Tunisian blogger and political reformer Sofiane Shurabi has been arrested by the government for drinking in public during Ramadan. We recently saw how Saudi Arabia issued warnings to non-Muslims that they were expected to respect the food and drink limitations of Ramadan in public. This arrest comes with added suspicion of a political agenda since Shurabi was a scathing critic of deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and an opponent to the rising control of Islamic parties over the country.
Continue reading “Tunisia Arrests Leading Critic For Drinking In Public During Ramadan”
Category: Media
The mystery woman who has caused such an international stir from the opening games has been found. Fingers have been pointed in every direction after a mysterious woman was shown walking with the Indian athletes in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. People demanded to know who could possibly walk to the front of a team and participate in the almost sacred progression for elite athletes. The answer is Madhura Nagendra, a graduate student from the southern city of Bangalore.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
To deflect attention away from the Romney fiasco that his trip to England has become, Charles Krauthammer resurrected an old story: “Obama started his presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office.” The inference is that this story demonstrates animus between Obama and Britain. The bust had been loaned to then-President George W. Bush from the U.K.’s government art collection, for the duration of his presidency.
I am in Salt Lake City today for the hearing on the government’s second motion to dismiss the challenge to the state’s bigamy law by the Brown family — the cast of TLC’s Sister Wives program. As always in dealing with my own cases, I have to be circumspect in any public comments on the case. [Update: The court has promised a decision soon on whether it will proceed to rule on the constitutionality of the state law]
Continue reading “Sister Wives Case Goes Back To Court Today”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
I have written in the past about corporations dodging taxes, but this latest story out of Washington takes the cake. Susan Ford, an executive with Corning, Inc. testified recently at a House Ways and Means committee meeting and made the following claim. “American manufacturers are at a distinct disadvantage to competitors headquartered in other countries. Specifically, foreign manufacturers uniformly face a lower corporate tax rate than U.S. manufacturers, and virtually all operate under territorial systems which encourage investment both abroad and at home.” Think Progress That is a very strong statement coming from Ms. Ford. What is really interesting is that her claim that foreign companies face a lower corporate tax rate would be important issue, if it only was true! Continue reading “Corporate Liars and the Lies They Tell”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
(Updated below.)
I think the following story out of Kentucky is an interesting one. Savannah Dietrich, a seventeen-year-old, is the victim of a sexual assault. Last August, she was assaulted by two boys she knew after she passed out at a party. It wasn’t until months later that Dietrich learned that pictures of her assault had been taken and shared with other people.
The victim told a newspaper that she cried herself to sleep for months. She added, “I couldn’t go out in public places. You just sit there and wonder, who saw (the pictures), who knows?”
According to the Courier-Journal, Dietrich felt frustrated by what she thought “was a lenient plea bargain for two teens who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her and circulating pictures of the incident.” She took to Twitter and named her attackers. She also tweeted, “There you go, lock me up. I’m not protecting anyone that made my life a living Hell” and “Protect rapist is more important than getting justice for the victim in Louisville.”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
This past week Professor Turley had two posts regarding the innocent victim of a police shooting: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/17/florida-police-pound-on-wrong-door-looking-for-suspect-without-identifying-themselves-thenves-then-shoot-and-kill-innocent-man-who-answers-the-door-with-weapon/#comments and http://jonathanturley.org/2012/07/20/report-police-allegedly-increased-suspects-alleged-crime-after-shooting-third-person/#more-51907 These can fairly be called the latest installments of an ongoing series that details deaths and injuries sustained by people who are the victims of policing errors. There were a fair number of comments all lamenting yet another example of careless police work, in tandem with a propensity to shoot first and hope for the best. After awhile the comments petered out because this instance is but one of many that have been publicized by Professor Turley. He tries to focus attention on what seems to be blatant disregard for the rights of individual citizens. After all, what does one say after expressing their outrage at egregious behavior and impotently raging against the expected ensuing cover-ups? Emotionally, I personally feel horror and outrage when something like this happens and I desire justice in the form of stiff punishment for the avoidable errors that took an innocent life. Yet this occurs time and again as outrage simmers and yet another story captures our attention. It seems that nothing is ever really done with the macro-cosmic problem, even when on the individual level, though very occasionally, the people responsible are held to account. When I thought about the issue of police killing the wrong person it occurred to me that this is not something that has recently developed in our country, or indeed the rest of the world. In fact it seems to me that such occurrences represent a norm of human history that stems from how the entire concept of policing first came about. Policing had its origins in protecting wealth, property and the status quo of autocratic authority. Continue reading “Collateral Damage of the Police”
We have been following the case of Andrew Scott who was fatally shot by Lake County Deputies looking for a suspect in his apartment complex. Police did not identify themselves when they knocked on Scott’s door around 1:30 am. When Scott came to the door armed and allegedly pointed the gun at the officers, they killed him. Now, there is an allegation that officers increased the alleged crime of the suspect after the shooting.
The Human Rights Watch has issued a damning report on the loss of freedoms and civil liberties under Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. HRW found a comprehensive rollback of core political and legal rights for journalists, dissidents, and the courts. As I have noted before, I am astonished how many in the liberal community in the United States have been muted in their opposition to Chávez who has modeled his government on that of Castro in Cuba while establishing alliances with some of the worst dictators in the world.
Continue reading “Human Rights Watch Issues Report On Loss Of Civil Liberties Under Chávez”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Elizabeth Warren, a lawyer who is an expert in bankruptcy law and the woman responsible for the creation for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Massachusetts. She is running against incumbent Scott Brown, aka Senator McDreamy. Brown, a Republican, won Ted Kennedy’s senate seat in a special election in 2010. He was helped in his bid to win the election by the Tea Party, lots of campaign contributions from big banks, and Martha Coakley—his Democratic opponent who proved to be a truly inept political campaigner.
We have had a number of discussions on the Turley Blawg about Brown’s opponent Elizabeth Warren this year (here, here, here, and here). I thought it time to shed some light on Scott Brown who has focused much of his campaign talk calling into question Elizabeth Warren’s credibility because of her claim that she has Native American ancestry.
Brown has been criticized by Warren—as well as by other democrats, Massachusetts residents, and members of the news media—because he has spent so little time discussing substantive issues that are of true import to his constituents and to this country.
While declaring the demise of the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin is close to enacting sweeping new powers to regulate the Web and block sites of his government’s choosing. He has received support from Natalya Kaspersky, chief executive of InfoWatch, who said that the Web could use some government control and that civil libertarians are exaggerating concerns about Putin’s control of speech on the Internet. For those people signing up with InfoWatch, it may come as a bit of a surprise that the company is aligned with a man who is rolling back on basic civil liberties for millions and working to limit speech on the Internet — a threat to his authoritarian agenda. Kaspersky actually heralds the possible benefits of a Russian blacklist controlled by Putin.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
After writing an earlier article about the Pennsylvania Voter ID law, I saw another article about a Pennsylvania issue that seems a little hard to comprehend. Recently, the City of Scranton, PA decided that it could not afford to continue to honor its contractual obligations with its City Fire, Police and Public union workers. One problem with Scranton’s decision is that a Federal judge had ordered that the City must honor its obligations to the employees under the terms of a temporary injunction that he granted the employees. Continue reading “Scranton versus the Courts”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Tomas Lopez, a Hallandale Beach, north of Miami Florida, lifeguard was fired for helping to rescue a swimmer who was 1500 feet outside his company’s contracted zone of responsibility. Alerted to the distressed swimmer, Lopez did what comes naturally to lifeguards, he ran to help.
Continue reading “Lifeguard Fired For Saving Life Outside Contracted Area”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
I guess I should not be surprised when I read of certain states trying to “cleanse” the voting rolls under the guise of voter fraud. However, I was saddened to read that the State of Pennsylvania was joining the growing list of so-called Red and some not so Red states that are taking steps to disenfranchise voters prior to the November National elections. The State of Pennsylvania is poised to possibly disenfranchise almost 10 percent of its voting population. “Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law, which will take effect for the first time this November, may prevent 758,939 otherwise eligible voters, who do not currently have an acceptable ID, from voting.” Think Progress Continue reading “Et Tu Pennslyvania?”