Disputing allegations that they violated First Amendment rights, Florida wildlife officials Thursday argued that a federal judge should reject a request to reinstate a biologist who was fired because of a social-media post after the murder of conservative leader Charlie Kirk.
Attorneys for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Executive Director Roger Young and Melissa Tucker, a division director, said the agency fired Brittney Brown on Sept. 15 to “prevent foreseeable disruption, reputational harm and loss of public trust. The agency did not police ideology; it protected credibility central to its mission.”
“The First Amendment does not shield public employees from the consequences of speech that undermines the effectiveness, credibility or public trust on which their agencies depend. … Even if the post had some political dimension, FWC’s (the agency’s) interest in maintaining credibility and neutrality far outweighs any minimal expressive value,” the officials’ attorneys wrote.
Brown, who worked for the commission studying shorebirds and seabirds in the area of Tyndall Air Force Base in the Panhandle, filed a lawsuit Sept. 30 alleging that her firing violated First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit said Brown was fired after reposting on her personal Instagram account a post from an account called “@whalefact.” The post said, “the whales are deeply saddened to learn of the shooting of charlie kirk, haha just kidding, they care exactly as much as charlie kirk cared about children being shot in their classrooms, which is to say, not at all,” according to the lawsuit.
Brown’s attorneys on Oct. 3 filed a motion for a preliminary injunction that asked U.S. District Judge Mark Walker to reinstate her to her job and to prevent retaliation by the agency. In addition to alleging First Amendment violations, the motion said Brown’s post did not disrupt Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission operations.
“Plaintiff made her social media post on her personal phone while she was on vacation,” the motion said. “That political post had nothing to do with plaintiff’s job responsibilities. After all, she is a wildlife biologist, not a public information officer. In addition, plaintiff did not identify herself as an FWC employee in her post; the post itself had nothing to do with FWC or its operations; and her Instagram profile made no reference to FWC as her employer or otherwise.”
The document filed Thursday by attorneys for Young and Tucker was a response to the motion for a preliminary injunction. Walker has scheduled a Nov. 10 hearing on the motion.
Kirk, who led the conservative group Turning Point USA, was assassinated Sept. 10 during an appearance at Utah Valley University. After Brown made the repost on Sept. 14, Libs of TikTok, a conservative social-media account, shared a screenshot and called for her firing, according to the lawsuit. She was fired the next day.
Brown worked for the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for about seven years, according to the lawsuit. A copy of her Sept. 15 termination letter included in the lawsuit indicated she had an “Other Personal Services” position, a classification that does not include some of the protections that other employees receive.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Laurel says
You represent your employer at work, not at home. Your employer does not own you. The current local, state and federal governments are sticking their noses too deep into our personal lives.
Damn, I’m glad I’m retired, because Charlie Kirk did not have the brain capacity of Michelle Obama. Not on any day.
Deborah Coffey says
Sorry, Fascists. Indefensible. We DO have a 1st Amendment. But, you despise the Constitution.
Anonymous says
It’s a right to work State as are some other States. They can fire you for whatever reason.
Pierre Tristam says
Let’s at least not play into the Orwellian euphemism and call it “right to work,” the exact opposite of the right afforded workers.
Bartholomew says
Exactly!
Laurel says
Pierre Tristam: I agree with you, but that is the formal term.
Pierre Tristam says
I understand it’s the formal term, but in the same way that the “department of war” and the “gulf of America” are formal terms, the same way that “colored,” “oriental” and “illegal immigrant” were once or are still considered formal terms. That does not mean the terms are either accurate or that media should be complicit in the politically motivated misuse of the language, let alone the abuse of language to dehumanize the referent. “Politics and the English Language” is a better guide than the chamber of commerce’s stylebook.
Laurel says
Okay, so a little off topic:
“Florida became a right-to-work state in 1944 when it enacted the nation’s first right-to-work law. This law prohibited mandatory union membership and the payment of union dues as a condition of employment.
– Assist, tcwglobal.com, floridatimeline.org
I dealt with this on and off at work. The unions tried to make my position a union position, which I did not want; I would be forced to join, and forced to pay dues. Since my position was a singular one, I felt it unnecessary. In the beginning, unions were great for wages and fair treatment, but when I was working, it was more about water fountain placements, where there were already plenty of water fountains. You know, justification of existence.
Since the right to work has been in place since 1944, many Florida administrations have had the opportunity to change it, from both political viewpoints. That hasn’t happened.
That said, the “Gulf of America” is just, plain stupid bullshit. That, and forcing, actually threatening, schools to rename their roads after Charlie Kirk. What did he do for Florida again? Add that to the Jimmy Buffet Memorial Highway. A great Floridian, of historical proportions (sarcasm for the uninitiated).
Sherry says
Speaking of SPYING. . . YOUR PHONE is the “Instrument”!!! This is a “Must Watch”:
Pogo says
@Sherry
… what will we do without our shock collars? But seriously, thank you; DEFCON 1 info — for sure.
Add this:
Who’s calling, who’s listening — raise your hands where we can see them…
https://www.google.com/search?q=stingray+cell+tower
This call may be recorded…
Yeah, no shit.
Laurel says
The billionaire oligarchs are in charge, thanks to their donations, and support of Trump.
Pogo says
@Offer
… acceptance — consideration.
https://www.google.com/search?q=offer+acceptance+consideration
Infantile Americans paid to see the show.
Something for everyone — and nothing for most — ALL sales final.
Ray W. says
Hello Pogo:
Long ago, I became aware of the stingray issue. In time, it came out that, from the very beginning, law enforcement agencies that planned to use stingray equipment to intercept cellphone calls had to sign an agreement with the equipment manufacturer that, under no circumstances, even under oath, was anyone involved in the program to reveal its existence.
In time, courts began ordering agencies to produce the agency agreements. I read a document that one agency had signed. That didn’t prove that all agencies had signed an identical secrecy agreement. But a local agency had signed one of these non-disclosure documents, and I read it.
I did a quick internet search.
In 2014, a Florida judge was the first to order the release of a transcript of a Tallahassee police officer’s testimony about his agency’s use of “stingray” equipment. In deference to the State, prior to the taking of the detective’s testimony, the trial judge ordered that his courtroom be closed and that the officer’s testimony be sealed.
The ACLU moved to unseal the transcript, on 1st Amendment grounds. The government attempted to justify the continuing secrecy of the program by invoking, among other clauses of other statutes, a clause in the Homeland Security Act.
The government’s argument failed and the transcript was released.
From the testimony, the Tallahassee detective revealed that between 2007 and 2010, the municipal agency had used a “stingray” device “200 or more times.”
Most times a stingray device is used, a vehicle in which it is placed is driven to a location near the suspect’s home and parked. If the suspect lives in a subdivision, the vehicle has to be parked amidst many residences in order for the device to intercept and then record the suspect’s cellphone conversations. Since the device doesn’t distinguish between cellphone calls, every other cellphone call made by every other person in residing in or visiting homes within range of the parked device is also recorded.
And Tallahassee is only one agency in only one state. I suppose that no one can ever know how many times stingray devices were used all over the country to intercept cellphone calls from people who were not suspected of committing crimes.
I do know of a case in which an Ormond Beach officer was forced to admit that his agency had been using a stingray device.
Think of this. Law enforcement agencies who sought to use a stingray device knew that all cellphone conversations within a certain radius of where the vehicle was parked, no matter whose cellphone conversation was being recorded. And each agency had to agree in advance that the importance of concealing the use of the device was greater than the importance of an officer’s oath to testify truthfully to a judge when called to the stand.
As a society, we put law enforcement officers in positions where they feel they have to do things that are destructive to accepted ideas of personal character.
I have never forgotten the time when a trooper stood in front of his wife’s desk right next to my office door. She was a secretary with a state attorney’s office in a misdemeanor unit that included me, two two other prosecutors and two other secretaries.
The trooper yelled to his wife about how a K-9 deputy had prevented him and from murdering a suspect who had been caught in the woods, and just how angry that had made him.
I had been a prosecutor only a few months.
Their friend, a fellow trooper, had just been murdered that morning during a routine traffic stop on I-75. The responding K-9 deputy had caught the suspect in the woods. The trooper told his wife that he had insisted that the deputy turn the suspect over to he and his fellow troopers.
From a senior prosecutor’s account of the events at the arrest scene, I learned that the K-9 deputy had had to pull his service weapon and tell the troopers over and over again that he was not going to lie for them. Finally, the troopers backed down.
Near the end of his rant, the trooper told his wife that the K-9 deputy had better not ever call for backup, because no police officer was ever going to come to his aid.
Why the trooper thought it proper to announce in a misdemeanor division with six people within earshot of his wife’s desk that he was incensed because a K-9 deputy had refused to allow him to murder a suspect deep in the woods is still a mystery to me, but I also knew that I would never be in a situation like the one that he had been in, trying to catch a suspect in the woods after learning that a friend was dead.
I have never opposed public money for raises or for training or for college degrees for law enforcement officers. There is a reason for that. I knew from early in my career as a prosecutor that I saw the cleaned up witnesses and defendants in a courtroom. Law enforcement officers saw witnesses and defendants at their worst out in the real world.
Some officers come through their careers as very well-adjusted people. But we, as a society, ask so much of our law enforcement officers that some come out angry and bitter and disenchanted. It is no secret among prosecutors and police officers that far too many officers suddenly die at far too young an age, sometimes within months or a few years after retirement.
I have commented several times that for about 30 years or so I either raced motorcycles for or served as a crew chief on a road racing team owned by a Metro-Dade deputy sheriff. 23 times I served as his crew chief during the Daytona 200. We traveled together all over the country to various tracks.
We never had sufficient funding to make all of the endurance events in the AMA national endurance series, but one year we finished third in the national championship standings while attending nine of the 14 scheduled events. Yes, the AMA scored the best 10 of the 14 events, but we had no poor finishes to throw away like other better funded teams.
I spent thousands of hours driving to and from and attending race weekends with my friend. I listened to his stories about Miami being the “hostility black hole of the universe”, among many of his other expressions of extreme frustration and an ever bleaker outlook on life.
He thought DROP would make his job easier to swallow. But he quit after three years in the program, telling me that those of his supervisors who were jerks never changed. He thought double the money would make continuing to work under their supervision would be enough. It wasn’t.
When he retired, he sold his home in the far south Kendall, almost to Homestead, and bought a home a few miles away from mine. Single for years, he soon met and married a woman. In time, his new wife joined my wife’s bowling team.
So, every Tuesday night, Rick and I would go to a restaurant in hopes of finding the best cheeseburger. Sometimes others, as many as 10, would join us for cheeseburgers. Sometimes, it was just the two of us.
Every once in a while, during dinner, he would give voice to his hostile worldview and begin cursing this or that. I would reach over and put my hand on his shoulder and tell him: It took 25 years to bring you down this path and it’s going to take 25 years to bring you back and I’m a patient man. He would then apologize and dinner conversation would return to normal.
I understand why Dennis C. Rathsam is the way he is, I really do!
A lot of people just don’t understand what we as a society put our police officers through. I am not claiming that I fully understand either, but I don’t complain when a city commission or a county council decides to provide them better pay or offer to pay more for their education or training. In my opinion, they deserve more than many of them ever get.
Even after he stopped racing, twice each year Team Suzuki management continued to ask my friend to instruct a rookie racing class at Daytona International Speedway. One spring event, on a Thursday afternoon, a student riding at high speed struck my friend from behind, despite it being an instructor-led “warm up” lap, with the collision killing both.
My friend had called me two days earlier. We couldn’t meet for cheeseburgers. But as we talked he told me that he had just received his first Social Security check, to supplement his pension check and he had his DROP money. He talked about his great new job working at the Speedway as a staff photographer handling photo shoots of NASCAR, IMSA and other motorsports stars, among many other things he was getting to do for the first time. He was turning his life around in so many different and positive ways. He was building a community of friends in his new subdivision, breakfasting with some and having coffee at lunch with others. He was helping them around their homes and they were helping him with his.
He ended the conversation by telling me that he felt that he was the happiest he had ever been in his life. I remain thankful to have been friends with a person who was becoming so happy about life after living through so much crap. I still have his phone number in my contacts. I look it up from time to time, just to remember.
As an aside, his new wife once asked me at a social function why my friend could just sit silent for long periods of time. I told her that I had handled case after case where an officer, often a rookie, had been tasked with maintaining a perimeter log. It was easy for me to read from the document exactly when the officer started the perimeter log and exactly how long the officer had had to stand at the perimeter to accurately update the log as investigators entered the scene and then left, all the while not asking questions about the case, so as to keep the officer off a witness list, other than for that limited role.
I told her that new officers quickly learn how to stand for hours and hours, all the while remaining silent, without getting a bathroom break. No patrol officer escapes this duty. There are times to talk and times to maintain silence.
I told her it wasn’t her; it was just something he had become used to doing. During long drives, I too had learned when to let him keep his private peace and he mine.
One of my favorite of his road stories from early in the 80’s, though, involved a middle-aged man who would continually pick fights with his wife, fights that did not become truly violent. She would continually call 911. It wasn’t every week, but over and over deputies had to respond to the residence on the same night of the week to listen to the same old story.
Agency policy at the time was for responding officers to suggest that husbands leave the home for the night to allow marital tensions to cool, and not to arrest them for DV.
The deputies were not blind. They knew the motel where the husband parked his car for his night away from home and they knew who was staying with the husband in the motel room, something that the husband had made them party to, much to their distaste.
So when agency policy changed from counselling a cooling off break to arresting when needed those husbands who had picked fights with their wives, deputies were more than happy to comply with the new policy. Suddenly, 911 calls from the residence stopped coming in.
Pogo says
@Hello Ray
Thanks for expanding and elaborating on the stingray issue; sleep well, Florida…
If you were less attached to first person, I’d say you would be a good successor to Joe Waumbaugh. When I read the many comments from overly delicate, and idealistic dilettantes, and the sub-literate snarling from the bloodthirsty, I need to spit. Then I change the channel and forget all about them.
Regards.
Dusty says
He was one of the nicest ones and he did nothing that deserved assassination. I hope you enjoy dealing with those that will never engage with any of you without hate like Charlie did.
Deborah Coffey says
Maybe a course in “character assessment” should be part of every school’s curriculum and should begin in Kindergarten. That might have prevented the Charlie Kirks and Donald Trumps from becoming idols.
Pogo says
Ray W. says
Thank you, Pogo.
More than 30 years ago, as my mother was wasting away from the many cancers that had spread throughout her body, she asked me one weekend when I was visiting her in her Orlando apartment to read to her Mr. Fulghum’s book.
I knew that she really wanted me just to read it, and I did read some of it as she slept, but there is something about reading aloud to someone else in trying times.
As one of seven siblings, to the left of the refrigerator on the wall below the cabinetry and above the splash board was my mother’s framed version of “Children Learn What They Live”. There are several versions that I know of. Here is one of those versions:
If a child lives with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, they learn to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule they learn to be shy.
If a child lives with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance, they learn to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If a child lives with praise, they learn to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, they learn justice.
If a child lives with security, the learn to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, they learn to find love in the world.
Again, thank you, Pogo.
And for those among the FlaglerLive community who might think me too harsh in some of my comments, I do not recall posting anything to any article for about the first dozen years of FlaglerLive. And in all the years before Mr. Tristam left the News-Journal, I recall posting only one comment to a News-Journal story. Maybe there was more than one, but I just don’t remember.
That News-Journal comment was in response to the many hateful commenters who felt it necessary to condemn the sudden death by collision of Bruce Rossmeyer. Most commenters lauded Mr. Rossmeyer’s many contributions to his community. But some had to dredge up long forgotten stories. I opposed the hateful among us that time, too. As I recall, I started my comment: “From the anguish of many and the venom of some, it appears that Mr. Rossmeyer lived …”
Yes, I read the FlaglerLive articles pertaining to those of my homicide cases that happened in Flagler County, and I read the comments attached to those articles.
I read FlaglerLive for news, too.
I just didn’t comment until right about the time of the story about a Flagler County elected Republican official who had taken to the airwaves to ask listeners just when would it be time to begin beheading Democrats.
Seeing zero self-identifying Republicans rebuke the vengeful and hateful elected Republican official, I realized that I had a moral duty to begin opposing the vengeful political leaders among us and to begin opposing those vengeful commenters who furthered their leaders’ aims.
In time, I began posting comments to subject matters about which the professional liars that sit atop one of our two parties like to lie about the most. Energy, including solar and wind projects, became subjects of my comments. Electric vehicles. Coal. Crude oil pipelines. Natural gas. The economy. Inflation. Job creation. Egg prices. Gasoline prices at the pump. These were and are only a few of the many things about which the professional liars among us like to lie.
I would just as soon not comment about the many expressions of reckless hate, about the many lies, about the many laundered lies on the FlaglerLive comment board.
FlaglerLive commentary was beginning to resemble a cesspool of hate. The most gullibly stupid among us were calling for the death penalty for anyone who murdered anyone, even though the Supreme Court had declared that the death penalty was called for only in the worst of the worst homicide cases. Not the worst homicide cases, the worst of the worst homicide cases. Just kill them all, they intoned.
In time, the question became: If not me, however, who is going to oppose our governor when he promises that if elected president he would begin on his first day as president by the “slitting of throats?”
Where did the true conservatives who abhor such violent political speech go?
Why do not today’s no-longer conservative Republicans oppose such vengeful politicians?
If today’s no-longer conservative Republicans would only oppose the vengeful among us, the vengeful among us would lose their political power.
But today’s no-longer conservative Republicans just won’t or can’t bring themselves to oppose the vengeful among us, so all of us now have to listen to President Trump’s promises to “crush vermin” and to be our “retribution.”
We all had to listen to a North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate tell rally goers that “some people need killing.”
We all had to listen to a Republican Senator tell people that if they became stopped in traffic amidst non-violent protesters, the motorists need to get out of their vehicles and throw the protesters off bridges.
We all had to listen to a Republican candidate in Arizona tell rally attendees that when they go out to vote they need to strap on the armor of God and …. a Glock.
Why are today’s no-longer conservative Republicans so spineless about such expressions of vengeance and such expressions of reckless hate by their leaders?
Have they all become “snowflakes”?
Where is their personal responsibility to us all?
Why do so many of the spineless among us use only Charlie Kirk’s murder to condemn political violence by the “left”? Why don’t the spineless among us start off with the shooting of Republican Rep. Scalise at a baseball practice? The conspiracy to kidnap and try by populist jury the Democratic governor of Michigan? The bludgeoning of Nancy Pelosi’s husband in their marital home? The murder of a Minnesota Democratic state speaker of the House and her husband at their marital home? The arson with the alleged intent to murder Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor? The attempted assassinations of President Trump?
I have from the beginning of my commenting maintained that we are in the beginning phase of a wave of political violence that is likely to last for decades. Extremists on both far extreme sides of the political spectrum revel in today’s expressions and incidents of political violence. No one in their right mind can blame only one side of our two-party system for such broad-based violence. The disaffected infect both parties.
So I comment. I oppose liars. I oppose lie launderers. I oppose those political leaders who entice the susceptible to acts of political violence.
As I finish this comment, I am listening to President Trump describing Democratic politicians as “crazed lunatics.” He claims he is being extorted by Democrats. He says that Schumer has become a kamikaze pilot.
And so it goes.
Pogo says
@Ray
Thank you — another keeper for my files. I’ll just add: it so happens, I earned a living, for a while, doing hospice work. Of course, there are words for everything, but I can’t think of any to adequately describe the regret, or the grace — I witnessed. And I know, you know, what I mean.
Regards.
Tired of it says
So much for First Amendment rights. magas think it only applies to them. “”In 2023, following the deaths of three children and three adults at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, Kirk said that deaths by firearm were ‘worth’ the right for Americans to exercise the 2nd Amendment .” He was a despicable, divisive, racist hate monger.
ric Santo says
What a DISGUSTING and REPREHENSIBLE thing to say after the shooting of 6 human beings. So, our right to own an assault rifle or handgun outweighs human life?
When someone is a public figure that makes a living off spewing vile, hate speech they should be aware of the probability that someone who is crazier than they are is going to want to inflict harm on you. It is an occupational hazard as much as the risks someone takes who is a rock climber. When you are rolling those dice enough times… eventually snakes eyes will come up.
Sherry says
STOP
Installing” Big Brother” into your private lives! “You” are the means by which the government will continue to control you more and more!
I know I sound really “old fashioned” by doing everything I can to protect my privacy. But, George Orwell’s 1984 really left an impression on me. . . now, we should “ALL” heed the warning. Me, I use my phone strictly as a “phone”:
1. Do not link it to my computer
2. Do not access “ANY” financial accounts or other “private/personal” data/links on it
3. No listening devices like Alexa or TV that listens or watches you
4. Turn off the camera and microphone on your computer when not in use. . . etc. etc. etc.
Laurel says
Well I agree with you Sherry, but the tech heads have joined government in making it almost impossible to do as you suggest. It all started, I think, with credit cards. Every purchase recorded. The young people today do not understand privacy the way we do, they buy chewing gum and a cup of coffee with a credit card. All recorded: time, place, flavor of gum. The corporations have a good idea when someone is having their period, or whether they are incontinent. When you buy a computer, phone or TV, you think it’s yours. It’s not. It’s theirs, and they tell you it’s for you. Now, the current government wants your voting history.
I’m afraid there is no turning back, since the government refuses to enforce our privacy at the request of big tech. We the People lose.
Pogo says
@Sherry
A nice sentiment. C’mon woman, you’ve been on the train since Visicalc, etc. Do you think there is anything left that the current regime hasn’t dutifully, and in total ignorance of what they did, delivered to Lex Luther and the bros? When those pricks don’t like the weather — they change it; mountains wait in line to be heard by them.
/. exit
Ray W. says
On the subject of character, CBS NEWS just published an article about Rep. Nancy Mace. Rep. Mace is a candidate for South Carolina governor.
Much of what is reported comes from a police Incident Report, which is not the same thing as a complaint affidavit.
This past Thursday morning, Charleston County Aviation Authority Police Department officers were assigned to meet Rep. Mace at 6:30 a.m. to escort her from a white BMW that was to stop in front of a curb in front of the ticketing area of the building.
The officers, waiting at the proper area, were then told Rep. Mace was running late. They waited.
From FOIA-obtained airport surveillance video, the CBS reporter saw Rep. Mace arrive at 6:50 a.m. at another sidewalk curb location while seated in what looked like a “dark-colored” sedan. She waited at that curb.
10 minutes later, the officers waiting at the location they had been told to wait were told that Rep. Mace was elsewhere, near the “Known Crewmember” entrance overseen by Homeland Security personnel. The officers arrived at that location, according to the Incident Report, “in less than a minute.”
From more airport video, the officers arrived at the new location seven minutes after Rep. Mace walked there.
According to the arriving police officers, as typed in the Incident Report, as soon as they arrived at the new location, Rep. Mace “began loudly cursing and making derogatory comments to us and about the department. She repeatedly stated we were ‘(expletive) incompetent.'” She also said “this is no way to treat a (expletive) US Representative.”
In the reporter’s words, all the way from the entrance to her gate to the plane, Rep Mace “allegedly cursed and complained at the officers and into her phone. …”
After she entered the plane, according to an “airline employee and several other TSA agents”, Rep. Mace behaved in a manner that “shocked and upset them.”
The officer who wrote the Incident Report said:
“Any other person in the airport acting and talking the way she did, our office would have been dispatched, and we would have addressed the behavior.”
For her part, Rep. Mace posted this to X, along with a portion of the security video showing her arriving at the airport and standing at the TSA screening area:
“And for the FAKE NEWS: This is the entrance ALL members of Congress use at the airport. … Are you going to write that Senators Lindsey Graham and Time Scott use the same entrance or no?”
Rep. Mace’s director of operations issued a statement earlier today:
“We are forced to take the Congresswoman’s safety extremely seriously. After the world watched Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the threats against her have only intensified. … Our security procedures are based solely on legitimate safety concerns, and any attempt to politicize this reality is both dangerous and reckless.”
Neither of the two commenters addressed the account provided by the witnesses to the events.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I wasn’t there, so I don’t know why the officers took up a station at the curb where they did. All I know comes from an Incident Report, the videos and the statements issued by Rep. Mace and her director of operations.
But if what is set forth in the Incident Report is true, and some of it is corroborated by the videos of the events, if I were an airport police officer and I were told that a particular car would be arriving at a particular time in a particular location, I would be at that location at the appointed time, and I might not be looking for a different car arriving at a different time at a different location.
And if the events set forth in the Incident Report are accurate, if I were Rep. Mace, I remain unconvinced that trying to dump blame for my own actions on others is a good look for her. Cursing out professionals all the way from the entrance at one part of the airport’s entrance road curb all the way through the gate and then into the plane seems a poor insight into her character.
And unless I knew that I were a part of the professional lying class that sits atop one of our two political parties, I wouldn’t be so quick to say that the witnesses to her behavior, whatever it was, are liars.
And I certainly wouldn’t try to link the Charlie Kirk murder to her situation, whatever it actually was.
Sherry says
Sorry guys, I’m thinking you should not be complaining about “Big Brother” if you are the ones doing the installation. . . just sayin’. The trump fascist government is absolutely doing everything they can to “steal” our privacy for sure . . . but, I’m sure as hell not going to make it easy for them!
One hack or EMP and your entire savings could vanish permanently. . . OOPS! Research “Electromagnetic Pulses”. . . you’ll soon be keeping a “hard copy” of your bank statements.
Pogo says
@Sherry
It’s not funny at all, but I couldn’t help a laugh at the mention of EMP. I remember well when Ma Bell, and other ubiquitous gods of necessities, bricked (and blocked) in the windows of their buildings to shield against it — and then adorned the exteriors with window sills and frames.
As for your actual point — what are the odds of an ordinary person prevailing in a dispute with a corporate edifice’s
decision and/or declaration? Yeah, that’s about the way I see it, too.