democrat senators currently absenting themselves from the state to pay for hotels and other expenses incurred as a result of the decision to leave," wrote Board general counsel Kevin Kennedy in a February 22 letter to state senators. "In the opinion of the Board's staff, campaign funds may be used for this purpose."

Gee, remember when Governor Palin was barred from using donations to fund legal fight against nuisance lawsuits? Good times, good times.

So, the $100 a day fines really mean nothing at all.