On the morning of Sept. 3, the first day the Pentagon said they could, Alicia Butler and her spouse, Judith Chedville, who is a Texas Army National Guard officer, went to Austin’s Camp Mabry so Ms. Butler could get a military spouse identification card and register for the same federal marriage benefits provided to wives and husbands of heterosexual service members.
Read the whole story at The New York Times
There is something I just do not get about what Rick Perry and his fellow GOP are doing in Texas. They have decided to cheat the anti-reproductive health care bill's way through so openly that a woman would have to be blind not to know what is going on at the capitol in Austin. In other words, any pro-choice woman worth her integrity is going to have to act. It is as if Perry and co, with their pockets full of unregulated corporate cash, have decided to go full government intervention and regulation on women's bodies. Anyone who knows anything about a Texas woman when you get her riled up, must be scratching their heads as it is obvious Perry has taken on a battle he will not win in the long run. Or, as one male Texan Democrat, Beyrl Armstrong, stated, "I have a mother, I have a wife, I have nieces. It's real important they be treated as competent human beings who can take care of themselves. These women are pissed off. Don't kick sand in a Texas woman's face, it's not going to work."
In other words, I think the real reason to vote Perry and his fellow GOP out of office is because you have to just be plain stupid to make so many women in Texas as angry as they are right now. It also demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the poor, the disenfranchised women in rural areas, who will have basically no access to reproductive health care of any kind if this bill passes. How stupid can it be to legislate against what medical professionals, specialists in women's reproductive health, have declared as they denounce this GOP lead bill.
I feel for the pro-choice women in Ohio, Kansas, North Carolina and elsewhere (except Oregon it seems which is the only state whose rules around abortion have remained intact over the past 40 years) who have recently had affordable access to reproductive health care curtailed. In fact, in some cases women will most likely not have access to birth control, breast exams, STD testing, and may also have to leave their home state to get an abortion.
But now the right wing has attempted something really stupid; they have brought their campaign to eliminate access for all of the above, to Texas. Well, let me tell a thing or two about Texas women: They are strong, tough and used to big ole men with guns trying to run the show. Many of these women, like Wendy Davis, are extremely smart, extremely realistic, and know from hard, real-life experiences exactly what they are dealing with when it comes to conservative politics run mostly by men. It's sort of like women in Naples or Sicily, when they are outspoken, they are some of the most incredibly brave women around, because they are dealing with a paternalistic mafia-like control system which, and let's be honest about this, is not unused to killing off anyone who challenges their well-entrenched control structure. The more evolved men in Texas also need to be supported as they too have grown up surrounded by some pretty exaggerated male "role models." But many of these same men have also come to appreciate and love strong women. And by the way, anyone who thinks you have to be a militant feminist, man-hater with hairy legs to be pro-choice (as many of the comments on my last piece implied), take a look at Senator Wendy Davis. She is now being criticized for being "too hot"-hell you can't win with these folks. It demonstrates how threatened they feel, but the reality is, all voices need to be heard and respected.
I grew up in Texas knowing more people who had died horrifically violent deaths than anyone I know from outside of Texas. You have to learn to defend yourself and your rights or you could end up silenced or even dead. I also grew up inside of a Republican political reality, spent lots of time as a child in many a Republican campaign headquarters, and in Austin at the capitol. There used to be a lot more moderate Republicans in Texas. That appears to have changed. It changed, in part, when the religious right took over parts of the state, when religious organizations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, became more about women obeying their husbands than about tolerance and inclusion. Churches the size of baseball stadiums began springing up, almost like a corporate equivalent or God's monopoly on the way of thinking. Or as one female relative said as she left the Baptist church and became an Episcopal, "They expected you to hang your brain up outside the door before you entered. You could not question." Yes, there would always be "those liberals in Austin", a few feminist mayors of Houston from time to time, but the face of Texas was also becoming one which was frighteningly not tolerant, and I would argue, not very Texan.
A lot of what used to be the norm in Texas, is also evolving however, and this is what is frightening the GOP. In fact, the very changes which are also making Texas a more progressive, interesting and diverse place are what scares the Good Ole Boys and will eventually hinder their way of doing things. But if you can redistrict these dissenting liberal voices out of existence by basically nullifying their votes, then there is something which is not only not democratic taking place, I would argue it borders on fascism, as well as outright misogyny. It is all about losing control, and if there is one thing these hardcore right wingers hate, it is losing control.
As my godmother said to me last night on the phone from Seattle (where she and I both escaped to years ago to get out of Texas), women in Texas have grown up knowing what they are up against and it makes them extremely resilient. But I argued that I was tired of always having to be on guard and permanently tough and wanted to live in a place where I could use my energy to move forward and not always be fighting for basic rights. Yet I knew my godmother had a point. Women who are constantly forced to deal with this kind of macho behavior and whose rights are threatened daily, are also those women who are fighting for all of us. We need to stand with them.
Recently I considered returning home to Texas, but I have a teenage daughter. I was not about to have her have to live through perhaps even a less tolerant version of the reality many of my generation grew up inside of, that too would be stupid. But I also wondered if it might not toughen her up a bit, make her better prepared for much of the "real world" where women have to fight for their voices to be heard every single day, and where the voices of many have almost been silenced.
Those of us who have been Texans for many generations, and who recall how it used to be, both the good and the bad, know that real Texans are not born they are made. This struggle for basic rights will shape this generation of Texas women and men. People will be talking about Senator Davis' filibuster for many years to come. Those who have made, and will make the trip to the capitol in Austin to make their voices heard, will become politicized forever. They will not forget the energy and solidarity which we have witnessed.
When President Obama, the son of a single mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who struggled to educate herself, him and his sister, (and in fact made sure that they had access to the very best education the U.S. could provide and who died worried that she had no health insurance), sent that Twitter message reading, "Something special is happening down in Texas tonight." He knew exactly what women have fought for, and it was surely in solidarity with the memory of his mother and all she did for him that he sent it. He is also married to a strong educated woman and has two daughters. He knows what this situation in Texas means for women and for the country. Perhaps we should follow his mother's example, and put the emphasis on education, and legislate for better access to education so that future generations don't make the same mistakes Perry and the Texas GOP are making.
If you want to see the future of America, look at the men and women who have mothers who have worked, been educated and had careers and fought for women's rights. If you want to see men who truly respect women, look to men like President Obama. If you want to see women who are our future, look to women like Senators Wendy Davis and Leticia Van De Putte and others who are ready to stand up and fight for all of us.
Texas is such a big place that when people ask me where I am from, instead of simply replying "American", I proudly say I am Texan. Wendy Davis and Leticia Van De Putte make me extremely proud to be a Texas woman. I know that the country, and the world will be watching as we move ahead in the days to come.
Follow Vivian Norris on Twitter: www.twitter.com/vivigive
Get AlertsLess than 24 hours after an abortion epic bill filibuster led in the center of national attention, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (D) was directly after Governor Rick Perry r on national television.
Perry ordered the Texas State legislature Wednesday for another 30-day special session on a plan that would impose severe restrictions on abortion, including the closure of almost every clinic in the State. Part of the official release of Perry cast events on Tuesday as a "breakdown of decorum and decency that prevent us from doing what the people of this State hired to do".
In an interview on Wednesday in "All in with Chris Hayes" of MSNBC, Davis asked him to respond to the point of "decorum" by Perry. She hit on the Governor and Lt. gov. David Dewhurst, punt them as those who "led the charge" in the breakdown of decorum.
"They have annulled and made a mockery of all the rules that we run by in this State", said Davis.
Dozens of Democrats in the Senate held different feelings that Perry, praising Davis for his efforts. A group of 31 signed a letter on Wednesday, thanking him for the "courage and determination in the defeat of S.B. 5, a bill that would have severely limited reproductive choices of women in Texas".
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AUSTIN, Texas - more than 600 women's rights protesters crowded in the Texas Capitol on Sunday to see the Democrats begin a series of parliamentary maneuvers to stop the Republican majority adopted some of the toughest restrictions of abortion in the country.
The Democrats began the session by pointing out a technicality that delayed the vote on any bills of 4 1/2 hours. The forced postponement burned precious time since the session ends at midnight on Tuesday and abortion bill must still return to the Senate for final approval.
While several bills are subject to study, the only one with real possibilities is Senate Bill 5, Bill buses that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, required that it be held in surgical centers and restrict where and when women can take pills that induce abortion. Part of the new law would also require to perform abortions doctors have privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of admission.
Supporters say the measures are intended to protect the health of the woman, but opponents called unnecessary regulations to make it more difficult to get abortions. Approved, 37 of 42 Texas abortion clinics would have to close down and subjected to millions of dollars in improvements.
"This is important for many people," said representative Bryan Hughes, a conservative Republican of Mineola. "For many of us, this is the law of the session".
Anti-abortion groups have enormous influence in the Republican primary in Texas, and owners fearing tea party challenges need to register votes on conservative issues before returning home.
Block Bill has become a cause for the Democrats, who have not won a statewide election in Texas since 1994, but are working to rebuild the party in the State. The Democratic Party of Texas joined rights groups of women and progressive organizations this week to rally hundreds of supporters of the opposition to the proposed laws.
"This is our struggle here, today," said representative Sylvester Turner, D-Houston. "This is about Republican primary politics, not on a priority for the State."
Governor Rick Perry called session in May to adopt redistricting maps, but added abortion with just two weeks remaining before the end of the session. That decision made it possible that the Democrats possibly kill the Bill, while they have minorities in both chambers of the legislature.
House Democrats said they had a variety of methods to stop and possibly even kill the final accounts of the Sunday. But if you spend the early hours of Monday, the Senate must still vote on them on Tuesday, giving Senate Democrats an opportunity to block the draft law until midnight.
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Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cltomlinson
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A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.
Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.
Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.
The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.
The raid on the Garden of Eden farm appears to be the latest example of police departments using SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics to enforce less serious crimes. A Fox television affiliate reported this week, for example, that police in St. Louis County, Mo., brought out the SWAT team to serve an administrative warrant. The report went on to explain that all felony warrants are served with a SWAT team, regardless whether the crime being alleged involves violence.
In recent years, SWAT teams have been called out to perform regulatory alcohol inspections at a bar in Manassas Park, Va.; to raid bars for suspected underage drinking in New Haven, Conn.; to perform license inspections at barbershops in Orlando, Fla.; and to raid a gay bar in Atlanta where police suspected customers and employees were having public sex. A federal investigation later found that Atlanta police had made up the allegations of public sex.
Other raids have been conducted on food co-ops and Amish farms suspected of selling unpasteurized milk products. The federal government has for years been conducting raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized them, even though the businesses operate openly and are unlikely to pose any threat to the safety of federal enforcers.
Radley Balko is a senior writer and investigative reporter for The Huffington Post. He is also the author of the new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.
This story has been updated to clarify that a federal investigation found that the Atlantic police officers who raided a gay bar had made up the allegations of public sex.
Also on HuffPost: SubscribeThirteen people were killed in the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Here are their stories:
_ Michael Grant Cahill, 62, of Cameron, Texas. Cahill was a physician assistant and civilian employee who had returned to work the previous week after suffering a heart attack two weeks earlier. Born in Spokane, Wash., he helped treat soldiers returning from tours of duty or preparing for deployment. He and his wife had been married 37 years.
_Maj. Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, 52, of Woodbridge, Va. Originally from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, he had a doctorate in psychology from the University of Arizona and worked with bilingual special-needs students at Tucson-area schools before entering private practice. He had just arrived at Fort Hood and was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. He was a father of three.
_Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 32, from Evans, Ga. He was helping train soldiers on how to help new veterans with paperwork. He had arrived at Fort Hood in September 2009 after being stationed for a year in Korea. Married and father of a teenage daughter, he was first stationed at Fort Gordon, Ga., where his wife had hoped he would return when a posting there became open.
_Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, from San Diego County, Calif. Gaffaney was a psychiatric nurse for more than 20 years and had arrived at Fort Hood the day before the shooting to prepare for a deployment to Iraq. A native of Williston, N.D., he had served in the Navy and later the California National Guard. Married and father to a son, he supervised a team of six social workers at San Diego County's Adult Protective Services Department.
_Spc. Frederick Greene, 29, of Mountain City, Tenn. Known as "Freddie," he was a combat engineer based at Fort Hood and preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. He was married with two daughters. His family said he exemplified the Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage.
_Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 22, of Frederick, Okla. Known as J.D., he'd been married for two months. He served 3 1/2 years in the Army including a stint in Iraq. He had re-enlisted in the Army for six years after serving his initial two-year assignment and previously was stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga.
_Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, Wis. She joined the Army after the 2001 terrorist attacks, had arrived at Fort Hood two days before the shootings and was set for deployment to Afghanistan in December 2009. Her mother said she had vowed to take on Osama bin Laden. Her family described her as highly competitive in sports and with a smile that would light up any room.
_Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. He joined the Army instead of going on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to an uncle. He was the youngest of four children in his family and was to be deployed to Afghanistan in January 2010.
_Pfc. Michael Pearson, 22, Bolingbrook, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. He quit what he believed was a dead-end furniture company job to join the military about a year earlier. His mother said she spoke with him two days before the shooting and they talked about how he would be home for Christmas the following month. She hadn't seen him for a year while he was in training.
_Capt. Russell Seager, 51, of Racine, Wis. Seager joined the Army a few years earlier to help veterans returning to civilian life. He'd worked with soldiers at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Milwaukee who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and also taught classes at Bryant & Stratton College in Milwaukee. Married and with a son, he was at Fort Hood for training in advance of a December deployment to Afghanistan.
_Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, of Chicago. Known to her friends as "Cheka," she was pregnant and preparing to return home after deployment to Iraq. She had been back in the U.S. for three days. Velez was planning a lifelong career in the Army, family members said. One of her high school teachers said she hoped to become a psychologist.
_Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, 55, of Havre De Grace, Md. Warman was a military physician assistant with two daughters and six grandchildren. She had volunteered with Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, a reintegration program for Maryland National Guard soldiers returning from deployment overseas, providing mental health counseling and helping develop a program about the myths and realities of post-traumatic stress disorder. She was preparing for deployment to Iraq.
_Pfc. Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minn. Xiong was married and father of three young children. His family has a history of military service and his father, from Laos, fought the Viet Cong with the CIA in 1972. He was among 11 siblings who came to the U.S. as a toddler, grew up in California and then moved to Minnesota. He was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.
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Former Mitchell Energy & Development Corporation chairman George P. Mitchell Wednesday, March 9, 2011, in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan) HOUSTON -- George P. Mitchell leveraged a penchant for hard work, an appetite for risk and dogged persistence in the face of futility into a technological breakthrough that reshaped the global energy industry and made the wildcat oilman a billionaire.
Mitchell, the developer and philanthropist who also is considered the father of fracking, doggedly pursued natural gas he and others knew were trapped in wide, thin layers of rock deep underground. Fracking brought an entirely new – and enormous – trove of oil and gas within reach.
Mitchell died Friday at age 94 his home in Galveston, his family said.
The son of a Greek immigrant who ran a cleaning and shoeshine business in Galveston, Mitchell became one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. While his technological breakthrough transformed economies in states like North Dakota, Texas and Pennsylvania and is expected to migrate around the world, many environmentalists have attacked the practice over concerns about air and water pollution.
For the entire oil and gas age, drillers had searched for hydrocarbons that had seeped out of layers of sedimentary rock over millions of years and collected into large pools. Once found, they were easy to produce. Engineers merely had to drill into the pools and the natural pressure of the earth would send huge volumes of oil and gas up to the surface.
These pools are exceedingly rare, though, and they were quickly being tapped out as the world's consumption grew, raising fears that the end of the oil and gas age would soon be at hand and raising prices to alarming levels.
Mitchell's idea: Go directly to the sedimentary rock holding the oil and gas, essentially speeding up geological processes by thousands of millennia.
He figured out how to drill into and then along layers of gas-laden rock, then force a slurry of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into the rock to crack it open and release the hydrocarbons. This process, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, is the now-common industry practice known generally as fracking.
Engineers after Mitchell learned to adapt the process to oil-bearing rock. The U.S. is now the world's largest producer of natural gas and is on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency.
Daniel Yergin, the energy historian and author of "The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World" said in a statement that Mitchell "Changed the world energy outlook in the 21st century and set in motion the global rebalancing of oil and gas that is now occurring."
The fracking boom sent natural gas prices plummeting, reducing energy costs for U.S. consumers and businesses. And by boosting U.S. oil production, it has sharply reduced oil imports.
Electric utilities used more natural gas to generate power because of its low price, while reducing the use of coal. This has led to a substantial reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and toxic chemicals such as mercury by U.S. utilities.
But the practice has also sparked powerful antagonism, especially in the Northeast, from residents and environmentalists opposed to increased industrial activity in rural areas and concerned that the fracking process or the wastewater it generates can contaminate drinking water supplies.
New York, which is thought to have considerable natural gas resources, has imposed a moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing and star-studded activist groups have staged countless rallies and events to generate opposition to the practice.
In some areas fracking has been blamed for air pollution and gas leaks that have ruined well water, but the Obama administration and many state regulators say the practice is safe when done properly.
Mitchell's family, on the family foundation website, said he died of natural causes while surrounded by relatives.
"His story was quintessentially American," the family statement said. "George P. Mitchell was raised as a child of meager means who, throughout his life, believed in giving back to the community that made his success possible and lending a hand to the less fortunate struggling to reach their potential."
George Phydias Mitchell and his wife, Cynthia, who died in 2009, had 10 children. Their work together was "dedicated to making the world a more hospitable and sustainable place," the family said.
Mitchell graduated first in his class of 1940 at Texas A&M University with degrees in petrochemical engineering and geology. He helped pay for his school costs by running a tailoring and laundry business in College Station and selling candy and stationery to his fellow student Aggies, then in later years became the school's largest benefactor with donations topping $95 million.
This year, the annual Forbes list of wealthiest Americans ranked him 239th with a net worth of $2 billion.
Mitchell spent four years in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. Afterward, he struck out on his own with a brother and a partner as a wildcatter operation.
Over his career, he participated in drilling some 10,000 wells, including more than 1,000 wildcats – wells drilled away from known fields. His company, Mitchell Energy & Development, was credited with more than 200 oil and 350 natural gas discoveries.
The firm spent nearly two decades developing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, finally finding success in North Texas' Barnett Shale formation in the 1990s.
"There's no point in mincing words. Some people thought it was stupid," Dan Steward, a geologist who began working with the Texas natural gas firm Mitchell Energy in 1981 told The Associated Press in an interview last year. Steward estimated in the early years, "probably 90 percent of the people" in the firm didn't believe shale gas would be profitable, and that Mitchell's company didn't even cover the cost of fracking on shale tests until the 36th well was drilled.
But he credited the company namesake as a tenacious visionary.
"There's not a lot of companies that would stay with something this long," he said. "Most companies would have given up."
"Because of Mitchell's persistence ... we are today witnessing an unprecedented boom in domestic energy production and the associated economic benefits in Texas and nationwide," Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman agreed Friday.
Mitchell sold his energy company in 2002 for $3.1 billion.
Over the years, he spent tens of millions rebuilding his hometown of Galveston, resurrecting a long-dormant annual Mardi Gras celebration and providing money to restore the city's historic downtown Strand District.
He donated the land for Texas A&M University at Galveston.
"To say he was a great man with foresight and generosity isn't enough," Adm. Robert Smith III, the school's president, said. "His contributions to this university literally made this institution possible."
His Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, founded in 1979, has made more than $400 million in gifts.
In the early 1970s, Mitchell began developing The Woodlands, a suburban Houston master-planned community designed as a place for mixed-income residential development with jobs and amenities nearby while preserving the East Texas forest and other natural resources that covered the 27,000 acres. He later would call it his most satisfying achievement.
The Woodlands is now home to about 100,000 people, and one of the nation's busiest outdoor performing arts and entertainment venues there carries his wife's name, the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.
"His ambition and success have transformed our region," Houston Mayor Annise Parker said. "He was a visionary, and showed his love for Houston through his work and hometown pride."
Funeral arrangements were not immediately released.
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Fahey reported from New York. Associated Press writer Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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Online:
Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation http://cgmf.org/p/family-statement.html
Also on HuffPost:After reports of several speeches of message valedictorian in all United States schools, a high school in Texas took efforts last week to ensure that its graduation ceremony had surprises.
When Joshua high school senior Remington Reimer had deviated from pre-approved speech and began to talk of their constitutional rights, unexpectedly was silenced his microphone. Although Reimer tried to finish his speech, nor the spectators in the first rows heard him, advises the Burleson star.
"Yesterday, I was threatened with having the microphone off and -" said the future Wizard of the Naval Academy, moments before her microphone was cut, as shown in a local CBS video of the encounter.
Spectators initially wondered if the abrupt silence had something to do with the religious content of speech of Reimer, but a statement released by the school said that it cut off when officials acknowledged that it was deviating from the speech that had previously read.
Although the speech was peppered with references to God, District Superintendent Fran Marek told the Cleburne Times-Review, that the decision of the Court, Reimer had nothing to do with religion. In addition, by the star of Burleson, the graduation ceremony ended with a prayer.
According to a statement on the Facebook page of the school district, "when it Cuando se habla it speaks a student it deviated from the revised previous speech, the microphone was turned off, under the policy of the district and procedure." In addition, the statement pointed out that the incident has nothing to do with the content of the speech of Reimer.
Reimer's sister also took to Facebook to comment on the incident and posted the rest of the speech that had tried to deliver.
"We are all fortunate to live in a country where we can express our beliefs. Where our microphones [sic] not go out, as I've been threatened that, "read the speech, by the Cleburne times review "Just as Jesus spoke against the authority of the Pharisees and Sadducees [sic], [sic], who tried to silence him, I won't have my freedom of expression taken away from me."
The incident comes after a series of surprises in the graduation speech. Last week, a student of South Carolina caused a stir when he ripped his valedictorian pre-approved words and recited a prayer instead. In may, a President of the class made headlines after he recited a prayer in his graduation from secondary school, despite objections from other students.
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