Monday, October 18, 2010

Can I Get a Palin 1st Amendment Tweet? Joe Miller Security Detains Reporter- UPDATED

C'mon Sarah, I'm eagerly anticipating your latest tweet in which you express your outrage over Joe Miller's security detail impinging on his 1st Amendment rights.

Tony Hopfinger, editor of the online Alaska Dispatch, tells KTUU-TV that security pushed him as he tried to question Joe Miller on Sunday. He says he pushed back and that guards then detained him, accusing him of trespassing at the public event in Anchorage...
...The Anchorage Daily News reports that "Hopfinger was handcuffed by the guards and detained in a hallway at Central Middle School until Anchorage police came and told the guards to release him."
How exactly does one trespass a public event?

Here you go, Sarah. Just to refresh your memory:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Now get those thumbs workin'.

And let's hear it from the "Go back to the Constitution the way the Founders intended" Tea Party to call Miller out on this blatant disregard and hypocrisy. I'll be waiting for that as well.

UPDATE (2pm): Sam Stein gets an exclusive with Alaska Dispatch reporter, Tony Hopfinger (emphasis mine):
"Getting handcuffed by somebody you don't know at a public school, no one had said it was a private event or cast it that way, I mean intimidated, yeah [I was]. But I guess I was more pissed off. Miller, I felt, was going to answer my question on the reprimand part," said Hopfinger.
"I think, just like in other parts of the country, the media is finding itself having a hard time doing its job in this political cycle because, whenever we ask questions, there are certain candidates out there who decry 'lamestream media' or whatever. Mr. Miller has had plenty of time to answer questions. He has been given plenty of opportunities. He somehow believes he shouldn't be questioned about his background and yet he wants a job in six years, to a post where there are only 100 in the entire country, and we are not supposed to ask questions about anything of his past. There is a little bit of shoot the messenger. It is happening up here, and other parts of the country. There are certain candidates who just want to turn this around and act like it's the media causing the problem. That has always been there, that element. It is just more ramped up this political cycle."

No comments:

 
ShareThis