Northwest Indiana Discussion

Continuing to beat a dead horse, Tom McDermott invoked the pronoun "we" on the radio when discussing a councilman's lawsuit against a city of Hammond employee. The councilman got steamed that an alleged video parody of him, created and posted by the employee, contained actionable offensive material. Mcdermott used "we" when he spoke of the defense of the lawsuit. So is Tom McDermott part of the defense, either as a defendant or counsel? Why did he say "we" in the context of how the case was being handled? Why is he involved at all? With the full support of, and likely orchestration by McDermott, the Hammond Council as a body censured the individual councilman for his pursuit of the lawsuit. McDermott and his allies cried that the councilman was threatening peoples' rights, however they don't see the irony in that their censure does the same. Wouldn't the threat of censure, cause a reasonable person to rethink excercising their legal rights?

Looks like Marc Chase at the NWI.com media outlet is want to take a few more whacks at this dead horse too. He writes yet another full length column chastizing the councilman for seeking a legal remedy. Freedom of Speech! Freedom of Speech! he cries. He reports the parody author as having "political differences" with the councilman, and defines the Facebook effort as political speech. I haven't seen, nor heard the "parody", but I've heard a few discriptions and a transcript of the dialogue. The voice over is said to be "shrill". What is said includes, "my ability to butter people up", "constituents to get behind me", and "Ahh, push it, hmm-mm, push it real good." In less than a minute, the "parody" references a bullying mocking of the coucilman, and descends into sophomoric hints of sodomy. For all cheerleading for diversity, inclusion, and civility, do I hear a cry of " Freedom of Hate Speech! Freedom of Hate Speech! How about a follow up Marc? Ask the principals here to explain what they were implying.