Pay up, you cheapskate crook.

Dirty Democrat files: Baghdad Jim finally forced to pay up

Democrat Rep. Jim McDermott will have to fork over the $1 million in legal fees he owes GOP Rep. John Boehner in the protracted leaked tape case. Finally. Leave it to McDermott to pervert this into some kind of triumph for the First Amendment. Chutzpah:

A federal judge says House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, can collect more than $1 million in his lawsuit against Democratic Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington state.

The decision was issued in a decade-long dispute over an illegally taped telephone call. In the 1996 call, Republican leaders discussed an ethics case against then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. A Florida couple recorded the cell phone call on a radio scanner and McDermott leaked the tape to two newspapers.

Boehner sued and a federal court found that McDermott had no right to release the calls. The Supreme Court decided in December not to revisit the case.

Now….trust a democrat to rationalize this as a good thing:

McDermott called the court fight with Boehner “a long and costly battle,” but said the million-dollar judgment was “a small price to pay in defense of so fundamental a principle, and freedom, as the First Amendment.”

Because of the protracted legal challenge, “the First Amendment is stronger today, and shielded by new case law that will buttress its capacity to protect the publication of truthful information on matters of public importance long into the future,” McDermott said in a statement Tuesday. “Knowing this, I am proud of my role in defense of the First Amendment.”

So the lesson, according to Cheapo?

Wiretap the enemies of America? BAD BAD BAD!!  Un-American, evil and bad!  Did I mention racist?  Oh and bad!

Wiretap the members of the opposite political party?  A glorious exercise in freedom and principle.  A hole enterprise filled with righteousness and altruism

Now, let me state outright that if the grade was due to the quality, this would not be on my blog.

It wasn’t.  It was because the religious artist had the audacity to include a scriptural reference on his. 

See the pictures below.  First, the failing art:

Now the two that passed:

And:

So all three are of fairly equal quality and show great talent by the artist.

The problem?  The bible verse in the first picture.  

Via Michelle Malkin:

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the Tomah Area School District over an unconstitutional policy that bars religious free speech. Citing a policy prohibiting depictions of “blood, violence, sexual connotations, [or] religious beliefs,” officials penalized a Christian student for his artwork depicting a Bible verse and a cross but did not penalize students who included demonic illustrations in their artwork.

“Christian students shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs. It is unconstitutional for the school to punish students simply because they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “Further, teachers are not permitted to censor Christian religious expression in artwork while at the same time allowing other types of religious depictions.”

A student at Tomah High School drew a landscape picture for an art class containing a road, clouds, and mountains with a cross in the background and the words “JOHN 3:16 – A sign of love” written in the sky. The teacher of the class told the student to either remove the scriptural reference or cover it up with a border.

The teacher cited a document that the student and all other students in the class had been required to sign at the beginning of the semester which prevented them from creating artwork with the prohibited depictions. After the teacher said that the student had “signed away his First Amendment rights,” the student respectfully protested by tearing the signed document in half.

_{Crossposted at Peace Thugs.}

While poking around You Tube, I found this video.

While the initial impulse is to cheer, it makes me somewhat sad at the same time.

Let me clearly state that I find Code Pink to be fairly disgusting and offensive.  If I were at one of their protests I would be hard pressed to contain my temper.

Code Pink has no respect for dignity, nor for the civil rights of their opposition. They will without hesitation cross lines to infiltrate into the areas designated for other protesters.  They will illegally block entrances, and do, as one member stated, “anything” to bring attention to their cause.

But at the same time, there is a principle at stake behind the nuttiness, and that is free speech, and while I despise their message, I have to respect their right to have on.  I will of course draw the line at legal, if they violate the law let them be treated accordingly.

So in other words, while I have little sympathy for them, I have to allow that their right to be publicly idiotic is guaranteed by the same Constitution I swore to defend, 20 something years ago.

So when I see the frustrated pro troop protesters lose their tempers and commit acts that are more reminiscent of Code Pink and other liberals, I am somewhat sad.

Obviously the people in question are adults, and if they choose civil disobedience, that is their right to do so.

But at the same time, they are also acting to make their antagonists martyrs and victims, by violating their free speech, and if there is one thing liberals know how to exploit, it is victim hood.

I am not going to point to a particular act or comment by the pro troop folks in that video as  my example of crossing the line.  Let the reader make his or her own choice about how to respond when insanity walks their streets.