What appeared to be a peaceful sit-in by women and older men was quickly quelled by police in riot gear at the State Capital on Saturday. The crowd was protesting invasive pre-abortion procedures soon to be mandated by the state.
31 arrests were made. The protesters were carted off by McDonnell’s storm troopers. The protestors were arrested for trespassing and unlawful assembly for being on the steps of the Capital. It looks like McDonnell is hell bent on trampling every component of the First Amendment, including free speech, right to assemble and right to redress grievances towards the government.
Bob McDonnell is going to insist on that ultra sound and if you don’t like it, he is going to shove it up your….trans-vaginal.
Further reading: Richmond Times Dispatch
Except the stinky point glossed over that the Church and those outside of the church that agree with the point that govt should not mandate healthcare shouldn’t have the same 1A equal protections….
“Virginia” “Vagina” Hmmm. Sounds a lot alike. I think they’re going to be linked for a long time.
The church doesn’t have anything to do with the ultra sound issue. Well, that probably isn’t true but for all surface appearances it doesn’t.
You want to give institutions the same rights at individuals have, Marin. I am not quite ready to do that. Would you be as willing to give the Muslim mosques the same 1A that you give the Catholic Church? I seem to recall a certain proposed mosque near the former site of the twin towers….
Yup. @ Censored.
Those storm troopers aren’t doing much for his vice presidential image either. The women of Virginia aren’t going to let ‘boots on the ground’ be said without mentioning the riot gear.
@Moon-howler
And as you’ll recall I supported their fundamental economic right to do so. Even if I disagree with speech I must support the speakers ability to say his (or hers) piece.
That includes Wal-Mart, Exxon and Buy & Large.
I give individuals rights, not institutions and that includes unions and corporations. I think the supreme court was dead wrong on citizens united.
Actually I understand there can be limits as to where protesters can go. I am not sure I agree with the state in this particular spot though.
In Prince William County you get greater consideration if you represent a group. You get more speaking time than if you are only speaking for yourself.
marin, do you think the riot/drill stuff was necessary for that group of people?
I am not sure. I expect it is standard. However, it looks bad on McDonnell’s part. He has continued to fall right into the hands of his political enemies.
He shouldn’t have declared war on women’s rights. Who is HE to gubinatorially order a procudre for women that isn’t needed?
So the Times-Dispatch said “hundreds” of protestors……here we see “massive” protest. Hmmmm.
Did I say massive? 😈 Chalk it up to hyperbole. Sarcasm intended.
What is a corporation, other than a legal structure for a group of people? Ditto churches and unions.
McDonnell is turning Virgina into a police state. He sends his jack booted thugs in with batons on women who are doing nothing more than exercising their constitutional rights. Washington and Jefferson must be spinning in their graves seeing what has become of their beloved Virginia government. We are on the march t military dictatorship.
“I give individuals rights, not institutions and that includes unions and corporations. I think the supreme court was dead wrong on citizens united. ”
You don’t GIVE anyone jack. You can GIVE government powers. People are born with rights.
“marin, do you think the riot/drill stuff was necessary for that group of people?”
I would have had riot police/troopers held in reserve and minimize the show of force as much as possible. A show of force only provides the protestors with a backdrop for a video to be shown on Maddow. Of course from the Superintendents (VA State Police) view this is authorized overtime for his men and can be used as ‘training’.
So I can see it both ways.
I’m not a fan of a heavy police presence as it glorifies the image of the State as our protectors and plays in to the liberal argument that only the govt should have guns and that they will protect us. I also doubt any of these commie pinko protestors were armed so a lighter hand would’ve been better.
I doubt the governor even knew anything about the protest or what methods were used to protect the capitol. That’s straight capitol and VSP.
I also want to point out I agree with #9.
@marin, I meant in my mind. You are quite right, it isn’t up to me to give others rights and that isn’t what I meant although I can see the confusion.
I find the fact that you just called those protesters commie pinkos very insulting and unwarranted and I am going to ask you to retract your statement.
I would have surely been out there 20 years ago and if I didn’t have mobility issues I would have been out there last week. I am not a commie pinko. I am not going to let some f*cking man or woman, governor or otherwise, tell me what I can and cannot do about my own reproduction or the reproduction in my family. Enough already. The government does not have that right.
You owe me, my husband, daughter and son an apology. None of us are commie pinkos. All 4 of us did this sort of thing 20 years ago. We did it because we didn’t think anyone had the right to make personal decisions for us, most of all, not churches or politicians.
Sic semper tyrannis!
Corporations can’t vote, can’t get drafted, can’t serve on jury duty, can’t get prison sentences, can’t have their trans-nonni-nonnis probed, don’t pay sales taxes, can’t serve in the National Guard, can’t volunteer in school, can’t donate blood, and all those other things that we the citizens are honored to do. All they can do is buy elections so they can protect their profits.
Virginia is ground zero in the repugs’ war on women!
absolutely!
Wow ! I got an “atta-boy” from Elena…….so……they can’t walk a dog, they can’t pick up litter, they can’t spare a guy a dime, they can’t chat with a friend, they can’t sit with a dying relative, they can’t save a drowning kitten, they can’t report a crime (won’t report a crime). There are responsibilities to citizenship (vote, serve, help, watch, aid, stand-up, support, defend, join, contribute). All of these are selfless responsibilities. Name me one corporate parallel that didn’t involve a tax break. A corporation is not a citizen and should not wield the same rights as a citizen. TERM LIMITS – TERM LIMITS – TERM LIMITS.
Marinm,
I am shocked by this statement.
“I also doubt any of these commie pinko protestors were armed so a lighter hand would’ve been better.”
Since when did peacefully exercising your right to protest the government become a communist act? What happened to “Mr. Libertarian”? No, you are insulting all the women whom I know wish they COULD have gone to Richmond. I have marched twice in my life for womens rights, and let me tell you , I am proud to have peacefully marched for my freedom to control my body.
It was a joke – not a statement.
I support y’alls right to march and protest as I do Wal-Mart and Westboro.
joke fell on us like a sack of potatoes, clearly none of us thought it was funny @ Marinm
@marin and @elena
nor did it come across as a joke.
Marin’s attitudes toward women are like those of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He probably makes his wife wear a burka
@Starry, I think Marin was just in a bad mood. While hiw politics and mine are bi polar, I have to say that I have met Mrs. Mnarin on several occassions and I don’t think he or anyone else is going to ‘make’ that lady wear anything she doesn’t chose to wear. She is very much her own person. Thumbs up to Ms. Marin! (and her cute little marins).
Hmmmmmmmm ………… I think I’ll stay OUT of this one!
Corporations are legal “persons” only for administrative and liability purposes – not for the kind of rights the Founding Fathers intended for people. A corporation is a “person” in the sense that it bears legal liability for debts and other things and protects the shareholders from liability from actions in which they had no part. It also facilitates selling shares to raise capital. Those are all good things from the perspective of economic growth and job creation.
Corporations do not enjoy rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as do people. The Founders never intended that. Citizens United was among the worst decisions ever to come from the Supreme Court, and I hope that a future court will have an opportunity to reverse it. Giving corporations, and that includes unions as well as businesses, non-profits, and any other type of organization protected by Citizens United, the same rights to freedom of speech that individuals enjoy will be the downfall of our system and the elimination of one-person, one-vote in U.S. Just look at the super-pacs and massive corporate/union influence and money in our elections. Even at the local level, just look at how developers bought the primaries and the general elections at the Board of Supervisors last year.
I don’t want Jeff Immelt or Mike Lubeley to have any more power than anyone else, or for their vote to count for more than anyone else’s. Same goes for unions and their leaders. We’re facing a situation now, however, where money in politics and corporate power are driving elections and the actions of our elected officials.
@Need to Know
That’s fine, but I think we’re conflating separate issues here 1.) money and politics and 2.) whether or not legally organized groups of people have the same speech rights as an individual. There’s a flip side of that coin, take Charles Koch with his net worth of over 25 billion. I don’t see any reason why the SEIU shouldn’t be able to pool their resources and speak against Koch. If that weren’t the case, then only the likes of Koch, Soros, and Buffet would have the ability to speak loudly in the public arena.
I’m all for a discussion about how to get money out of politics, I just don’t want to mutilate the 1st amendment in the process.
@Cato the Elder
I don’t think Koch should be able to donate unlimited amounts of money to campaigns or PACs. That makes his “vote” count much more than those of other people. I’m all for free enterprise and people being able to become as wealthy as they want. However, I oppose strongly their being able to use that wealth to buy political influence. It’s much like the old days when only landowners could vote. Everyone else was disenfranchised. Nowadays, people like Koch and others, including the development lobby in PWC, are using their financial resources to disenfranchise everyone else. If Koch and others were unable to buy influence, there would be no need for the SEIU or anyone else to pool resources as a counterbalance.
I agree, NTK. I think there should be limits. I don’t care who it is.
@Moon-howler
“The church doesn’t have anything to do with the ultra sound issue. Well, that probably isn’t true but for all surface appearances it doesn’t.”
Moon, I don’t really believe you mean this. ALL of these anti-abortion issues are a part of the Catholic agenda. Yes, there are non-Catholics who don’t believe in abortion, but in the main it is the Catholic church that gets politicians to bully women and deny them access to abortion and other health care services, particularly those that have to do with family planning–despite the fact that the active practice of birth control goes on among Catholic women and men.
@George, I don’t deny there is heavy church influence behind the ultra-sound bill. Evangelical churches are also behind anti-abortion legislation. You can’t hang it all on the Catholic Church. However, I meant directly, not indirectly. Surface value to surface value the two situations are unrelated. Scratch slightly and I will agree with you.
@marinm
“Buy & Large”. Do you mean “Buy and Large” the plumbing store in California or “BuynLarge”, the fictional store in Pixar’s WALL.E world? Just wondering…
McDonnell just doesn’t seem to understand the old maxim, “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
@George S. Harris
Yes, I meant the Buy and Large from Wall-E (again, part of the joke(s) from the above post). Nice catch!!
Actually, the iron for B&L was that it was a megacorporation that grew so big and powerful that it took over everything including government and that raw materialism from the mass population coupled with no means to clean up the planet in an effective balance led to the required human exodus from Earth.
@Starry, I doubt I could get my wife to wear a burka. I actually don’t find anything appealing about the burka.
@NTK, the flaw that I see is that money =/= votes. You can spend all the money in the world trying to persuade me to vote for Obama and it won’t budge me – I would not vote for that commie pinko socialist leftist. Having said that Romney can spend as much money on this planet and some the Federal Reserve would print up for him and I still wouldn’t vote for that commie pinko socialist leftist fascist.
Moral of the story here is.. You can spend all the money you want but at the end of the day it takes the average John Q. Public that watches shows like Jersey Shore or American Idol to go into a booth and vote.
@marin
I would like to see you get Mrs. Marin to wear something she didn’t want to wear. I like MY defense of you better than your own.
@Moon-howler
I was just trying to be positive with Starry! 🙂
@marinm
“You can spend all the money in the world trying to persuade me to vote for Obama and it won’t budge me”
Marinm – people like you, Moon, Elena, most of the other posters on this blog and I follow issues and politics closely and have formulated fairly strongly-held beliefs already. Vast amounts of campaign spending won’t affect us much, if at all.
Unfortuneately I agree with you that John Q. Public spends more time watching Jersey Shore and American Idol than informing himself on issues and candidates. Much of what the campaign money buys is market and voter studies to determine what motivates and gets an emotional reaction from John Q. Public. The vast amounts of campaign spending then aim at “selling” the candidates to that profile. Once elected, the former candidates procede to do whatever their paymasters want rather than what they promised John Q. Public. Mr. Public has resumed watching Jersey Shore and American Idol anyway, and might grumble some but won’t pay attention again until the campaign marketers come after him for the next election.
The sad truth is that there are vastly more John Q. Publics who can be swayed in this manner than there are committed conservatives or liberals.
@Moon-howler
Just confirmed that an order to wear a burka was quickly met with a screw you. 🙂
It’s all good. I’ll tell her who to vote for tomorrow and all will be as it should in the household….
Bwaahahahahaha I hope you told that lady who was defending her over here in howler land.
good call 🙂
@Need to Know
I think the Founders would argue (apologies for the techno-speak) that that’s a feature not a bug.
@Need to Know
NTK–the Founding Fathers never heard of a corporation. However, the present SCOTUS did. I am hoping they see the error of their way in the Wyoming case. If they can’t see that billionaires now own the presidency and most of the Congress, we don’t stand a prayer.
@George S. Harris
No love for the East India Company??