Ain't That America: Major Jason Watson Was Arrested

Last week Major Jason Watson, an active-duty Air Force officer, stood on the Capitol steps and held up a sign that read: Impeach, Convict, Remove.

He didn’t even put it down when police handcuffed him.

Major Watson has worn the uniform for over twenty years and risked his career, his pension, and his own freedom to say out loud what most of Congress won't.

He wasn't breaking any rule when he started. Demonstrating on the Capitol steps is legal, but only if a sitting member of Congress is standing with you. Texas Democratic Representative Al Green stood by Major Watson’s side.

For as long as Green stood beside him, a man in an Air Force uniform holding a protest sign was perfectly within the law … but then Green walked away. And the moment he was gone Capitol Police told Major Watson to stop or be arrested. He did not stop and he was arrested and booked under a statute called Crowding, Obstructing, and Incommoding, and led him off the steps of the very building he swore an oath to protect.

Major Watson is on leave from his post as a logistics readiness officer in Poland. He isn't a Democrat and says he knows next to nothing about Congressman Al Green's politics. But what he does know is that thirteen American service members are dead after strikes on Iran and Venezuela that Congress never voted for, and that the Constitution he memorized gives the power to start those wars to the Capitol, not the Oval Office.

So he came to the Capitol and said it to their faces.

A military pension is not a small thing to gamble. Neither is a criminal record. Watson bet both on the chance that a few members of Congress might feel some shame watching an active-duty airman get cuffed for holding a piece of cardboard.

The odds are not good. Green forced a vote on impeachment this year and the House killed it 237 to 140; two dozen Democrats crossed the aisle to make sure it never reached an up-or-down count.

Major Watson accused the president of shredding the Constitution, which he did, and  left the Capitol in handcuffs. He walked up to the most powerful government on earth with a scrap of cardboard and an oath he wouldn't break, and dared it to arrest him for reading the Constitution back to its face.

And it did.

That ain’t America.

Stand up.

Speak up.

Stand with Major Jason Watson.

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!!!

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A smart, compassionate, talented, beautiful man, taken too soon.

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A Young Boy Faces Down Hate

While a lot of us kvetch and moan, and whine and cry and stomp our feet against injustice, we could all learn a thing or two from a 12-year-old boy who stood in the street and tried to stop thousands of anti-gay protesters from marching against same-sex marriage in Mexico over the weekend.

Why did he do that?

“I have an uncle who is gay, and I hate people that hate.”

That's what he told photographer Manuel Rodríguez who snapped that picture of the boy, his arms outstretched in front of the mass of demonstrators protesting against resident Peña Nieto proposal change the country’s constitution to allow same-sex marriage nationally.

Marriage equality is legal in Mexico City as well as 10 of the country’s 31 states, and just last year Mexico’s supreme court said that laws restricting marriage to a man and woman were unconstitutional. Still, many state legislatures have failed to act upon the ruling and so President Peña Nieto has called on Congress to address the debate in order to settle the issue for good across the country.

And a twelve-year-old stepped up to help.

Attitude

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