[Peace] News-Gazette: Nuke deal supporters protest at Davis' office [sic]

[Robert Naiman]

The online headline is not correct (the print version headline, on the
front page today, was "No changing Davis' mind on Iran"); the protest was
at a Davis event at the Champaign Public Library, not at "Davis' office,"
which are two very different things, unless one takes the view that
wherever Davis goes on public property belongs to Davis and his staff. Some
of Davis' staff and some of the staff of the Champaign Public Library -
particularly its so-called "security officer" - apparently advocate this
view, but I vigorously contest this view as contrary to the Constitution
and the First Amendment. You could say that I am "vocally opposed" to this
view. ;)

P.S. Nobody was "jostled in a minor scrum." I never touched Davis' staffer.
I simply walked past her through an open door into the meeting room with
Davis that she was trying to keep me out of. Either Davis' staffer lied, or
she has a definition of "jostled" which is inconsistent with the First
Amendment. That's why no arrests were made: because nobody did anything
arrestable. I didn't do anything disruptive in the room; I simply watched
the presentation, just like the other members of the public. The exchange
with Davis shown in the picture and described in the article took place
outside the room, before Davis and I entered it.

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-08-22/nuke-deal-supporters-protest-davis-office.html

Nuke deal supporters protest at Davis' office
Sat, 08/22/2015 - 7:00am | Tom Kacich
<http://www.news-gazette.com/author/tom-kacich>
[image: 20150821-200447-pic-475001094.jpg]
<http://static.news-gazette.com/sites/all/files/imagecache/lightbox_800_600_scale/images/2015/08/21/20150821-200447-pic-475001094.jpg>
Photo by: Tom Kacich/The News-Gazette
Robert Naiman and Rep. Rodney Davis at the Champaign Public Library
<https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-08-22/nuke-deal-supporters-protest-davis-office.html>
<https://twitter.com/share?url=http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-08-22/nuke-deal-supporters-protest-davis-office.html&text=Nuke%20deal%20supporters%20protest%20at%20Davis%27%20office>
<http://www.news-gazette.com/printmail/1382122>

CHAMPAIGN — Local protestors who favor a proposed nuclear deal with Iran
presented U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis with petitions Friday, but the Taylorvile
Republican said he remains vocally opposed to the agreement.

"I think the Iran deal that this administration negotiated is a bad deal,"
he said before a meeting at the Champaign Public Library. "I think that you
will see the House of Representatives vote it down and I hope that enough
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have the courage to
override the president's veto."

The agreement reached between Iran and major world powers would ease
economic sanctions on the country in exchange for it taking steps to scale
back its uranium enrichment program, and to open its military sites to
international inspectors.

The handful of protestors were from the local MoveOn organization.
Champaign police were called to the library after a Davis staff member was
jostled in a minor scrum. No arrests were made.

Robert Naiman of Urbana gave the petitions to Davis and said "we are asking
you to support the Iran nuclear agreement because we don't want to have
another war in the Middle East."

Naiman, who also asked for a personal meeting with Davis, pleaded with him
to "consider the consequences of sabotaging the agreement and sending us to
another war which we don't need and the people of the region don't need."

But Davis said he disagreed with Naiman and observed, "It's interesting to
see this organization take advantage of the freedom of speech here in this
country when the country they're advocating for dealing with wouldn't allow
them to do this protest there."

He said it was the first time anyone in the 13th Congressional District,
which extends to the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis, had confronted him
about the issue during the August congressional recess.

"If the president wants his legacy to be a bad deal in Iran and a deal that
doesn't stop them from getting nuclear technology, and also is not
supported by all of our allies who are in the Middle East, I think that
says a lot about what he wants his legacy to be," Davis said.

U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, a Collinsville Republican whose district includes
rural parts of Champaign County, plus Danville and points south, arrived
later and said he also would vote against the Iran deal.

"You can't trust Iran. They're a state sponsor of terrorism," he said. "If
you can't get a country to release prisoners who are held by them out of
the U.S., and you can't get them to no longer chant 'Death to America,' how
do you negotiate with them? And then there are all the secret side deals.
We're going to let them do their own inspections and verification?"

The Associated Press reported earlier this week that a draft of a side
agreement between the U.N. atomic watchdog and Tehran would allow Iran to
use its own inspectors to investigate a nuclear site.

[...]
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/attachments/20150822/7e5aabaa/attachment.html>