corrente

Read this story. Is this the America you know? Is this the America you want? And what does this story say about Republican "values"?

A worker with the Federal Emergency Management Agency who wore an anti-Bush T-shirt at the president’s July Fourth rally in Charleston has been sent home to Texas.

Nicole Rank, who was working for FEMA in West Virginia, and her husband, Jeff, were removed from the Capitol grounds in handcuffs shortly before Bush’s speech. The pair wore T-shirts with the message “Love America, Hate Bush.”

The Ranks were ticketed for trespassing and released. They have been given summonses to appear in court, Charleston Police Lt. C.A. Vincent said Wednesday.

FEMA spokesman Ross Fredenburg would not say Wednesday whether Nicole Rank had been fired.

“All we can say is that our federal coordinating officer, Lou Botta, sent Nicole home,” he said. “We cannot comment further, to protect her privacy. Federal privacy laws prevent us from saying anything.”
(via the CharlestonGazette)

Don't you love that claim of privacy? It ties a cute little bow on top of the whole package, doesn't it?

The full force of the State's police power being used on behalf of a political campaign? American citizens handcuffed and hauled off in restraints for wearing the wrong T-shirt? What does that sound like to you, folks?

It sounds like Republican values in action, to me. We'll be waiting for the WhiteWash House to issue some sort of condemnation for "isolated incidents" (yawn) and for the wingers and media whores to disassociate themselves from these vile actions... And something tells me that we'll be waiting a long, long time.

UPDATE Oops! I pinned the outrage meter on this one. It's just a single incident, as
Sid the Fish points out to me. My bad. It was the additional details in this one that got me. Sorry.