UPDATE 9:56 p.m. EDT: After being shown legal precedent in the Supreme Court case of Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, a 5-4 decision by the Court in 1972, I am willing to concede that even though malls are open to the public, they can still be considered private property. However, as I wrote previously, I was not harassing anyone or recording audio without permission of my subjects. If I was turned down by a person, I would have backed off without a fight. And again, no one at the station ever thought this would be a problem when we decided on this assignment.
Even if you take this Supreme Court ruling into account, I still object to General Manager Michael Sullivan's refusal to talk to any of my bosses at WCBM about the situation and to his idea that I can't stand on a public sidewalk in front of "his" mall and ask people questions. On the contrary, this Supreme Court ruling gives me all the legal precedent I need to stand on the sidewalk in front of Towson Town Center and ask all the questions I want to ask. I also reject his idea that mall customers don't want to be asked about their opinions on certain issues. On the contrary, a great number of people love having a microphone in front of their mouth so they can express their opinions on any subject. In my experience, if you tell someone they might end up hearing their voice on the radio, they're more than eager to talk.
ORIGINAL POST 2:30 p.m. EDT: No I'm not being investigated by Eric Holder and the corrupt Department of Justice, but today I was kicked out of the Towson Town Center and off its premises for trying to conduct "man on the street" interviews with mall goers.
I'm interning this summer with AM radio station WCBM Baltimore and today for my first field assignment I was dispatched to the Towson Town Center to conduct man on the street interviews gathering the reactions and opinions of the public to the trio of scandals currently rocking the Obama Administration: the Benghazi cover up, IRS targeting of Tea Party and Conservative groups and DOJ wiretaps. After successfully interviewing three very accommodating ladies in the food court I was approached at random by a security guard who asked what I was doing. Next I was told I needed permission to talk to people in the mall from the manager's office. This didn't seem right to me and I pointed out that the mall is a public space and I was getting consent from people before recording any audio. The guard offered to take me down to talk to his bosses so we went.
After being kept waiting for 15 minutes, Michael Sullivan, the mall's general manager, finally came out to see me. I identified myself, stated my purpose and was told I couldn't be there because the mall was "private property," not a public space and that he "owned the mall." "It's like coming into my house," Sullivan told me. "I invite shoppers in to shop here but I don't invite you in to ask them questions." He next asked for the specifics of my questions and then insisted that the customers wouldn't want to be bothered by such questions.
I offered to call my bosses back at the station so that we could all talk it over and attempt to resolve the situation. He wouldn't hear of it. I asked him if I could leave the mall and conduct my interviews outside on the sidewalk. He told me I couldn't do anything anywhere on the mall's property which went "all the way to the curb," including the parking garages and the sidewalks in front of the various stores and restaurants. I then asked him where I could go if not on "his" property. He wouldn't answer.
My bosses at WCBM couldn't believe it once I got back and told them I had been kicked out. Like me they agree that the mall is a public space, even if it has an owner. If the mall truly was "like [Sullivan's] house," then I wouldn't have been able to get in to begin with. Yet I walked right in through Macy's and up to the food court without knocking on any doors, ringing any bells or passing any "no trespassing" signs. I wasn't harassing anyone nor did I break any laws. And if the customers wouldn't want to be bothered by my questions, then how come three ladies were more than willing to talk to me after I explained what I was doing? Lastly, I'd be more than willing to check any right of way maps Sullivan wanted me to, but I know his property doesn't go "all the way to the curb," especially on the side that borders Dulaney Valley Road (MD-146), a state funded and maintained throughfare. That's a public sidewalk and I could stand there if I wanted to. I just didn't want to force anything more today because Sullivan is at least twice as large as I am and could probably crush me no problem.
Despite all this, some good things came out of this experience. I still got an interview done before I was kicked out of the mall. And because I got kicked out of the mall, we have a second story to talk about here at the station in addition to the man on the street clips I gathered today. It sort of worked out. If you're going to be up, tune in from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. EDT on Friday, May 31st on AM 680 or wcbm.com where these stories will be covered at some point during the show. Should be fun as always.
Jimmy Williams
Thursday, May 30, 2013
A "Sad Day for Scouting" Indeed
A few days late but no less relevant I'd finally like to take some time to weigh in on the vote a week ago today to allow openly gay youth to be members of the Boy Scouts of America. A decision that was not only totally inappropriate, but also ignored the voice of the membership at large.
There's a reason the National Council didn't put this issue to a direct vote from the membership: it would have failed. A survey of the rank-and-file members of the BSA found that over 60 percent of the membership rejects a change in policy that would allow gays to be in scouting openly. Yet when it came to the vote, the results were entirely flipped from what the rank-and-file support.
Around 61 percent of the delegates choose to ignore the feelings of the membership at large and approve this policy change. According to some reports, no dissenting opinions or viewpoints were even allowed to be presented to the delegates before they voted, a huge overreach by national leaders should that prove to be true. This can be equated to the current national feeling about ObamaCare. In a recent survey, 54 percent of voters, including about one quarter of Democrats, support returning to a health care system that is pre-2009. House Republicans have voted to repeal ObamaCare 37 times. So what do Democrats do? They keep on shoving ahead with implementing the program, ignoring the public at large.
John Stemberger, founder of OnMyHonor.Net and a leading opponent of the policy change, cites figures that should be quite alarming for national BSA leaders if (well now, when) the policy change goes into effect. According to his estimates, the BSA is now facing a drop in membership of between 200,000 and 400,000 youth. That does not even count any adults or volunteers associated with those youth. Other figures I have seen include an estimated loss of $44 million in revenue for the BSA. That amount is many times greater than any amount of funding former corporate donors have withdrawn in the past couple of years.
As Stemberger has said in many interviews, Scouts is not supposed to be about sexuality at all. Scouts has never been about banning gays, its been about banning gay activisim, he has said. And he's right. Now that gays are allowed in the BSA openly, sexuality has unavoidably been thrown into the BSA. Under the now outgoing "don't ask, don't tell" policy , if you will, gays could still be scouts and sexuality was never discussed. The focus was on advancing, camping, cooking, hiking, etc.
But now the focus will turn to sexuality. And that's not where it should be. Parents should be allowed to discuss homosexuality and being gay with their children on their own timetable. But now because gays will be openly allowed in scouting, those kids, some as young as 6 years old, could find out about it at anytime, even if the parents aren't ready to have that discussion. Simply put, that is not okay.
Personally I am now winding down my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America, as are my brother and father. I am an Eagle Scout. I still work with my troop as an Assistant Scoutmaster and will be attending my third summer camp as an adult in about two months time. But I cannot continue to be part of an organization that has caved to minority interests, violated its own morals and betrayed the beliefs and values of the majority of its membership. Summer camp this year will be my last for quite a while, if not forever. My father is leading summer camp for the troop this summer and it will be his last major project with our troop. My brother is only a Board of Review away from earning his Eagle and once he does so and attends summer camp, he will be out as well. We may still hang around, but in very limited rolls and we will probably not reregister in January.
Will we ever go back? That remains to be seen but I don't count on it. I eagerly wait to see if there will be a movement to found an organization similar to the American Heritage Girls, an alternative to the now liberally dominated Girl Scouts, for boys, possibly "American Heritage Scouts." I would be willing to contribute the founding of such an organization should the opportunity arise. As for the BSA, it has signed its own death sentence. Things will only get worse, not better. The lawsuits will not stop, cases of abuse will not stop and will probably increase if gay youth attempt to have sexual contact with other youth. And within a few years, groups like NAMBLA will have open access to the BSA. When that happens, abuses will really take off.
Jimmy Williams
There's a reason the National Council didn't put this issue to a direct vote from the membership: it would have failed. A survey of the rank-and-file members of the BSA found that over 60 percent of the membership rejects a change in policy that would allow gays to be in scouting openly. Yet when it came to the vote, the results were entirely flipped from what the rank-and-file support.
Around 61 percent of the delegates choose to ignore the feelings of the membership at large and approve this policy change. According to some reports, no dissenting opinions or viewpoints were even allowed to be presented to the delegates before they voted, a huge overreach by national leaders should that prove to be true. This can be equated to the current national feeling about ObamaCare. In a recent survey, 54 percent of voters, including about one quarter of Democrats, support returning to a health care system that is pre-2009. House Republicans have voted to repeal ObamaCare 37 times. So what do Democrats do? They keep on shoving ahead with implementing the program, ignoring the public at large.
John Stemberger, founder of OnMyHonor.Net and a leading opponent of the policy change, cites figures that should be quite alarming for national BSA leaders if (well now, when) the policy change goes into effect. According to his estimates, the BSA is now facing a drop in membership of between 200,000 and 400,000 youth. That does not even count any adults or volunteers associated with those youth. Other figures I have seen include an estimated loss of $44 million in revenue for the BSA. That amount is many times greater than any amount of funding former corporate donors have withdrawn in the past couple of years.
As Stemberger has said in many interviews, Scouts is not supposed to be about sexuality at all. Scouts has never been about banning gays, its been about banning gay activisim, he has said. And he's right. Now that gays are allowed in the BSA openly, sexuality has unavoidably been thrown into the BSA. Under the now outgoing "don't ask, don't tell" policy , if you will, gays could still be scouts and sexuality was never discussed. The focus was on advancing, camping, cooking, hiking, etc.
But now the focus will turn to sexuality. And that's not where it should be. Parents should be allowed to discuss homosexuality and being gay with their children on their own timetable. But now because gays will be openly allowed in scouting, those kids, some as young as 6 years old, could find out about it at anytime, even if the parents aren't ready to have that discussion. Simply put, that is not okay.
Personally I am now winding down my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America, as are my brother and father. I am an Eagle Scout. I still work with my troop as an Assistant Scoutmaster and will be attending my third summer camp as an adult in about two months time. But I cannot continue to be part of an organization that has caved to minority interests, violated its own morals and betrayed the beliefs and values of the majority of its membership. Summer camp this year will be my last for quite a while, if not forever. My father is leading summer camp for the troop this summer and it will be his last major project with our troop. My brother is only a Board of Review away from earning his Eagle and once he does so and attends summer camp, he will be out as well. We may still hang around, but in very limited rolls and we will probably not reregister in January.
Will we ever go back? That remains to be seen but I don't count on it. I eagerly wait to see if there will be a movement to found an organization similar to the American Heritage Girls, an alternative to the now liberally dominated Girl Scouts, for boys, possibly "American Heritage Scouts." I would be willing to contribute the founding of such an organization should the opportunity arise. As for the BSA, it has signed its own death sentence. Things will only get worse, not better. The lawsuits will not stop, cases of abuse will not stop and will probably increase if gay youth attempt to have sexual contact with other youth. And within a few years, groups like NAMBLA will have open access to the BSA. When that happens, abuses will really take off.
Jimmy Williams
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Mishandling of the Cole Withrow Battle
I first addressed Eagle Scout Cole Withrow's suspension/expulsion for accidently bringing a shotgun to his high school in his truck in my blog post last week. Right away some good things, and some partial right steps, came out. Cole is at least allowed to graduate, but still not with his class. The story has national attention. And Liberty University has offered him whatever financial aid it will take for him to attend.
Despite all this, there are steps that could have been taken that haven't been. And today those of us who are members of the "Free Cole" Facebook group and fan page discovered that the fan page has been deleted and that the group administrators are trying to remove the group. This coming after the group administrators had already blocked group members from posting to the group about a week ago. The explanation you ask? There are claims that "severe threats" have been made and that taking down the group and page is "honoring the family's wishes." I'm sorry but that's a terrible explanation and taking down the pages because of "threats" is simply caving to the opposition and letting it win.
The fan page had over 5,500 "likes" before it was taken down and the group nearly 11,000 members as of this writing. If you make all that go away, how is the school board, or anyone who has authority in the decisions surrounding Cole for that matter, going to see that there is massive public support for him and his family? Yes a lot of us, including me, wrote emails to the superintendent of schools but emails can be deleted and tampered with. The authorities can't make the Facebook pages go away or dispute them (in theory anyway, you never know anymore). Taking down the page and group won't stop whatever "threats" were coming in but it will make it appear that public support for Cole has gone away.
Another shortcoming of the movement is that it appears no one close to Cole and his family would condone protests outside the school board or a boycott of school by students. Kimberly Boykin, the family friend quoted in the initial article by Todd Starnes, told several of us in a thread long since deleted from the group that we shouldn't be encouraging the entire student body to boycott school simply because student boycotts "are against school policy" and would lead to "automatic suspension." Your point, Ms. Boykin? It's called civil disobedience to protest an unjust decision by the school system. A man named Martin Luther King Jr. showed us all during the 1960s that civil disobedience can be quite effective in bringing about change. And if Cole's whole school took part, and I'm sure they would have, they couldn't suspend all of them because it wouldn't be practical.
The fact is that student protests and sit-ins can be quite effective in changing an unpopular decision by a school. When my Dad was in Catholic grade school in the 1960s the nuns who ran the school made a decision (I can't remember what exactly, it's been years since my Dad told this story) that was incredibly unpopular with the student body. In response the entire student body staged a sit-down protest at recess. After 10 minutes of chanting "Hell no, we won't go!" the nuns gave in. The decision was reversed. The students won. The protest WORKED.
Writing emails, praying for the school board to do the right thing, petitioning to have laws changed and waiting for this case to work its way through the legal system can only do so much. In order to effect real change, you have to take action. And from what I saw before posting by group members was disallowed, there were hundreds of people ready to organize that action and hold protests. Yet they were told not to. We were told not to encourage students to stand up for their rights and boycott an unfair decision. And if that's how this case is going to be fought, then I hope Ms. Boykin doesn't expect a positive outcome. I support Cole wholeheartedly and so do thousands of others. But we want to see real action. And refusing to take that action because of fear of punishment from the system is not smart, it's complacency. Last I checked, that doesn't win battles.
Jimmy Williams
Despite all this, there are steps that could have been taken that haven't been. And today those of us who are members of the "Free Cole" Facebook group and fan page discovered that the fan page has been deleted and that the group administrators are trying to remove the group. This coming after the group administrators had already blocked group members from posting to the group about a week ago. The explanation you ask? There are claims that "severe threats" have been made and that taking down the group and page is "honoring the family's wishes." I'm sorry but that's a terrible explanation and taking down the pages because of "threats" is simply caving to the opposition and letting it win.
The fan page had over 5,500 "likes" before it was taken down and the group nearly 11,000 members as of this writing. If you make all that go away, how is the school board, or anyone who has authority in the decisions surrounding Cole for that matter, going to see that there is massive public support for him and his family? Yes a lot of us, including me, wrote emails to the superintendent of schools but emails can be deleted and tampered with. The authorities can't make the Facebook pages go away or dispute them (in theory anyway, you never know anymore). Taking down the page and group won't stop whatever "threats" were coming in but it will make it appear that public support for Cole has gone away.
Another shortcoming of the movement is that it appears no one close to Cole and his family would condone protests outside the school board or a boycott of school by students. Kimberly Boykin, the family friend quoted in the initial article by Todd Starnes, told several of us in a thread long since deleted from the group that we shouldn't be encouraging the entire student body to boycott school simply because student boycotts "are against school policy" and would lead to "automatic suspension." Your point, Ms. Boykin? It's called civil disobedience to protest an unjust decision by the school system. A man named Martin Luther King Jr. showed us all during the 1960s that civil disobedience can be quite effective in bringing about change. And if Cole's whole school took part, and I'm sure they would have, they couldn't suspend all of them because it wouldn't be practical.
The fact is that student protests and sit-ins can be quite effective in changing an unpopular decision by a school. When my Dad was in Catholic grade school in the 1960s the nuns who ran the school made a decision (I can't remember what exactly, it's been years since my Dad told this story) that was incredibly unpopular with the student body. In response the entire student body staged a sit-down protest at recess. After 10 minutes of chanting "Hell no, we won't go!" the nuns gave in. The decision was reversed. The students won. The protest WORKED.
Writing emails, praying for the school board to do the right thing, petitioning to have laws changed and waiting for this case to work its way through the legal system can only do so much. In order to effect real change, you have to take action. And from what I saw before posting by group members was disallowed, there were hundreds of people ready to organize that action and hold protests. Yet they were told not to. We were told not to encourage students to stand up for their rights and boycott an unfair decision. And if that's how this case is going to be fought, then I hope Ms. Boykin doesn't expect a positive outcome. I support Cole wholeheartedly and so do thousands of others. But we want to see real action. And refusing to take that action because of fear of punishment from the system is not smart, it's complacency. Last I checked, that doesn't win battles.
Jimmy Williams
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Benghazi Whistle Blowers Confirm What We've Long Known
If you missed today's House Oversight Committee hearings on Benghazi then you missed A LOT. Over 7 hours of testimony by three incredibly brave whistle-blowers have answered some questions and raised even more about just what happened in Benghazi on Sept. 11th, 2012.
I was able to watch about one and a half hours of the testimony live and have since watched a few highlight reels of the hearings with the key points and moments. Here's what we learned today in a somewhat reasonable flow:
From the first moment the ATTACK on our consulate started, our officials on the ground, including Ambassador Stevens, called it an attack. It was never called a protest. It was never blamed on some random video. The video was described as a "non-event" by Mr. Hicks. The whistle-blowers confirmed the talking points about the attacks were in fact edited to remove any mentions of terrorism. We also learned that Susan Rice never even talked to Mr. Hicks, one of the whistle-blowers who testified today and the ranking United States official in Libya after Stevens was killed, before she went on all five Sunday talk shows and called the attacks a "protest" against a YouTube video.
Mr. Hicks said that decision was embarrassing and that it made the Libyan government so angry that the FBI was kept out of Benghazi for 18 days! And all that time the crime scene wasn't secured. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), read an email that connected the attacks to an Islamic terrorist organization the next day on Sept. 12th. And we also learned that the hospital Stevens was taken to was controlled by terrorists, by our enemies!
We learned these men repeatedly requested additional security in Benghazi and it was denied. We learned that there were special ops forces on the ground in Libya ready to go get in the fight and try and save their fellow Americans but that they were ordered to stand down. It is still unclear where or who that order came from and more hearings will be needed to get to the bottom of it. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, was also caught blowing smoke when he asserted that it would have taken 9-12 hours to get air support to Libya. Officials on duty that night told Mr. Hicks that it would take 2-3 hours but even that figure is questionable.
The nearest Air Force base to Benghazi is Aviano Air Base in Northern Italy, which can be found using the base locator I have linked to. It is about 1,100 miles from Benghazi. The base has a complement of F-16s.The top speed of an F-16 is 1,500 miles per hour and with drop tanks and a couple sidewinder missiles, the F-16 would have had the range to get there, hit a target, refuel on the way back via a tanker dispatched to trail the plane or planes and land safely back at Aviano. I will not believe that would have taken 2-3 hours and certainly not 9-12 hours as Cummings asserted. And even if it would have taken 2-3 hours, the firefight in Benghazi dragged on throughout the entire night! Why was no attempt at air support made?
As far as the cover up back here at home goes, the whistle-blowers today told the committee that the State Department tried to block them from meeting with members of Congress unless State had a lawyer present. At one point Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was blocked from a meeting, as he told Sean Hannity tonight on Fox. Additionally, Gowdy told Hannity tonight that after 8 months, he and the rest of the American people still have no idea where the president was during all this.
On top of all of this, equally disturbing were the open and brazen attempts by many Democrats on the committee today to smear and discredit Republicans and the whistle-blowers. Cummings was in all out "smear and cover" mode from his first words before we even heard anything from the whistle-blowers. Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) had the nerve to try and blame budget cuts for a terrorist attack. Yes, because somehow money made terrorists kill Ambassador Stevens. Rather than ask any serious questions, Rep. Carolyn Maloney blew her entire five minutes on a hysterical rant trying to shield Hillary Clinton.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who in mine and many people's minds shouldn't even be on this committee or in Congress at all, spent her five minutes attacking the whistle-blowers and trying to get them to say they were there for political reasons when they clearly were not. She accused them of lying when they were not. She also said, "We don't want to get involved in who down the line gets consulted." Rep. Holmes that is exactly what we want to get involved in! We want to know who denied our people help! We want to know who in our government is responsible for not fighting back while our people were being murdered! And we want to know why we were lied to by our president, our secretary of state and our ambassador to the United Nations. We will keep digging. And we will eventually establish accountability. We will get justice for Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
Jimmy Williams
I was able to watch about one and a half hours of the testimony live and have since watched a few highlight reels of the hearings with the key points and moments. Here's what we learned today in a somewhat reasonable flow:
From the first moment the ATTACK on our consulate started, our officials on the ground, including Ambassador Stevens, called it an attack. It was never called a protest. It was never blamed on some random video. The video was described as a "non-event" by Mr. Hicks. The whistle-blowers confirmed the talking points about the attacks were in fact edited to remove any mentions of terrorism. We also learned that Susan Rice never even talked to Mr. Hicks, one of the whistle-blowers who testified today and the ranking United States official in Libya after Stevens was killed, before she went on all five Sunday talk shows and called the attacks a "protest" against a YouTube video.
Mr. Hicks said that decision was embarrassing and that it made the Libyan government so angry that the FBI was kept out of Benghazi for 18 days! And all that time the crime scene wasn't secured. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), read an email that connected the attacks to an Islamic terrorist organization the next day on Sept. 12th. And we also learned that the hospital Stevens was taken to was controlled by terrorists, by our enemies!
We learned these men repeatedly requested additional security in Benghazi and it was denied. We learned that there were special ops forces on the ground in Libya ready to go get in the fight and try and save their fellow Americans but that they were ordered to stand down. It is still unclear where or who that order came from and more hearings will be needed to get to the bottom of it. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, was also caught blowing smoke when he asserted that it would have taken 9-12 hours to get air support to Libya. Officials on duty that night told Mr. Hicks that it would take 2-3 hours but even that figure is questionable.
The nearest Air Force base to Benghazi is Aviano Air Base in Northern Italy, which can be found using the base locator I have linked to. It is about 1,100 miles from Benghazi. The base has a complement of F-16s.The top speed of an F-16 is 1,500 miles per hour and with drop tanks and a couple sidewinder missiles, the F-16 would have had the range to get there, hit a target, refuel on the way back via a tanker dispatched to trail the plane or planes and land safely back at Aviano. I will not believe that would have taken 2-3 hours and certainly not 9-12 hours as Cummings asserted. And even if it would have taken 2-3 hours, the firefight in Benghazi dragged on throughout the entire night! Why was no attempt at air support made?
As far as the cover up back here at home goes, the whistle-blowers today told the committee that the State Department tried to block them from meeting with members of Congress unless State had a lawyer present. At one point Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was blocked from a meeting, as he told Sean Hannity tonight on Fox. Additionally, Gowdy told Hannity tonight that after 8 months, he and the rest of the American people still have no idea where the president was during all this.
On top of all of this, equally disturbing were the open and brazen attempts by many Democrats on the committee today to smear and discredit Republicans and the whistle-blowers. Cummings was in all out "smear and cover" mode from his first words before we even heard anything from the whistle-blowers. Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.) had the nerve to try and blame budget cuts for a terrorist attack. Yes, because somehow money made terrorists kill Ambassador Stevens. Rather than ask any serious questions, Rep. Carolyn Maloney blew her entire five minutes on a hysterical rant trying to shield Hillary Clinton.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who in mine and many people's minds shouldn't even be on this committee or in Congress at all, spent her five minutes attacking the whistle-blowers and trying to get them to say they were there for political reasons when they clearly were not. She accused them of lying when they were not. She also said, "We don't want to get involved in who down the line gets consulted." Rep. Holmes that is exactly what we want to get involved in! We want to know who denied our people help! We want to know who in our government is responsible for not fighting back while our people were being murdered! And we want to know why we were lied to by our president, our secretary of state and our ambassador to the United Nations. We will keep digging. And we will eventually establish accountability. We will get justice for Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
Jimmy Williams
Thursday, May 2, 2013
An Eagle Scout Done Wrong: Cole Withrow Suspension
UPDATE 3:48 p.m EDT: I have been working on this blog post in between classes and now that I'm back on again, several things have changed. First, as reported by the local ABC affiliate, Cole will be allowed to graduate, but not with his friends at Princeton High School. It will instead be an alternative option only. That is not justice. This same article also reports that two teachers in Johnston County, including an administrator who works at Cole's school, have done the same thing Cole did. Yet neither was charged with a felony or even arrested. The administrator who works at Cole's school served a three day suspension and still works there.
The second major piece of information, also reported by Todd Starnes, is that Cole has now been offered "whatever scholarships he need[s] to attend Liberty University," by Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. Falwell also had the following to say about this incident:
“When you see a basketball player who is glorified for announcing that he’s gay and then you see an honest young man like Cole arrested and treated like a criminal for making an honest mistake – you wonder what’s happening to our country,” he said. “The culture seems to be completely disconnected from our roots – our Christian heritage and our Constitution. I hope the American people wake up before it’s too late.”
Original Post: As first reported by Todd Starnes on Wednesday, May 1st, Cole Withrow, of Johnston County, N.C., has been suspended and is facing expulsion for accidentally driving to school on Monday, April 29th with an unloaded shotgun in the back of his truck. The gun was reportedly left in the back after a weekend skeet shooting trip and was simply forgotten about on Sunday night. And oh, by the way, Cole is an Eagle Scout and honor student at his high school and is scheduled to graduate in just a matter of weeks.
When Cole parked and went to grab his bag, he discovered the shotgun. According to Starnes and his sources, the events that followed went like this:
Cole secured the shotgun in his truck. He next went directly the the school office to call his mother and tell her what happened and ask for her help in getting the gun back home. However, his conversation was apparently overheard by someone in the office. School officials went to his truck and found the gun. Cole has now been handed a suspension (a family friend said "expelled for 365 days" but expulsion means you can't come back at all), has been effectively blocked from finishing his high school career and graduating with his friends and is facing a felony for "knowingly and willfully bringing a weapon onto educational property."
Cole did not "knowingly or willfully" bring his shotgun on campus. And when he realized what happened, he did the honest and honorable thing and moved to quickly correct it. But by being open and honest about the situation, he paid for it. This is inexcusable. If this teaches our kids anything, it teaches them that being open and honest is wrong and instead they should just lie, cheat, hide, etc.
Jimmy Williams
The second major piece of information, also reported by Todd Starnes, is that Cole has now been offered "whatever scholarships he need[s] to attend Liberty University," by Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. Falwell also had the following to say about this incident:
“When you see a basketball player who is glorified for announcing that he’s gay and then you see an honest young man like Cole arrested and treated like a criminal for making an honest mistake – you wonder what’s happening to our country,” he said. “The culture seems to be completely disconnected from our roots – our Christian heritage and our Constitution. I hope the American people wake up before it’s too late.”
Original Post: As first reported by Todd Starnes on Wednesday, May 1st, Cole Withrow, of Johnston County, N.C., has been suspended and is facing expulsion for accidentally driving to school on Monday, April 29th with an unloaded shotgun in the back of his truck. The gun was reportedly left in the back after a weekend skeet shooting trip and was simply forgotten about on Sunday night. And oh, by the way, Cole is an Eagle Scout and honor student at his high school and is scheduled to graduate in just a matter of weeks.
When Cole parked and went to grab his bag, he discovered the shotgun. According to Starnes and his sources, the events that followed went like this:
Cole secured the shotgun in his truck. He next went directly the the school office to call his mother and tell her what happened and ask for her help in getting the gun back home. However, his conversation was apparently overheard by someone in the office. School officials went to his truck and found the gun. Cole has now been handed a suspension (a family friend said "expelled for 365 days" but expulsion means you can't come back at all), has been effectively blocked from finishing his high school career and graduating with his friends and is facing a felony for "knowingly and willfully bringing a weapon onto educational property."
Cole did not "knowingly or willfully" bring his shotgun on campus. And when he realized what happened, he did the honest and honorable thing and moved to quickly correct it. But by being open and honest about the situation, he paid for it. This is inexcusable. If this teaches our kids anything, it teaches them that being open and honest is wrong and instead they should just lie, cheat, hide, etc.
Jimmy Williams
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