Results tagged “freespeech”

Meet Walter Carl Abbott, Jr. He's the kind of Lou Dobbs-loving, manly-man Maryland construction worker who blames everything that's wrong in this country on illegal immigrants. In fact, he feels so strongly about illegal immigration that last year, he decided to send an email to Gov. Martin O'Malley about it. Unfortunately for Abbott, the email included this phrase: "If I ever get close enough to you I will [w]rap my hands around your throat and strangle the life from you." Whoops!

The story of Pepin Tuma, the local lawyer who back in July was arrested by a D.C. police officer after singing the words "I hate the police" while walking down U Street, has made its way in front of the D.C. Council, leading to serious talk about revising the District's disorderly conduct laws. The Legal Times blog and Huffington Post both covered Friday's hearing, during which Tuma testified about his experience while flanked by pro bono counsel from his former firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. And it looks like Tuma's message got through to Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary chairman Phil Mendelson. From the BLT: 'During the hearing, Mendelson made it clear he thought it was time for changes in the law, pointing out that parts of it were more than a century old, and that it had been criticized by Gerald Ford’s President’s Commission On Crime in the District of Columbia.' Unsurprisingly, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier and D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles have expressed their opposition to changing the law, which currently allows officers latitude in making arrests for what they deem to be disorderly conduct. The officer in this case, however, is being investigated by both the police department's Internal Affairs Bureau and the independent Office of Police Complaints, according to Huffington Post.

The Examiner reported this morning on a case of some dumb high school kids, the internet and potential free speech issues colliding at Wilson High School. The basic story is this: sophomore Jafaar Mohammad was videotaped by some friends making derogatory remarks about an unnamed Wilson teacher. The video is above, and its audio contains swear words that make it NSFW. It runs only about 17 seconds, and depicts Mohammed as being at a social gathering at a private residence. In the video, which is pretty garbled, Mohammed says that someone is "gay as shit," "the worst teacher ever," and then jokes that he "almost dreamed he was fucking him once." At no time in the video does Mohammed name the teacher or the school he attends.

A groups of D.C. residents took over part of Adams Morgan yesterday with the expressed purpose of annoying people with a megaphone. Their point? That what they were doing was really annoying, and should be illegal under District law. Operating under the monikers Quest for Quiet and Free Speech Should Not Mean Forced to Hear, the group protested for the second year in a row (last time in Georgetown) in the hopes of bringing attention...

With the sun out, the temperatures high, one can only think of one thing-- what's going on in the World of the -ist's? Bostonist dug deep to uncover Barack Obama's unpaid parking tickets, their Governor's latest ethical lapse, and a plagarizing sports writer. Chicagoist had everything in twos: two views on having the Olympics, losing two members of their Super Bowl team, and two music festivals. DCist put their noses in legal books as they...

Morning Washington. Animals everywhere are breathing sighs of relief this morning after one giant creature makes a recovery and five little creatures get some justice. Ambika, the Asian elephant at the National Zoo was found with a blood clot yesterday, worrying the vets with what could have been a life threatening condition for the 59-year-old female. Luckily, the clot isn't dangerous, and Ambika looks to live will beyond the typical 50-ish year elephant life expectancy...

Thanks to Dave Hughes' excellent DCRTV for reminding us of the local angle to a national media story: the status of Arlington native Katie Couric's recent ascension to the anchor's chair over at CBS News. Couric grew up in Arlington, attending Yorktown High School (where she was a cheerleader) and UVA before beginning her climb to the top of the TV news industry — a process that included a stint at D.C.'s WRC-TV, NBC4. From...

This DCist lives in an apartment building that not only has a PA system but keeps that PA system tuned to the satellite radio 80s station. We begin our day with Depeche Mode no matter what. When you think about it, you’re forced to listen to music in many places, whether it’s the staple jazz bleating from Starbucks speakers or the minstrels of the metrorail stations. But it’s one thing when “Banana” provides you a...

When 25-year-old filmmaker Steven Greenstreet heard director Michael Moore had been invited to speak at Utah Valley State College during the heat of last fall's election, he knew things might get interesting. He was right, and his documentary of the events, which he dropped out of nearby Brigham Young University to create, is also generating some attention. The film is called This Divided State and has been picked up by the liberal Center For American Progress for a nationwide campus tour. Their Campus Progress project is sponsoring a free screening tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7 p.m. at the E Street Cinema downtown. Although the screening is free they're asking attendees to RSVP on the web, and we heard as of yesterday there was still space.

Things like today's full DNC convention schedule, an op-ed written by a DNC convention blogger about the "Free Speech Zone" titled "Mr. Kerry: Tear Down This Wall!", and a column by Ann Culture spiked by USA Today, (Choice quote: "My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call "women" at the Democratic National Convention.")