As complaints rise over mass arrests by Boston police in the Occupy Boston protests, Mayor Thomas Menino decided to add a rather draconian note by announcing ” “Civil disobedience will not be tolerated.” It was a moment reminiscent of former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announcing in the 1968 Democratic Convention protests that “the policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”
Continue reading “Boston Mayor: Civil Disobedience Will Not Be Tolerated”
You know the economy is in a free fall when repo men are taking away city property for failing to make their bills. That was the scene this week when DTE Energy officials ordered the repossession of street lights from the city of Highland Park due to overdue bills.
Continue reading “City Lights Repossessed For Failure To Pay Utility Bills”
I have seen a few angry lawyers in court, but Chicago Thomas Guadagno, 66, may take the cake. Guadagno has agreed to a month suspension of his license after calling opposing counsel “gay scum” and a “child molester,” among other bizarre statements.
Continue reading “Chicago Lawyer Faces Suspension Over Calling Other Attorney “Gay Scum” and “Child Molester””
For those who have complained about the growing “nanny state” laws in the European Union, it may not come as a surprise that your kid now needs a nanny to blow up your balloon or blow a whistle. Under new EU rules, balloons can no longer be blown up by unsupervised children under the age of eight as well as prohibitions on other party favorites for young children like whistle blowers.
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Chris White, 45, has become the latest victim in a trend in the United States (here) and England cracking down on citizens taking pictures in public. In White’s case, he was simply taking pictures of his daughter at a shopping center in Glasgow, Scotland when he was detained as a possible terrorist threat.
Continue reading “Toddler or Terrorist? Father Detained For Taking Picture of Daughter in Mall”
Today, I will appearing on the National Public Radio (NPR) program, Talk of the Nation to discussing my column in the Los Angeles Times on Barack Obama’s disastrous impact on civil liberties in the United States. The piece has generated some interesting discussion on the LA Times blog as well as other blogs. Despite my disagreement with some of the commenters, any discussion of civil liberties is welcomed in this political atmosphere. Ironically, the day of the column (which specifically discussed the President’s assertion of his right to kill citizens he considers terrorists), President Obama ordered the killing of U.S. cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi and reportedly a second U.S. born cleric. [Update: Here is the TOTN interview].
Continue reading “Obama and Civil Liberties: Talk of the Nation”
The Iranian courts have responded to a film detailing the repression of artists in Iran by ordering the flogging and imprisonment of an actress, Marzieh Vafamehr. Vafamehr will be given 90 lashes and imprisoned for a year for her role in “My Tehran for Sale,” a film that tells the story of a young actress in Tehran who cannot perform due to government repression.
For years, civil libertarians have objected to the United States losing lives of our military personnel and hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan as the country imposed rigid religious laws, suppresses minority groups, and denies women basic freedoms and protections. Now the United Nations has found Afghans returning to another prior habit: torture.
Continue reading “United Nations: Afghan Government Torturing Prisoners”
There is an interesting debate occurring in Washington — not over the continuing cuts in core health and environmental programs, but one of the programs that was protected from cuts. The Obama Administration has continued the funding of programs encouraging marriage and promoting fatherhood . . . to the tune of over $120 million. It was part of a large effort of the Bush Administration funding both faith-based programs and family-oriented projects.
Continue reading “Obama Administration Awards $120 Million To Promote Marriage”
An assistant law professor Jason Huber of the Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina has filed an ethics complaint against four Crowell & Moring lawyers in a rather novel case. He accuses the lawyers of suggesting that inbreeding could be responsible for Appalachian birth defects found in a study of mountaintop mining.
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I wanted to thank the faculty and students at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service for the honor of receiving the Dr. Mary Ann Quaranta Elder Justice Award this weekend in New York. This is the first year of the award, which is named after one of the great public interest figures and academics of our age.
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Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
From Climate Science Watch (March 18, 2010): To the libertarians, the widely-shared scientific assessment that human-caused climate change will likely produce major harmful consequences — and the communication of this evidence to the public by the leading climate scientists — poses a particularly serious threat. An informed public concerned about the likelihood of harmful impacts of unchecked global climatic disruption is more likely to call for significant government action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In order to block proactive government policymaking and keep corporate interests unregulated, libertarian groups have focused a significant part of their efforts on climate change on distorting the science to confuse public opinion, denying the seriousness of the problem, and, most recently, impugning the integrity of the climate science community. The Koch brothers have stepped forward with deep pockets to bankroll such efforts.
Continue reading “The Mercatus Center: A Tentacle of the Deregulation-Loving Kochtopus Helping in the Effort to Deny Climate Change and Eviscerate the EPA”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
In a desperate attempt to distract the media away from the “Niggerhead” story, the Perry campaign used Rev. Robert Jeffress to claim that Mormonism is a cult. Jeffress, pastor of Dallas’ First Baptist Church, introduced Perry at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Perry hasn’t been doing too well recently and his latest problem was the revelation that his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp was known by the name painted on a flat rock near its gated entrance: Niggerhead.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The Smoot can be found on Google Earth and Google Calculator. It’s a unit of distance named after Oliver R. Smoot, the five-foot-seven-inch Chairman of the American National Standards Institute and President of the International Organization for Standardization.
Here is our picture of the week from our erstwhile colleague in the City of Light, Eric Tenin.
Continue reading “Sunday in Paris with Eric”