Denver Outrage

.

Two days after a 60 year old librarian was removed from a John McCain town hall event in Denver, the secret service has denied any involvement. It turns out that a McCain staffer requested the removal.

Officials at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts issued the following statement today:

"A representative of Senator John McCain's staff respectfully asked that the venue for its July 7 Town Hall Meeting, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts, not allow persons to display signage within the Arts Complex."

The ousted librarian, Carol Kreck, was holding a poster board which read "McCain = Bush" while waiting in line for entrance to the public event. How divisive? Ironically, removing dissenters from campaign events has always been standard operating procedure for President Bush, as shown here, here, and here.

Carol wrote about these developments today in her blog. She had this to say about the status of her case:

"I will not pay a fine, I will not accept diversion. That leaves two options: dropped charges, or going to trial. After that is resolved, David Lane will proceed civilly."

I think the (not so) straight talk express just pushed around the wrong little old librarian. Below is video of the ouster, compliments of ProgressNowAction.org:

.

.

Comments

[Shoppingkharma]

Thanks so much for covering this. This displays perfectly how the McCain camp has the tendencies to disregard the Constitution even further. I bet if they had their way, there would be no 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment will be the next to go. The 4th is currently slowing being chipped away.

[Jeff]

I would love to see this go to trial. The problem is, it should be Ms. Kreck, the librarian, who should be pressing the charges. While I have no way of knowing the local ordinances and what not, it would certainly seem as though this lady had her rights violated and it is she who should be the plaintiff in any trial that might take place.

Just what are these alleged charges against Ms. Kreck?

[Tim]

She was charged with trespassing, although I suspect charges will be dropped as they usually are in cases like this. If she does sue civilly, this could turn out to be a long, nasty story for John McCain.