Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser has uncovered near disaster of epic proportions after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirmed that a 4 megaton nuclear bomb almost exploded over North Carolina in 1961 — an explosion that would have been 260 times more powerful than Hiroshima and would have devastated the United States. What is amazing is that, once again, the government used classification laws to hide that fact that it almost destroyed the large part of the country and was saved by a simple low-voltage switch that fortunately was able to deactivate the armed bomb. The details were hidden for over fifty years by the government.
Category: Politics
There is a case in Michigan that captures what many parents complain is a child protective system that strips away basic due process rights and at times defies both logic and controlling authority. There may be no better example than the treatment of Gordon “Steve” and Maria Green after their 6-month-old baby girl, Bree, was taken away from them. The reason is the determination that the parents have marijuana in the house. It was not hard for the case worker to find: the Greens have a right to medical marijuana protected under state law. That did not matter to the Department of Human Services however and their baby was taken away from their Lancing home.
Continue reading “Michigan DHS Takes Baby From Home Due To Parents Use Of Legal Medical Marijuana”
We have another example of a teacher being disciplined for an act of free speech in his private time. I have previously written about the increasing scrutiny given public school teachers in their use of social media sites. University of Kansas Associate Professor of Journalism David Guth has been placed on administrative leave after posting an anti-NRA tweet following the recent Navy Yard shootings that killed 12 people. Guth tweeted” “blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.”
Continue reading “Kansas Professor Under Fire For Anti-NRA Tweet”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In the Public Interest (ITPI), which describes itself as “a comprehensive resource center on privatization and responsible contracting,” released a report this month titled CRIMINAL: How Lockup Quotas and “Low-Crime Taxes” Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations. The report provides information about “the prevalence of prison occupancy guarantee provisions in prison privatization contracts.” ITPI said that it had “identified 77 county and state-level private facilities nationwide and collected and analyzed 62 contracts from these facilities.” Of the contracts that ITPI reviewed, 65% contained occupancy requirements that ranged between 80% and 100%–with 90% being the most frequent quota guarantee.
ITPI found that the states of Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Virginia were locked into contracts with the highest occupancy guarantee requirements. All four states had quotas requiring an occupancy rate between 95% and 100%.
Sen. Lindsey Graham recently objected to President Barack Obama seeking congressional authorization to attack Syria (that’s right, in contradiction to every assumption James Madison may have made about Congress, Graham is one of those who wants to embrace an Imperial Presidency and gut the check on power represented by his own branch). Graham has been making it clear that he is not happy about the failure to join another war in the Middle East. So what does a hawk do when a war just doesn’t turn out as hoped? Graham is seeking authorization for a new war . . . not against Syria but Iran. After all, we have not defunded enough environmental, scientific, educational or welfare programs. Another war against one of the largest military powers in Middle East would guarantee a decade of military appropriations and interventions.
Continue reading “Graham Calls For Authorization Of War . . . Against Iran”
Hampton, Va., Sheriff B.J. Roberts appears not to have much time for actually fighting crime. Instead, after his reeleection, Roberts sought out employees who favored his opponent. It was not too difficult, he found jailer Daniel Carter who hit “like” on his opponents website. Roberts fired him and others allegedly viewed as disloyal. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled this week that such a designation is protected speech under the First Amendment. The opinion in Bland v. Roberts is below.
There is an interesting conflict growing between the federal and state governments over same-sex benefits after Oklahoma joined Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana this week in limiting the benefits for same-sex benefits. Yesterday, Oklahoma decided that the Oklahoma National Guard will no longer process benefit requests from same-sex couples by order of Gov. Mary Fallin. The Obama Administration maintains that the national guards must comply with federal law on such benefits in what could be a test of the remaining state control over national guard units.
Continue reading “Oklahoma Joins Other States In Refusing To Benefits To Same-Sex Couples”
China appears to be returning to the Cultural Revolution with public confessions of dissidents as a warning to all those who would challenge the ruling party. Chinese viewers were exposed to a truly sad and transparent confession of American businessman and leading Chinese blogger, Charles Xue. The Chinese recognize the Internet as the greatest threat to the totalitarian regime. Xue was therefore rolled out to degrade himself before the Chinese people — begging forgiveness for forgetting his place in objecting to such things as contaminated water. He admits to feeling like the “emperor of the Internet” and apologizes for spreading rumors against the ruling party leaders.
It honestly takes a lot to get me to feel sympathy for David Vitter, (R. La.) Like most of the world, I was floored by the voters of Louisiana returning Vitter, a religious right politician, to the Senate after his scandal involving high-priced prostitutes. However, that is precisely the unique skill of the current Democratic leadership — they seem eager to win any race to the bottom. Vitter this week opposed an Obama regulation that gives an exemption of members of Congress and their aides under Obamacare. The regulation allows Congress to pay for its own generous subsidies to avoid having to live under the new law like normal citizens. While there is a definite appeal to Vitter’s view that the Congress should live under the same law applicable to average citizens, there may be some legitimate argument that I am missing. What should be clear is that some Democrats reacted in worse possible way. Politico is reporting that it has legislation drafted by Democrats that would eliminate health care benefits for lawmakers where there is “probable cause” to believe they patronized prostitutes. If true, this is really a sophomoric act of retaliation. Politico is reporting that this is not a joke but something actually raised as a meeting of Democratic members.
The Eighth Circuit has handed down an important first amendment ruling in favor of Brain Johnson who was prevented from passing out Bibles at the Twin Cities Pride Festivals. United States District Court Judge Michael Davis had ruled last year that the Minneapolis Park Board could prevent him from passing out the Bibles so long as they gave him a place to do so. It was a troubling ruling because of the relative lack of support for the claim of the festival. The Eighth Circuit, with one dissent, reversed Davis’ ruling. The case is Johnson v. Minneapolis Park & Rec. Bd., No. 12-2419, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 18831.
Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger
While attempting to rediscover the procedures to replace a recently resigned mayor, city officials in Sisterville, WV noticed the 175 year old City Charter declared women are denied the right to vote.
While it certainly is unenforceable on account of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, city officials are raising objections to making the change to the charter due to cost.
Continue reading “Suffrage in Sisterville: City Charter Denies Right to Vote to Women and Officials Cite No Need to Amend Due to Cost”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
A recent article in the Daily Mail, and picked up by other media, claims an increase in Arctic ice foretells a cooling trend. The article boasts of a 60% increase in sea ice over the minimum that occurred in 2012. While the actual numbers from IARC-JAXA Information System (IJIS) show, as of yesterday, only a 50% increase, this is still a significant expansion.
Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
I’m an easy mark for those who want to approach me emotionally. My own life, with the normal tragedies of living seven decades has let me be attuned to others pain and to view that pain with an empathy born of my own suffering. Working out my own problems via years of therapy in my twenties and thirties, allowed me to finally let myself cry at the early death of my parent’s years before. I had put a “bottleneck” on tears since a teenager, choking sad emotions by constricting my throat and being in intellectual denial of the mourning I felt at their loss. This is not to say that I had no emotional outlets in my years prior to therapy, but they were limited to events far outside the ken of my life. Thus I could identify with wronged characters in movies and could cry at the death of Marin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. In my personal life though, I acted out the role ascribed to me in my High School Yearbook “Mike thinks that life is just a snap of his fingers”. Therapy changed that and allowed me to let myself be aware of and be guided by my emotions.
Emotionally, I am as patriotic an American as you might find. I love this country and I love the fact that I’m a citizen of it. My tears well up at the playing of our National Anthem. The Constitution is a sacred document to me and the aspirations of our “Founding Fathers” seem noble and just. In sports I often find myself moved to tears when athletes or teams overcome adversity and triumph. My family knows this emotional side of me since I cry at movies like “The Little Mermaid”. In personal relationships I am also ruled by emotion. People who treat me with kindness are not only repaid in kind, but I find myself rooting for their happiness and sad at their sadness. It is therefore quite easy to become someone I consider to be a friend and difficult for me to note imperfections in the friendships I’ve made. However, that is on an emotional level and as all humans, I am far more than just my emotions. Intellect and experience play important roles in shaping who we are. On a personal level I have experienced betrayal by “friends” and lovers. In my career I’ve experienced betrayal by those I thought of as friends and co-workers. However, I think those “let downs” are merely a normal part of the human experience. We humans learn and grow from our social interactions, allowing them to inform our interactions with each other.
We humans co-exist though in a larger context than mere personal interactions and that is a society known as “country”. Through the norms and mores of that society we find that our emotions are stimulated by the commonality of our existence as part of a whole. We rely on that society to protect us from predators and from those from other society’s that would do us harm. We unite emotionally in times of crisis and we feel warmth and comfort from being part of the whole. The most emotionally jarring event of the past five decades was the attack on 9/11 that galvanized this country almost as one entity. We commemorated the twelfth anniversary of this overwhelmingly sad event this past week. I need not describe the effect of this event on all of us, since I know that we all have sharp personal memories of that day and the days of anger, fear and confusion that followed. The reactions politically that followed 9/11 has personally scarred those who lived through it and have done great harm to our country. People from all sides of the political spectrum feel betrayed by the events that followed 9/11. Some feel betrayed because the majority of the country no longer supports the military interventions that ensued. Others feel betrayed because there is clear evidence that our government “lied” us into a costly war against a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. We have become then a nation of cynics when it comes to our government and I will explore why this can be either good or bad for the future of our country. Continue reading “In Defense of Being a Political Cynic”
There is an interesting case out of North Carolina where Dorothy Hoogland Verkerk, a professor at the University of North Carolina, has objected to her arrest for drunken driving on rather novel grounds: she was pulled over by a fire truck. In May 2011, Fire Lt. Gordon Shatley spotted Verkerk driving in an unsafe manner and pulled her over. She was found to be intoxicated but Verkerk insisted that the stop was illegal because fire fighters are not empowered with such authority.
Continue reading “North Carolina Professor Challenges DUI Arrest By Durham Fire Fighter”
Since his elevation to the head of the Catholic faith, I have become a fan of Pope Francis — a pontiff who has become truly revolutionary in his faith and his lifestyle. As someone raised in the Catholic Church, I have never seen his equal. He has washed the feet of a Muslim female prisoner, declined the pomp and formality of past popes, and remained a humble priest in his lifestyle. Now, Pope Francis has written a long letter to a non-Catholic saying that he believes that even atheists can go to heaven and that God cares more about your heart than your profession of religion. At one time, such views would have gotten you burned at the stake. Even today, conservatives in the Catholic Church, like those associated with Opus Dei, are grumbling about this new Pope. Mark recently discussed the same view of the Pope on non-believers and now there is a report of a possible consideration of dropping celibacy for priests.
Continue reading “Pope Francis: Atheists Can Go To Heaven And Priests May Be Able To Marry”