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A CUB SCOUT was kicked out of his group after he questioned a Colorado state lawmaker about gun control and previous comments she made about African-Americans.
It’s the latest political flashpoint for the Boy Scouts, of which the Cub Scouts is a part.
The organisation faced harsh blowback after President Donald Trump used his speech at the Scouts’ national jamboree in July to rail against “fake news” and former President Barack Obama and boast about beating Hillary Clinton.
At a forum this month, Cub Scouts were told to come prepared to talk to Republican state Senator Vicki Marble about issues important to them.
Lori Mayfield, the mother of 11-year-old Ames Mayfield, said a local scout leader told her after the 9 October event that the topic of gun control was inappropriate because of its political nature and that the boy’s questions were disrespectful.
The Boy Scouts have refused to comment on the reason the boy was asked to leave but say he will remain in the Scouts after finding a new group.
Gun control
“The Boy Scouts of America is a wholly non-partisan organisation and does not promote any one political position, candidate or philosophy,” the organisation said in a statement.
In online videos recorded by Lori Mayfield, other scouts were heard asking questions about why people wanted to vote for Obama just because he was black and about Trump’s proposed wall along the US-Mexico border.
In the video showing Ames asking about gun control, he reads from a printed sheet, telling her that he is shocked that she had sponsored a bill that allowed domestic violence offenders to own guns, rattles off a list of survey statistics about Americans’ views on the issue and speaks about the trouble Las Vegas shooting victims would have paying their bills.
“There is something wrong in our country where Republicans believe it’s a right to own a gun but a privilege to have health care. None of that makes sense to me,” he said.
After nearly three minutes, an adult is heard cutting him off, remarking on his thorough question. Marble responds by talking about the need for “crime control” instead and saying that the Vegas shooting and the 2012 Aurora theater shooting both happened in “gun free zones”.
Fried chicken controversy
Marble drew national attention in 2013 after she seemed to draw a link between the health of black people and eating fried chicken and barbecue during a legislative committee hearing.
The head of the state Republican Party and others criticised her words.
She then issued a statement saying she was saddened her comments were taken to be disparaging.
During the scout meeting, Ames told Marble that he was “astonished that you blamed black people” for their health problems.
She replied: “I didn’t. That was made up by the media. So you want to believe it, you believe it, but that’s not how it went down.”
Marble went on to say Americans enjoy multicultural food but cautioned that people also need to consider whether they are predisposed to any diseases because of their genetic makeup.
In a statement , Marble said she did not know about Ames’ dismissal until she read about it. She said she didn’t blame him because she thought there was an “element of manipulation involved” by his mother.
Mayfield denies that. She said she and her son, whom she said is gifted and likes to watch the news, researched Marble together and she typed up his questions using his words.
The mother questioned why the Scouts would chose to invite such a controversial lawmaker to speak.
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Great work guys
Hopefully these people are locked up for a long time,firing rounds at gardai over getting caught for illegal fishing. These people have to be the lowest of the low.
@Richard Brogan: I guess they slipped through the authorities hand
@Richard Brogan: there was no Gardai involved at the scene, on that night of 28th of July, and nowhere did the article state gun fired at gardai!
@Martin: it was fired at the fisheries officer’s
@Martin: does it matter who the target of the firing actually was? Shots were fired at people doing their jobs, surely that is bad enough?
@BriP75: slipped through the net, fishy customers, salmon must have grassed on them.
@Martin: Gardai were far too busy busting hippies growing a few weed plants in their shed. Who cares if our rivers are being plundered? Or that sex offenders roam our streets after getting suspended sentences. Lets expend all police resources and funding on locking up horticulturists instead.
I’m just glad there was someone with the balls and brains to go tackle some actual criminals.
@bubbles mcsmurf: does the article say it was fired at them? If that was the case they would of been arrested that night, I believe the exact line says “a firearm was discharged”
“The fish were fresh in from the sea, having survived a journey from either the coastal waters off west Greenland or the Faroe Island, before being cruelly killed by an illegal net, a few miles from their final destination.”
Would a “legal” net be any less “cruel”?
@Richard Hegarty: A legal net wouldn’t be farming them at this point in their lifecycle.
@Richard Hegarty: Green land why did they not fly home it was a holiday destination aloud
@Richard Hegarty: There aren’t any legal nets for Salmon in this country.
@Robert Conneely: Yes there most certainly is. We have legal draft nets operating here on the River Laune in kerry.
Thank god the caught them.
The fisheries officers turn a blind eye to a lot of salmon netting, the people involved in Kerry at least are too dangerous to confront never mind prosecute…
@David Grey: tell us more
@David Grey: You’re not referring to the boys around the Cashen in Ballyduff are you ?
That’s more of it
@longstrides: I know, those dam culchies at it again!!
How do you NOT ‘cruelly kill’ a fish?
@Tony Gordon: using a priest would be regarded as not cruel
@Martin: ah give over, sure the fish never got over the ‘loaves and fishes’ incident
@Tony Gordon: You certainly know nothing about fishing.
@Billy McNamara: a claim I never made, and a question not answered
@Tony Gordon: hitting it on the head with something blunt is one easiest and quickest for wild fish
@Tony Gordon: hitting it with a blunt object on its head would be considered best way for wild fish
They are at it on the suit, nore, barrow for years. About time the authorities acted.
I think the vehicles used in this type of crime should be confiscated as well. Prison sentences with much more severe sentences handed out.
Typo on the sub-headline. (Investigating).
I pefare the more religus fish
The monk fish lovely fried in butter
There’s so thing very fishy about this story
It ant going to real me in!!!!!
@BriP75: they only discharged the gun to shoot the fish in the barrell
@Tony Gordon: maybe it was the Russians looken for salman rushty
@BriP75: puns tend to work better when spelled correctly.
@Peter Denham: you know Peter putting someone down for a selling mistake is petty, we all got the intended joke.
Some people have spelling difficulty, for many reasons, and maybe a little thought should be put into comments that arbitrarily put someone down.
@BriP75: It was actually the Iranians
@Tony Gordon: What’s a “selling” mistake?
@Tony Gordon: just do a spell check.
@James Kelly: just as long as smell checker recognises the worms correctly.
Poaching is still a thing,? Thought the rivers were empty..
@MickN: only our rivers run free
@MickN: Far from empty, and unfortunately poaching is very common. Angling clubs work closely with Inland Fisheries Ireland to try and catch the poachers and make an example of them.
Something fishy going on there
Down with this sort of stuff
Hang’em…
@M.J. O’ Neill: smokem salmon tastes better smoked
Nine x Y + shot = 20
Poaching of coarse fish is still at high levels. Thankfully work has been done but certain rivers and lakes will take years to get the stock up to previous levels. Whole stretch of canals were emptied out as well.
Happened with Pike in the past and Salmon traditionally but coarse fish had never been targeted so hard
have your say