Watch Your Bumper
Rothschild, Matthew
McCarthyism Watch Matthew Rothschild Watch Your Bumper Dwight Scarbrough used to be in the Navy. He was a machinist on submarines, some of them nuclear, in the Pacific from 1975 to 1980. Now he...
...But they continued to demand that he remove them or be cited for a violation...
...For all I know, you could be Al Qaeda...
...Gerry Weber, the legal director of the ACLU of Georgia, is representing Grier...
...Any idea why I stopped you...
...Teachers everywhere are at risk because of what this judge has said...
...On February 7, at his day job for a federal natural resource agency, Scarbrough got a call from Homeland Security...
...It's my right to speak, and yours...
...Just give me the ticket...
...Mayer, do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions with their students during the instructional period...
...The DeKalb County Police Department would not discuss the facts of the case...
...She said, 'I was joking,' " Laroca told Schultz...
...Cheney Too...
...You know this is total BS," Scarbrough told them...
...Neither the federal Department of Homeland Security nor the Idaho branch could help clear up what happened...
...Laroca did not return to the job, fearing a hostile work environment, her attorney, Marcus Jackson, says...
...Grier has no intention of paying it...
...Which he did...
...It's not just a Democrat/Republican issue," she says...
...The ticket is for $100...
...Last year, she says, her twenty-year-old son was pulled over in Athens, Georgia, for having a bumpersticker that said: "Bush Sucks Dick...
...One of my co-workers' wives made a cake for me with a pickup truck and signs on it," he says...
...The lawsuit, which was first reported on by Teri Figueroa of North County Times, gives the following account: About three weeks after Laroca began working at Advantage Sales and Marketing, Laroca's boss, Beverly Fath, allegedly asked her to fill out some additional documentation for the human resources department...
...He was referring to her bumper-sticker that said, "I'm tired of all the BUSHIT...
...When Scarbrough got there, he found two armed officers of Homeland Security, who told him he was violating the Code of Federal Regulations-in particular, the prohibition against the posting of signs on federal property...
...Grier says she told the officer it wasn't lewd, and that it was clearly a political statement...
...Laroca was stunned...
...By the way, this is not the first time someone in Grier's family has gotten into trouble over a bumper-sticker...
...According to the lawsuit, Fath saw Laroca's bumpersticker and said, "That's that A Franken leftwing radical radio station," adding, "You know our country is on a real high state of alert...
...Laroca said the manager called her the next Monday and offered her the job back...
...So he removed it...
...It's not anyone I represent," says Lieutenant Colonel Stephanie Dowling, public affairs officer for the Idaho Military Division...
...Judge Barker said the school district was within its rights to terminate Mayer because of complaints it received from parents about her teaching performance...
...Beyond that, Barker ruled that "teachers, including Ms...
...An official told him to come out to the parking lot...
...I am going to just have to fire you...
...That allegedly got her into trouble with her boss at Advantage Sales and Marketing, according to a lawsuit she has filed against her former supervisor and the company...
...That officer is making his decision on the street...
...Elaborating to The Progressive, Grier says people are wrong to view this in a partisan way...
...But rather than risk getting a citation, and rather than tear the bumperstickers and signs down, Scarbrough moved his truck out of the parking lot...
...When he insisted it was lewd, she said, "I'm not going to discuss this any further...
...On March 10, she was driving home when a DeKalb County police officer pulled her over...
...You all need to get beyond that...
...And he hasn't been hassled again...
...Scarbrough tried to point out that those signs were not on federal property but on his own private property-his personal truck...
...Fath reportedly told Laroca to meet her at a nearby grocery store's parking lot...
...On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer's case, granting summary judgment to the defendants...
...He says the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the "lewd decal" statute way back in 1991, in a case involving a defendant who had a "Shit Happens" bumpersticker...
...The press office for the federal Department of Homeland Security did not return phone calls for comment...
...For a compendium of McCarthyism Watch stories, go to www.progressive.org...
...I am so appalled at the officer's attempt to squash my freedom of speech," she told Joe Johnson of the Athens Banner-Herald, which broke the story...
...He thought it was kind of funny," she says, though she told her son she would rather go to jail than take her bumpersticker off...
...Mayer says she's going to appeal: "It's too important not to...
...Scarbrough has since returned to work, and to the parking lot, with signs and stickers on his truck bumper and doors...
...We don't comment on other officers' tickets," says Officer Herschel Grangent, who handles media affairs...
...Back at work, with his adorned truck in the federal parking lot, Scarbrough seems to be doing just fine...
...I'm informing you that you're in violation," one officer told him, according to the transcript...
...She says the police officer told her son, "If you do not remove the bumpersticker, I'm taking you to jail...
...Laroca, by the way, is now interviewing for a job at KLSD 1360 AM...
...See "A Chill in the Classroom," March issue...
...Scarbrough, fearing trouble, brought a tape recorder along and captured the entire confrontation...
...That tells you the sentiment around here...
...Under "offense," it says: "Lewd decals...
...The next day, Scarbrough says, he "drove around the parking lot and took pictures of about forty vehicles that had signs of them...
...Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive...
...And it's going through legal channels now...
...Now he heads up the Veterans for Peace chapter in Boise, Idaho...
...You can read a transcript at the website of the Boise Weekly, which broke the story on February 15 in an excellent article by Nicholas Collias...
...I picked up my jaw and drove home," she told Ed Schultz on his syndicated talk radio program...
...And he's not shy about expressing his opinion...
...According to Scarbrough, some of the signs said, "My Dad Is a Marine" and "Support the Troops...
...It litigates in the courts, not the press...
...Advantage Sales and Marketing does not, as a matter of law or policy, comment on personnel matters or litigation," says attorney Drew Bridges, who is representing both the company and Fath...
...Linda Laroca of San Diego has a bumper-sticker on her car that says, "1360 Air America Progressive Talk Radio," referring to KLSD 1360 AM...
...Here's an update on Deb Mayer, the teacher who said she was fired for answering a student's question about whether she would participate in a demonstration for peace...
...You have a lewd decal on your car...
...Having said that, when Advantage first received these allegations more than six months ago, it investigated them and found them to be untrue...
...Denise Grier is a nurse at Emory University hospital in Georgia...
...At any given time, he may have as many as ten bumperstickers or peace signs all over his truck...
Vol. 70 • May 2006 • No. 5
