Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 199, Ed. 1 Friday, February 17, 2017 Page: 3 of 22
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3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Friday, February 17, 2017
Panelists discuss state of 1st Amendment
between the powerful and the
government — without it, bad
things would happen.”
The panelists depicted the
rights afforded by the First
Amendment enable a market-
place of ideas and argued if one’s
voice is to be heard, one should
be open to hearing another op-
posing voice.
As to how that idea manifests
itself in the media, Batheja dis-
cussed Trump’s teetering views
on government leaks. Though
Trump encouraged leaks about
the Democratic National Con-
vention during his campaign, he
chastised media for reporting on
leaks related to former national
security adviser Michael Flynn,
who was reported by several me-
dia outlets to have conspired
with Russian officials before
Trump took office.
“He argues against and is
mad about leaks, calling them
fake news,” Batheja said. “But if
it’s fake, what got leaked then?”
In spite of that, the panelists
acknowledged Trump has every
legal right to criticize the press.
What raised concern among the
speakers was the possibility of
Trump using government in-
struments to enforce his will
against the media as punish-
ment.
agree with it, we shut it down. It
becomes this idea of speech for
me and not for thee. You have to
be very careful who you choose
to demonize.”
This two-way street ideal was
echoed by four fellow experts of
academia, journalism and law
Thursday night as part of “First
Amendment: Under Siege?” a
panel hosted by the Maybom
School of Journalism at UNT.
Panelists included Texas Tri-
cialist at UNT, said the May-
bom’s aim was to raise issues
and facilitate discussion in a
time when major news outlets
are relegated under the epithet
of “fake news” by those in power.
In the wake of President
Donald Tmmp’s victory in No-
vember, who has denounced
media outlets as dishonest and
phony, the question of whether
this harms the integrity of the
freedom of speech and of the
press more than ever was raised.
“The media has become a
part of the story, and that’s one
thing the media doesn’t want to
do. We’ve been made a part of
the story,” Dale said. “The First
Amendment, which includes
freedom of assembly, religion
and everything else, is the layer
uncertainty toward the subtext
behind the president’s opposi-
tion to the press.
This flows down to the shar-
ing and dissemination of infor-
mation as well, the panelists also
discussed. This included the im-
portance of researching the
news outlets behind online arti-
cles before sharing them on
Facebook and to look beyond
just
headline.
“I think the First Amend-
ment is much more fragile than
we think,” Iindenberger said.
“Tramp is not the threat, but the
undermining of these freedoms
itself is.”
MATT PAYNE can be
reached at 940-566-6845 and
via Twitter at @MattePaper.
By Matt Payne
Staff Writer
mpayne@dentonrc.com
University of North Texas po-
litical science professor Kimi
King seemed to regard the First
Amendment of the U.S. Consti-
tution as a double-edged sword.
She warned of isolating one’s
views and the polarization of
one’s perspective, calling it the
most unnerving thing to witness
in the classroom. King posed
that an individual’s views cannot
be reaffirmed without the bene-
fit of civic discourse, be it in
agreement or disagreement.
“My concern about free
speech is how it gets bandied on
campus,” she said. “We drag it
out when it’s effective for us as a
tool, but if we don’t like it or dis-
attention-grabbing
an
bune political editor Aman
Batheja; The Dallas Morning
News business correspondent
Michael Iindenberger; Poto-
mac Strategy Group President
Matt Mackowiak; First Amend-
ment attorney Paul Watler; and
King.
Although Mackowiak, who
served as an aide under the Bush
administration, was confident in
the system of checks and balanc-
es in the federal government to
limit the president’s power, Iin-
denberger and Watler expressed
Jim Dale, a marketing spe-
Kids battle for county bee win
IJT
>T
By Caitlyn Jones
Staff Writer
cjones@dentonrc.com
Swayam Rath didn’t have to
pay a “remittance” to win the
Denton County Spelling Bee,
but he did have to spell the word
correctly.
Three syllables and 10 letters
were all it took for the Carrollton
Harmony School of Innovation
fifth-grader to best 15 other stu-
dents and take home the cham-
pionship. The hours of studying
he put in beforehand didn’t
hurt, either.
“I had butterflies before we
started,” Rath said. “I had re-
searched what to study and tried
my best to memorize it.”
Middle school students from
public, private, charter and
home schools across the county
duked it out Thursday night for
the opportunity to advance to
the regional competition and,
hopefully, the Scripps National
Spelling Bee.
Under the fluorescent lights
of Denton ISD’s Professional
Development Building, the
spellers fidgeted as they faced
four judges. Before the contest
even began, students surveyed
the room, sizing up the competi-
tion and running through their
mental dictionaries.
Each speller had their own
style when their turn came. Cal-
houn Middle School seventh-
grader Alyssa Trasporto asked
for the definition, origin, alter-
nate pronunciation and sen-
tence usage before she began
spelling. Kachy Chuckwuka, a
sixth-grader at Founders Classi-
cal Academy of Flower Mound,
would write the word on his
hand with his finger as he
spelled it out.
The spelling bee coordinator,
Denton ISD’s Beth Myers, said
*
r
r
r
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
House Speaker Paul Ryan, of Wisconsin, joined by House Ma-
jority Whip Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, right, and Rep. Greg
Walden, R-Oregon, departs a news conference Tuesday on
Capitol Hill in Washington.
r
L
14
GOP leaders
unveil outline of
new health law
i*
Caitlyn Jones/DRC
Calhoun Middle School student Alyssa Trasporto asks for a definition during the Denton Coun-
ty Spelling Bee on Thursday at the Denton ISD’s Professional Development Building.
she’s previously helped out with
two district bees and another
county bee.
“This one went on a little lon-
ger than expected,” she noted.
“It’s still a great opportunity for
the kids. It encourages involve-
ment in academics and helps
boost their confidence.”
First-round words like ban-
dit, condor and melba quickly
gave way to more difficult ones
like croquette, pitchblende and
boudoir. At one point, judge Ste-
phen Shade, who teaches Ger-
man at Guyer High School, had
to correct another judge on her
pronunciation of Wagnerian —
a word named after German
composer Richard Wagner.
Eventually, the numbers
dwindled. Tears fell on flushed
cheeks as parents wrapped their
spellers up in a hug. Trasporto
made it to the 15th round and
next competition on March 4 in
Dallas. If he wins there, he’ll re-
ceive a free trip to Washington,
D.C., and a spot in the Scripps
National Spelling Bee in May.
His mother, Smita, said she
and Rath’s father will be there to
support him when he steps up
on the stage again.
“He practiced very hard for
this and I feel proud,” she said.
“He reads a lot of books, so he
already has a large vocabulary.
He’ll need to study some more,
but I think he’ll do well.”
When asked how he’ll fare in
Dallas, Rath smiled and looked
down at his trophy.
“I’ll try my best,” he said.
“We’ll see what happens on
March 4.”
CAITLYN JONES can be
reached at 940-566-6862 and
via Twitter at @CjonesDRC.
was one of the final four spellers
before tripping up on the word
inconsequential.
“I knew what the word was,
but I couldn’t say it orally be-
cause it was too long,” she said.
Even though she lost Thurs-
day, Trasporto said she’ll defi-
nitely be back at next year’s com-
petition to compete for the tro-
phy.
sense of political reality,” said
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who
said backing that proposal
“would set up an ad against you
from multiple directions” dur-
ing upcoming elections.
The scant health care prog-
ress mirrors a lack of movement
on other issues in a capital run
by the GOP. No proposals have
surfaced to pursue President
Donald Trump’s campaign
promises to build a border wall
with Mexico or buttress the na-
tion’s infrastructure, and Re-
publicans have yet to coalesce
around another priority, re-
vamping the nation’s tax code.
Senate Republicans have
criticized a House GOP plan to
change how corporations are
taxed. Trump has said he will re-
lease his own proposal in the
coming weeks, but nothing had
been produced, drawing mock-
ery from Democrats.
“At some point we need to
move from imaginary made-up
plans to things that you can read
on paper,” said Sen. Mark Warn-
er, D-Va.
The health care outline was
aimed at giving Republicans
something to exhibit during
next week’s congressional re-
cess, at a time of boisterous town
hall meetings packed with sup-
porters of Obama’s law.
By Alan Fram
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
House Republicans unveiled a
rough sketch of a massive health
care overhaul to rank-and-file
lawmakers Thursday, but a lack
of detail, cost estimates and
GOP unity left unresolved the
problem that’s plagued them for
years: What’s the party’s plan
and can Congress pass it?
At a closed-door meeting in
the Capitol basement, House
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and
other party leaders described a
broad vision for voiding much of
President Barack Obama’s 2010
statute and replacing it with
conservative policies.
It features a revamped Med-
icaid program for the poor, tax
breaks to help people pay doc-
tors’ bills and federally subsi-
dized state pools to assist those
with costly medical conditions
in buying insurance.
Lawmakers called the ideas
options, and many were contro-
versial. One being pushed by
Ryan and other leaders would
replace the tax increases in Oba-
ma’s law with new levies on the
value of some employer-provid-
ed health plans — a political no-
fly zone for Republicans averse
to tax boosts.
‘You have to legislate with a
Top
Chuckwuka, who came in
second, also has his sights set on
next year’s competition. He’ll
serve as an alternate for the re-
gional bee this year and said he’s
still happy with his performance
at the county level.
“I think I did really well,” he
said. “I spelled some words that
weren’t even on the study list.”
In the meantime, Rath al-
ready is getting ready for the
BRIEFLY
ACROSS THE STATE
McKinney
Judge in Paxton trial
may not change venue
ue request, though. Until he
does, Paxton is set to stand trial
in May in the Dallas suburb of
Collin County.
Individuals won’t be jailed or
have to appear in court, but they
will have 90 days to complete a
four-hour
ing a bill in his state’s Legislature
that would prohibit transgender
people from using the public
restroom of their choice.
In an appearance Thursday
on Fox News, the Republican
said that if the league punishes
Texas over the “bathroom bill,”
“I might just pass a bill” requir-
ing all players to stand and
place their hands over their
hearts during the National An-
them.
decision-making
class. Those completing the pro-
gram won’t face charges.
The mayors and police chief
in Houston, the county seat and
nation’s fourth-most populous
city, say they support the pro-
The judge overseeing the fel-
ony securities fraud charges
against Texas’ Republican attor-
ney general says he’ll attempt to
seat a jury without changing
where the case will be tried.
Special prosecutors have
asked that the proceedings be
moved out of Paxton’s home
Houston
County won’t arrest
for small pot amounts
The district attorney in the
most populous Texas county has
announced a new program in
which law enforcement agencies
will not arrest individuals
caught with 4 ounces or less of
marijuana.
Harris County District Attor-
ney Kim Ogg announced in
Houston on Thursday her office
will offer those possessing mis-
demeanor amounts of marijua-
na an opportunity to participate
in the program starting March 1.
gram.
Austin
Abbott slams NFL over
‘bathroom bill’ criticism
A spokesman later suggested
Abbott was joking. The bill re-
quires people to use public rest-
rooms corresponding to the sex
on their birth certificates.
— The Associated Press
county, blaming a tainted jury
pool.
oft
MEAT & PRODUCE
But the Dallas Morning
News reports that during a pre-
trial hearing Thursday, Judge
George Gallagher said he
planned to “at least try to choose
a jury here.”
Gallagher didn’t issue a for-
mal ruling on the change of ven-
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 199, Ed. 1 Friday, February 17, 2017, newspaper, February 17, 2017; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1131774/m1/3/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .