Posted by citizengeorgia in Gwinnett County.
Georgia Cops Impound Anti-Abortion Billboard Truck, Jail Driver
November 26th, 2007
Police action an egregious abuse of power
Atlanta, Georgia – Bob Roethlisberger was arrested and jailed over Thanksgiving weekend in a northern suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, on the charge of “Disorderly Conduct” for driving Operation Rescue’s Truth Truck bearing signs with photos of aborted babies. The Truth Truck was impounded.
Gwinnett County Police Department officers arrested Roethlisberger Saturday after telling him that signage on the Truth Truck was “vulgar and obscene.” Officers ransacked the back of the Truth Truck without a warrant and ordered Roethlisberger to change or remove the signs. When he refused, he was arrested and incarcerated for three days before being released on $1,000 bond.
The Truth Truck was released from impound late Monday, however the both the signs and the mounting hardware on the truck were damaged when police forcibly ripped the signs off the sides of the truck. Monetary damage to the property is estimated to be in the thousands of dollars.
“It is obvious that these police officers, under the direction of Major Thomas Bardugon, engaged in a serious incident of unconstitutional content-based discrimination and illegal distruction of property,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Bob fully cooperated with officers, but refused to compromise on his message, which is unequivocally protected by the First Amendment. The officers misused their authority to punish Bob for expressing a viewpoint that ran counter to theirs. The arrest was nothing less than an egregious abuse of power.”
Newman discussed the matter with Major Bardugon who refused to drop the charges and threatened to arrest Newman if he drove the Truth Truck through Bardugon’s jurisdiction.
The Truth Truck was in Georgia because a recently introduced Human Life Amendment that is scheduled to be considered by the State Legislature in January. The Truth Truck’s mission was to help draw the attention of Georgians to the reality that abortion brutally takes an innocent human life, and emphasize the need to ban the grisly procedure.
Operation Rescue manages a fleet of Truth Trucks that have traveled tens of thousands of miles from coast to coast over the past seven years. The right to display those images has been upheld in courts across the nation, which have also ruled that obscenity laws do not apply to aborted baby images.
“We intend to vigorously fight these unjust charges and will seek a remedy for our property loss,” said Newman. “We cannot allow the illegal use of police authority to bully us into silence, when such silence could cost innocent human lives.”
Please contact the Gwinnett County Police Chief and ask for:
The immediate dismissal of charges against Roethlisberger
The immediate reimbursement for damages to the Truth Truck
An apology
Chief of Police Charles M. Walters
770-513-5000
Charles.Walters@gwinnettcounty.com
Posted by Debbie Dooley in Your Comments on Other issues.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071128/D8T6I6T00.html
I urge you to read this article. Huckabee set up a truth squad. Didn’t Bill Clinton do that when he ran in 1992?
Excerpts:
But the Ethics Commission files don’t cover everything, and this year – anticipating criticism – Huckabee’s campaign set up a “truth squad” to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an incomplete account of his record.
On major issues:
_The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state court. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found five violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was tossed out.
Two of the complaints against Huckabee pertain to unreported gifts – the canoe and a $200 stadium blanket received by his wife, Janet. Two stem from cash the governor or his wife received but did not initially report. The panel also ruled in 2003 that Huckabee’s campaign violated state law when it used its funds to pay for an event during the summer of 2002 called Gospel Fest
During his tenure, Huckabee accepted 314 gifts valued overall at more than $150,000, according to documents filed with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office. (He accepted 187 gifts in his first three years as governor but was not required to report their value.)
_Huckabee has consistently understated his role in the parole of rapist Wayne DuMond, who had been convicted in the 1984 rape of a distant cousin of former President Clinton.
Two months after taking office, Huckabee stunned the state by saying he questioned DuMond’s guilt and that it was his intention to free the rapist, who had been castrated by masked men while awaiting trial. Huckabee said then he had “serious questions as to the legitimacy of his guilt” and acknowledged later that he had met with DuMond’s wife about the case while he was lieutenant governor. Two months after ascending to the governor’s office, Huckabee met with the woman again.
The ex-governor now blames his predecessor for making DuMond parole eligible – Jim Guy Tucker commuted a life-plus-20 years sentence to 39 1/2 years – but distances himself from his role in DuMond’s release. Huckabee met privately with the state parole board, and two members have said he pressured them for a vote.
“He made it obvious that he thought DuMond had gotten a raw deal and wanted us to take another look at it,” former board member Charles Chastain said in 2001. “Some board members who were usually very tough about letting people out … (later) voted in favor of him, and seemed eager to.”
On his campaign Web site, Huckabee says the parole board was made up entirely of Democrats appointed by Clinton and Tucker. It doesn’t mention that Huckabee reappointed board member Railey Steele days before he voted with three other members to set DuMond free. DuMond was later convicted of killing a woman in Missouri and died in 2005.
_Huckabee likes to say he was tough on taxes in Arkansas, noting a $100 million tax cut in 1997 that until this year was Arkansas’ largest. When asked about a fuel tax increase he backed in 1999, Huckabee says incorrectly that he joined 80 percent of Arkansas voters in approving it.
Huckabee in 1999 supported a $1 billion highway bond program, including costs for interest and lawyers’ fees, but the question on the ballot was only whether the state could take on the debt, not how Arkansas would pay for it. Huckabee had signed the fuel tax increase two months earlier.
Shortly after taking office, Huckabee took a four-day trip by bass boat along the Arkansas River to tout a 1/8th-cent sales tax increase for outdoor programs. (Two nature centers now carry the names of Huckabee and his wife.) Taxes went up $40 million in the months before the $100 million tax cut Huckabee touts.
Other taxes went up as Arkansas changed its property tax system and made improvements to its school system.
_Huckabee’s recent strong stand on immigration, including an intolerance toward companies that employ illegal immigrants, runs counter to the image he crafted in his final years in office. He was battling conservatives within his own party who were pushing for stricter state-level immigration measures.
Huckabee opposed a Republican lawmaker’s efforts in 2005 to require proof of legal status when applying for state services that aren’t federally mandated and proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Huckabee derided the bill as un-American and un-Christian and said the bill’s sponsor drank a different “Jesus juice.”
That same year, Huckabee failed in his effort to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for state-funded scholarships and in-state tuition to Arkansas colleges. At the time, Huckabee said he didn’t understand the opposition to it.
Citizen Georgia: 
Huckabee Tries to Gloss Over Ark. Record November 28, 2007
Posted by Debbie Dooley in Your Comments on Other issues.add a comment
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071128/D8T6I6T00.html
I urge you to read this article. Huckabee set up a truth squad. Didn’t Bill Clinton do that when he ran in 1992?
Excerpts:
But the Ethics Commission files don’t cover everything, and this year – anticipating criticism – Huckabee’s campaign set up a “truth squad” to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an incomplete account of his record.
On major issues:
_The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics Commission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state court. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found five violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was tossed out.
Two of the complaints against Huckabee pertain to unreported gifts – the canoe and a $200 stadium blanket received by his wife, Janet. Two stem from cash the governor or his wife received but did not initially report. The panel also ruled in 2003 that Huckabee’s campaign violated state law when it used its funds to pay for an event during the summer of 2002 called Gospel Fest
During his tenure, Huckabee accepted 314 gifts valued overall at more than $150,000, according to documents filed with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office. (He accepted 187 gifts in his first three years as governor but was not required to report their value.)
_Huckabee has consistently understated his role in the parole of rapist Wayne DuMond, who had been convicted in the 1984 rape of a distant cousin of former President Clinton.
Two months after taking office, Huckabee stunned the state by saying he questioned DuMond’s guilt and that it was his intention to free the rapist, who had been castrated by masked men while awaiting trial. Huckabee said then he had “serious questions as to the legitimacy of his guilt” and acknowledged later that he had met with DuMond’s wife about the case while he was lieutenant governor. Two months after ascending to the governor’s office, Huckabee met with the woman again.
The ex-governor now blames his predecessor for making DuMond parole eligible – Jim Guy Tucker commuted a life-plus-20 years sentence to 39 1/2 years – but distances himself from his role in DuMond’s release. Huckabee met privately with the state parole board, and two members have said he pressured them for a vote.
“He made it obvious that he thought DuMond had gotten a raw deal and wanted us to take another look at it,” former board member Charles Chastain said in 2001. “Some board members who were usually very tough about letting people out … (later) voted in favor of him, and seemed eager to.”
On his campaign Web site, Huckabee says the parole board was made up entirely of Democrats appointed by Clinton and Tucker. It doesn’t mention that Huckabee reappointed board member Railey Steele days before he voted with three other members to set DuMond free. DuMond was later convicted of killing a woman in Missouri and died in 2005.
_Huckabee likes to say he was tough on taxes in Arkansas, noting a $100 million tax cut in 1997 that until this year was Arkansas’ largest. When asked about a fuel tax increase he backed in 1999, Huckabee says incorrectly that he joined 80 percent of Arkansas voters in approving it.
Huckabee in 1999 supported a $1 billion highway bond program, including costs for interest and lawyers’ fees, but the question on the ballot was only whether the state could take on the debt, not how Arkansas would pay for it. Huckabee had signed the fuel tax increase two months earlier.
Shortly after taking office, Huckabee took a four-day trip by bass boat along the Arkansas River to tout a 1/8th-cent sales tax increase for outdoor programs. (Two nature centers now carry the names of Huckabee and his wife.) Taxes went up $40 million in the months before the $100 million tax cut Huckabee touts.
Other taxes went up as Arkansas changed its property tax system and made improvements to its school system.
_Huckabee’s recent strong stand on immigration, including an intolerance toward companies that employ illegal immigrants, runs counter to the image he crafted in his final years in office. He was battling conservatives within his own party who were pushing for stricter state-level immigration measures.
Huckabee opposed a Republican lawmaker’s efforts in 2005 to require proof of legal status when applying for state services that aren’t federally mandated and proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Huckabee derided the bill as un-American and un-Christian and said the bill’s sponsor drank a different “Jesus juice.”
That same year, Huckabee failed in his effort to make children of illegal immigrants eligible for state-funded scholarships and in-state tuition to Arkansas colleges. At the time, Huckabee said he didn’t understand the opposition to it.