"In the United States, the right to petition is enumerated in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"."
According to the Congressional Research Service, since the Constitution was written:
the right of petition has expanded. It is no longer confined to demands for “a redress of grievances,” in any accurate meaning of these words, but comprehends demands for an exercise by the government of its powers in furtherance of the interest and prosperity of the petitioners and of their views on politically contentious matters. The right extends to the "approach of citizens or groups of them to administrative agencies (which are both creatures of the legislature, and arms of the executive) and to courts, the third branch of Government. Certainly the right to petition extends to all departments of the Government. The right of access to the courts is indeed but one aspect of the right of petition.
Section 15. Right of petition. The people have a right at all times in an orderly and peaceable manner to assemble to consult upon the common good, to give instructions to their representatives, and to request, of either department of the government by petition or remonstrance, redress of their wrongs and grievances.
3. Bar Harbor
Any Code of Ethics adopted under this section shall be based on the following principles: that elected officials and their appointees be fair, impartial and responsive to the needs of the people and each other in the performance of their respective functions and duties; that decisions and policy be made in proper channels of the Town's governmental structure; that public office not be used for personal gain; and that members of the Town Council, Superintending School Committee, Warrant Committee and their appointees maintain a standard of conduct that will inspire public confidence in the integrity of the Town's government.
I’ve been generally sympathetic to the folks who have been demonstrating against Leo, but then heard about the efforts to make the lives of the Atlanta grand jurors miserable. I guess they too will just have to accept the right of random strangers shouting obscenities at them.
Lenny Leo has made it his llife's work to corrupt the United States Supreme Court. Just to note how utterly corrupted the Federal Courts have become, note that the U. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is now the preferred venue for U.S. prosecutors bringing political cases against protesters, Muslims, and whistle-blowers in military-murder of foreign civilians cases - all brought in the name of "national security," and most in the auspices of the U.S. Patriot Act, which institutionalizes and codifies as crime the acts of objecting to whatever "the government" finds embarrassing. That District, with "Judge" Leonie M. Brinkema sitting there for the past 29 years (she started out as a criminal prosecutor and retains that mentality) bringing her poison from New Jersey into the Courtroom, has systematically handed out Putin-style sentences to political protesters for the past 29 years. She, and that Court, is a national disgrace.
Just to show you how ridiculous that court is (and how ridiculous the FBI is), there is the case of a tour-bus company owner who had his depot in Alexandria, just over the Border from Washington. One night a visiting tour bus on charter to a DC tour dropped in and requested a "wash and dump," where the lavatory holding tank is dumped out and fresh water installed. The night shift fellows found this bus to have the dump valve located on a side opposite from their own bus fleet, thus were unable to position the bus over the dump pit. The workers got creative and positioned the bus over a storm grate and emptied the tank into the storm sewer. That is a no-no, of course, but that is not the point. The owner was asleep at home when all this happened. Next morning, the FBI did a raid on the company and hauled off the owner in handcuffs to jail, for pollution offense, never mind that he was asleep and had nothing to do with it. The prosecutors hauled him off to the courtroom of the E.D. of Virginia, and ther began his Kafkaesque ordeal, costing him over $100,000 in legal fees until his lawyer finally pled him out on one charge (of many). The bus company owner had to spend the next years with an ankle monitor and confined to his home ("home prison") and pay a fine.
Meanwhile, the City of Washington dumps over one million gallons a day into the Potomac of untreated sewage, with impunity. But that is the City, and not an individual.
This is what you pay taxes for, judicial abuse from the Federal Courts, city-management abuse of the non-existent environmental courts, a Congress that sanctions all of this, a President that ignores the abuse and thinks it is peachy keen, and an FBI that spends its time and resources raiding three gallons of pooh. And on the local level, you have policemen phoning up to threaten protestors with chalk, and city managers sending out the stafff with water and scrub brushes because Lenny does not much like being called to account for corrupting the Supreme Court with his $500,000 bribes.
And don't take naive comfort that your Federal Courts in Maine are not corrupted, either. Look no further than "Judge" John A. Woodcock Jr. the "Senior Judge" down in Portland, appointed by Bush Junior, to see judicial abuse in action. We live in a society with cruddy, corrupted courts, and it comes back to Lenny Leo. And you pay for the abuse, through your taxes, folks. Let that sink in. All the ugly handiwork of Lenny Leo.
For a year I've asked the Bar Harbor Town Council two questions.
1. By what means did Town Manager Kevin Sutherland make suppressing the 'google Leonard Leo' chalk project a town priority?
2. How much town money did Sutherland spend on his campaign? Including his time - and Highway Division resources diverted from previously prioritized and budgeted projects.
Dig deep enough, and you will find that it is Lenny Leo who is instigating those black helicopters flying over town, dropping those paramilitaries wearing black ski masks over their faces with badass guns strapped on their backs rappelling down on ropes with orders to erase the chalk-marks on the sidewalk protesting his packing of the Supreme Court with right-wing zealots. No sense of humor, that fellow.
I know Leonard Leo called a police officer to his estate and the police officer made a threatening telephone call to me from there.
And far as I can tell, when police leadership defended my project as First Amendment protected and Maine Criminal Code compliant, Leonard Leo seems to have been involved in getting Town Manager Kevin Sutherland to threaten me and have Highway Division staff follow me around with buckets of water. All with the support of the Bar Harbor Town Council. Not as dramatic as your scenario - but government corruption rarely is.
Well, Lin, now you know why I am the person most qualified to be selected as the new Town Manager, as I posted here previously. I know better than to pay Highway Division staff to go follow you around with buckets and scrub brushes. Chalk away!
Gotta get down on your hands and knees and use a scrub brush. Protesters need to be stamped out, they are Enemies of the State. Evil people, those chalkers.
THE RIGHT TO PETITION
1. US Constitution
"In the United States, the right to petition is enumerated in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"."
According to the Congressional Research Service, since the Constitution was written:
the right of petition has expanded. It is no longer confined to demands for “a redress of grievances,” in any accurate meaning of these words, but comprehends demands for an exercise by the government of its powers in furtherance of the interest and prosperity of the petitioners and of their views on politically contentious matters. The right extends to the "approach of citizens or groups of them to administrative agencies (which are both creatures of the legislature, and arms of the executive) and to courts, the third branch of Government. Certainly the right to petition extends to all departments of the Government. The right of access to the courts is indeed but one aspect of the right of petition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_petition_in_the_United_States
2. The State of Maine
Section 15. Right of petition. The people have a right at all times in an orderly and peaceable manner to assemble to consult upon the common good, to give instructions to their representatives, and to request, of either department of the government by petition or remonstrance, redress of their wrongs and grievances.
3. Bar Harbor
Any Code of Ethics adopted under this section shall be based on the following principles: that elected officials and their appointees be fair, impartial and responsive to the needs of the people and each other in the performance of their respective functions and duties; that decisions and policy be made in proper channels of the Town's governmental structure; that public office not be used for personal gain; and that members of the Town Council, Superintending School Committee, Warrant Committee and their appointees maintain a standard of conduct that will inspire public confidence in the integrity of the Town's government.
I’ve been generally sympathetic to the folks who have been demonstrating against Leo, but then heard about the efforts to make the lives of the Atlanta grand jurors miserable. I guess they too will just have to accept the right of random strangers shouting obscenities at them.
Lenny Leo has made it his llife's work to corrupt the United States Supreme Court. Just to note how utterly corrupted the Federal Courts have become, note that the U. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is now the preferred venue for U.S. prosecutors bringing political cases against protesters, Muslims, and whistle-blowers in military-murder of foreign civilians cases - all brought in the name of "national security," and most in the auspices of the U.S. Patriot Act, which institutionalizes and codifies as crime the acts of objecting to whatever "the government" finds embarrassing. That District, with "Judge" Leonie M. Brinkema sitting there for the past 29 years (she started out as a criminal prosecutor and retains that mentality) bringing her poison from New Jersey into the Courtroom, has systematically handed out Putin-style sentences to political protesters for the past 29 years. She, and that Court, is a national disgrace.
Just to show you how ridiculous that court is (and how ridiculous the FBI is), there is the case of a tour-bus company owner who had his depot in Alexandria, just over the Border from Washington. One night a visiting tour bus on charter to a DC tour dropped in and requested a "wash and dump," where the lavatory holding tank is dumped out and fresh water installed. The night shift fellows found this bus to have the dump valve located on a side opposite from their own bus fleet, thus were unable to position the bus over the dump pit. The workers got creative and positioned the bus over a storm grate and emptied the tank into the storm sewer. That is a no-no, of course, but that is not the point. The owner was asleep at home when all this happened. Next morning, the FBI did a raid on the company and hauled off the owner in handcuffs to jail, for pollution offense, never mind that he was asleep and had nothing to do with it. The prosecutors hauled him off to the courtroom of the E.D. of Virginia, and ther began his Kafkaesque ordeal, costing him over $100,000 in legal fees until his lawyer finally pled him out on one charge (of many). The bus company owner had to spend the next years with an ankle monitor and confined to his home ("home prison") and pay a fine.
Meanwhile, the City of Washington dumps over one million gallons a day into the Potomac of untreated sewage, with impunity. But that is the City, and not an individual.
This is what you pay taxes for, judicial abuse from the Federal Courts, city-management abuse of the non-existent environmental courts, a Congress that sanctions all of this, a President that ignores the abuse and thinks it is peachy keen, and an FBI that spends its time and resources raiding three gallons of pooh. And on the local level, you have policemen phoning up to threaten protestors with chalk, and city managers sending out the stafff with water and scrub brushes because Lenny does not much like being called to account for corrupting the Supreme Court with his $500,000 bribes.
And don't take naive comfort that your Federal Courts in Maine are not corrupted, either. Look no further than "Judge" John A. Woodcock Jr. the "Senior Judge" down in Portland, appointed by Bush Junior, to see judicial abuse in action. We live in a society with cruddy, corrupted courts, and it comes back to Lenny Leo. And you pay for the abuse, through your taxes, folks. Let that sink in. All the ugly handiwork of Lenny Leo.
False equivalency?
I think we can distinguish between needing to protect private citizens irrevocably called to public service by the government. As in jury duty.
And public figures such as Leonard Leo who chose to make money as influencers using government to impose their personal prejudices.
Also, Leo had a mother and son curse at him from a passing car. Once. And there have been peaceful protests on public property.
Whereas government officials, election volunteers, and now jurors have had their lives turned up side down and even threatened.
I hope you see the difference.
HaHa.
For a year I've asked the Bar Harbor Town Council two questions.
1. By what means did Town Manager Kevin Sutherland make suppressing the 'google Leonard Leo' chalk project a town priority?
2. How much town money did Sutherland spend on his campaign? Including his time - and Highway Division resources diverted from previously prioritized and budgeted projects.
You all have never answered.
Dig deep enough, and you will find that it is Lenny Leo who is instigating those black helicopters flying over town, dropping those paramilitaries wearing black ski masks over their faces with badass guns strapped on their backs rappelling down on ropes with orders to erase the chalk-marks on the sidewalk protesting his packing of the Supreme Court with right-wing zealots. No sense of humor, that fellow.
I know Leonard Leo called a police officer to his estate and the police officer made a threatening telephone call to me from there.
And far as I can tell, when police leadership defended my project as First Amendment protected and Maine Criminal Code compliant, Leonard Leo seems to have been involved in getting Town Manager Kevin Sutherland to threaten me and have Highway Division staff follow me around with buckets of water. All with the support of the Bar Harbor Town Council. Not as dramatic as your scenario - but government corruption rarely is.
Well, Lin, now you know why I am the person most qualified to be selected as the new Town Manager, as I posted here previously. I know better than to pay Highway Division staff to go follow you around with buckets and scrub brushes. Chalk away!
I understand at some point they also used solvents - which of course were ineffective against chalk and also drained into the bay
Gotta get down on your hands and knees and use a scrub brush. Protesters need to be stamped out, they are Enemies of the State. Evil people, those chalkers.