The press has done their job on Sarah Palin, lies or not. She is damaged goods beyond her core fans, and that is not going to win her any elections. Besides, they really do believe she is some backwoods redneck, know nothing.

BTW, who is the couple in Loudoun County? Would their last name start with an S?

To be fair to Mr. Spiess, while he was originally charged with malicious wounding (a Class 3 felony), he was convicted of the lesser-included felony offense of unlawful wounding, a Class 6 felony, by the Lancaster County Circuit Court on July 22, 1994 (Offense Date: October 16, 1993). According to information provided to me, the victim in that case was Mr. Spiess’ father-in-law at the time.

Regarding Mr. Spiess’ dog incident, he was convicted of maliciously administering poison to an animal, a misdemeanor, by a jury of the Lancaster County Circuit Court on September 22, 2000 (Offense Date: February 7, 1999, well after Mr. Spiess stopped “inhal[ing] with the drugs”). While Mr. Spiess accurately notes that the jury fined him $1.00 as his punishment, the reason “the judge told [the jury that Spiess] could not use self defense” is likely because the allegation in the case was that Spiess used strychnine to poison two dogs belonging to his neighbor, resulting in the death of one. Kind of different from shooting a pitbull as it lunges after your small child (though, as a convicted felony, if he had done that he would have been facing a mandatory five years in the penitentiary for possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a violent felony). Doesn’t diminish the cowardliness of the act, though.

As those on my e-mail list will recall, it’s similar to the distinction I made between inadvertantly writing a bad check because one has transposed numbers in his checkbook versus intentionally writing a check (for the filing fee for the 99th District Republican nomination, for example) knowing that one lacks sufficient money in one’s account to cover it, but relying upon one’s “overdraft protection” to cover it. That’s fundamentally dishonest.

Context is important.

I am a member of the Jefferson Literary & Debating Society at the University of Virginia. It is a group that is governed by parliamentary procedure under Roberts Rules of Order. I was President of the Society for a semester and became quite familiar with the rules as they govern a Society.

Mom is correct in that the best way to resolve this is to look at the bylaws that the committee has adopted. With a quick glance, there is no mention of an executive session which means you typically resort to using Robert’s Rules.

I guess what is most interesting to me is what the chair is doing to begin with. The purpose of Robert’s Rules is to not have the chair dictate the meeting. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It is the body that governs the meeting through their use and understanding of Robert’s Rules. In actuality, the chair is a referee for the meeting and is not to install is own will into the actions of the body. But that is really more of an aside to how I see chairs misuse Robert’s Rules at any given time. This abuse usually occurs in political gatherings where people only want the perception of Robert’s Rules governing while the chair crams through whatever he wants.

From trying to figure out what is going on, it sounds like this recording was taken during executive session, which is a big no no if that’s the case. The entire purpose of executive session is to make sure that nothing said during it is discussed outside of the session. For instance, whenever the Jefferson Society goes into executive session, a motion which requires only a majority vote, it is immediately stressed that nothing said during executive session is to be mentioned outside of that session under any circumstances. Executive Session is to only include members in good standing at the time. (an aside… there must also be quorum to make such a motion, but that is a given in that quorum is required for any business to be conducted)

Continuing, the reason I believe this was taken during the executive session is because the chair was telling members how to conduct themselves outside of the session. What it sounded like the chair was saying was that no recordings or writings should be taken about the meeting outside of executive session. This is incorrect. The purpose of leaving executive session is so that minutes can proceed as normal.

That said, if the chair is merely saying that nothing regarding the executive session can be mentioned once regular session has recommenced, he is indeed correct. It would be inappropriate for someone to write down notes in executive session and then post them in public under the guise that because they were not posted during executive session it’s somehow okay. In fact, one of the penalties for discussing executive session outside of said session is the removal of said member from said group.

This was a bit rambling, but I hope it was some helpful. I’ve left out a lot of nuts and bolts of Robert’s Rules in the interest of trying to give you an answer. Let me know if there’s any other questions I could maybe help with.