A First Amendment Lesson For Mother Moonbat

Last night, prior to the president's Constitutionally-mandated State of the Union address, Mother Sheehan was taken into custody in the House gallery by Capitol police. World Net Daily has the story, and her response to the detainment.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan says she intends to sue over her arrest last night just prior to President Bush's State of the Union address, as she displayed a shirt proclaiming the number of dead American soldiers from the ongoing conflict in Iraq.

"I am so upset and sore it is hard to think straight," Sheehan writes in her online diary. "I have some lawyers looking into filing a First Amendment lawsuit against the government for what happened tonight. I will file it. It is time to take our freedoms and our country back. I don't want to live in a country that prohibits any person, whether he/she has paid the ultimate price for that country, from wearing, saying, writing, or telephoning any negative statements about the government. That's why I am going to take my freedoms and liberties back. That's why I am not going to let Bushco take anything else away from me ... or you."

Sheehan was taken into custody shortly after unzipping her jacket, revealing her T-shirt, which had the message, "2245 Dead. How many more?"

She says a Capitol police officer spotted the message, 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 said something like 'I'm going, do you have to be so rough?'"

She continued: "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. I was immediately, and roughly (I have the bruises and muscle spasms to prove it) hauled off and arrested for 'unlawful conduct.'"

Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq and has since called terrorists "freedom fighters," said while she was not looking to cause any disturbance, she did wear the shirt "to make a statement."

"The press knew I was going to be there and I thought every once in a while they would show me and I would have the shirt on. I did not wear it to be disruptive, or I would have unzipped my jacket during George's speech. If I had any idea what happens to people who wear shirts that make the neocons uncomfortable that I would be arrested ... maybe I would have, but I didn't."
Sheehan got some support from Fox News' legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano.

"Silently wearing a T-shirt is not against the law," he told host John Gibson. "She had every right to wear it."

For the record, I personally dislike Judge Napolitano, and this interview he participated in shows that he has no clue. I cite the US Code involved in this incident.

TITLE 40 - PUBLIC BUILDINGS, PROPERTY, AND WORKS SUBTITLE II - PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND WORKS PART B - UNITED STATES CAPITOL CHAPTER 51 - UNITED STATES CAPITOL BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS
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Sec. 5104. Unlawful activities
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(2) Violent entry and disorderly conduct. - An individual or group of individuals may not willfully and knowingly -
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(C) with the intent to disrupt the orderly conduct of official business, enter or remain in a room in any of the Capitol Buildings set aside or designated for the use of either House of Congress or a Member, committee, officer, or employee of Congress or either House of Congress;

(D) utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either House of Congress;
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(G) parade, demonstrate, or picket in any of the Capitol Buildings.+++++++++++

Note also, that displays are covered in some more detail with this language later:
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(2) display in the Grounds a flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice a party, organization, or movement.
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In short, Judge Napolitano, you have no clue what you are talking about. She surely does have the right to wear the shirt, but not in the gallery. The law stipulates this, and proper decorum in the House has traditionally observed this. Especially on a night, such as last night, where the president was addressing the nation. This was not the Mother Sheehan show. Judge Napolitano is simply wrong.

As for her First Amendment lawsuit, it will go nowhere. The law is clear. She could not wear the shirt in protest. That was precisely why she did wear the shirt, and the Capitol police acted appropriately. She has accused them of being "rough" with her, and Moonbat Moore has decided that yes, the evil police did abuse her. (If she would like real abuse, I ask for five minutes alone in a room with her.) This is a pathetic attempt to spin what happened, and to gain more attention to herself.

This woman needs to go away. Not that I will not support her right to protest, but because she causes more trouble than anyone else wherever she goes. She hobnobs with dictators in other nations, and supports them more than she does the nation she is a citizen of. Here is my final message for this insolent, petty woman.

If America is so bad to you, if you truly feel you are living in a dictatorship in America, then pack your bags and get out of my country. America, obviously, is no longer the home you love, and the longer you stay and make your foolish portests, the more you spit on the memory of your son; a man who obviously learned more from being in the Army than he ever did from his mother.

The Bunny ;)