"The White House said Wednesday that simply a belief that someone intends to disrupt a presidential event is enough to get the person removed."--Former White House Press Sec. expressing motive and a claim of telepathy,
April 2005. (Rocky Mountain News, 04.27.2005)
DENVER, COLORADO--The Denver Post has a great story today about the March 21st, 2005 incident where three anti-Bush activists were illegally ejected from a political event that President Bush was speaking at. It's interesting, since the topic he was there for has been (and always will be) a complete wash with the public--privatizing social security. The revelation that the orders came directly from the White House were expressed in a deposition by Steve Atkiss (change one letter, add another...pun-intended), a former aide to the president, now chief of staff of Homeland Security (I feel safer now). It was corroborated by brown shirts Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman in their depositions for the ACLU lawsuit against them and the White House:
Today's revelations by volunteer bouncers Casper and Klinkerman showed that the decision to eject the activists "was made at the highest levels of the White House," suggesting a policy of excluding potentially-disruptive critics at events nationwide, ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said after the men were deposed in Denver's federal courthouse. White House spokesman Blair Jones declined comment. (Denver Post, 03.03.2007)
Imagine that, they didn't want to comment on it. The ACLU will win this case, and it's likely that either brown shirts Casper or Klinkerman--or both--will be facing-charges of impersonating Secret Service agents. This is a serious federal offense, but we know these silly-things don't worry the Bush administration--you know, pesky things like "laws." I know, many of you Republicans and reactionaries were beaten by your parents, so roughly 30% of you 'mericans crave authority-figures who hurt you--but this is serious. Who was that masked man who said he was a Secret Service agent? It took a little digging, but it appears--sit-down--they have lied and changed their stories a few-times about it.
Yes, who was that masked man with the earpiece? No, I don't mean the president during the 2004 presidential debates:
The three say they were told by the Secret Service in Denver that the man admitted to ousting them solely because they arrived in a car bearing a "No more blood for oil" bumper sticker. The Secret Service is investigating the man on possible criminal charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent. He was wearing a dark suit, earpiece and lapel pin. The White House and the Secret Service know the man's name but have declined to reveal it. The White House has described him only as a volunteer. (Rocky Mountain News, 04.27.2005)
Maybe the folks who ejected them just wanted some close-contact. Maybe they were feeling the love and wanted to brush-up-against Alex Young, Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise. Say what you will, but the GOP is certainly capable of arousal, and tends towards dominance and pederasty. Was it the bumper-sticker that had anti-Bush slogans on it? Frankly, I think they were being tracked and watched, which raises the specter (not do-nothing Arlen) of other more-disturbing issues: were they being watched by the Red squads of Homeland Security or the NSA? There is a similarity here between using private security at these events and in Iraq: they don't fall-under the same rules and laws dictated for government employees. Sit on that one for awhile.
But back to impersonating a Secret Service agent. How many years could you get in a federal poky? We have an answer in an unrelated-case involving Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. This 46-year-old Hispanic guy--Nelson Mercado--tried to get a bodyguard job with them by lying-about his credentials. Robert Deniro will be playing him in a movie soon. He told them he was once a Secret Service agent "for Homeland Security." This last detail is odd, isn't it? Are a bunch of Bush cronies running-around with phony-credentials. Or is it the other way around? Both?
The United States Secret Service arrested a man Thursday for allegedly impersonating a federal agent in an attempt to secure a job as a bodyguard for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, TMZ reports. Nelson Mercado, 46, allegedly lied to Brangelina's security team, Sunset Protective Services, saying that he was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in LA. (US, 09.15.2006)
He can get a maximum of three-years in a federal prison, and probably will. Man, that was some swift justice, wasn't it? YET, we have no-idea who this man at the 2005 GOP event was, not even up-to today. The Secret Service and US Attorneys aren't giving details anymore...why, you think the president would fire some of these people if they actually did investigate properly? Naw, that never happens.
Impersonating a Secret Service agent is a felony under federal statutes. Again, these things have never bothered the Bush administration, and it appears that the mystery man (not the one who briefed the press for Cheney this-week) gets-around the country a lot. The White House slyly contends that the unknown individual was an "overzealous" and "rogue" GOP-volunteer. Right. He volunteered to break-the-law and violate the 1st Amendment rights of anyone who questioned the president's agenda in a public-setting that they had legally-obtained tickets to. Look at all the places the fatso was seen at:
He was in Fargo - always a hotbed of dangerous political insurgency in this country - prior to Bush's Feb. 3 appearance in a Social Security town meeting.There he blackballed more than 40 North Dakotans, placing their names on a list to be denied tickets and excluded from the event because they could not be certified as Kool-Aid-drinking Bushies.
He was in Tucson on March 21 when he refused access to the Social Security town meeting to ticket-holder Steven Gerner, who was found guilty of wearing a University of Arizona Young Democrats T-shirt.
And he was in Portsmouth, N.H., on Feb. 16 when he and another guy dressed to look like a Secret Service agent with a serious weight problem ejected two middle-aged women from a sparsely attended Social Security town meeting there. (Denver Post, 04.26.2005)
Private security forces, paramilitaries, parallel-institutions--we've seen all this before in Europe...from 1933-1945. Perhaps it's our-turn. That'll learn ya.' Or not.
Rocky Mountain News, April 27th, 2005: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3735489,00.html
The Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_5341085
US Magazine, 09.15.2006: http://www.usmagazine.com/node/2046?page=1
Denver Post's Diane Carman on the Mystery "Secret Service Agent" (2005):
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050426224520991
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