Russian police have shutdown an art gallery in the latest attack on free speech under President Vladimir Putin. The police declared a painting to be illegal and pornographic because it depicted Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in women’s underwear and another of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church covered in tattoos. The paintings were seized from the Museum of Power. Last year, we saw how a protester was arrested for spitting on the image of Putin during a demonstration. It appears that after years of cultivating a cult of personality with action-hero photo ops and staged acts, Putin is not about to let a bunch of artists mock his well constructed image.
Category: Politics
There is a controversy brewing at Tulane Law School where I began my academic career. The law school was the scene of a confrontation between controversial conservative filmmaker and activist James O’Keefe and former U.S. Attorney James Letten whose office handled the prosecution of O’Keefe for his entry in the office of Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu under false pretenses. Letten is now an Assistant Dean at the law school. Letten never explained why he recused himself from the case but O’Keefe suggests that he was responsible for leaking confidential information to the media. In the video below posted and edited by O’Keefe, Letten confronted O’Keefe and accuses him of “terrorizing” his wife and violating state and federal law by appearing at the law school. Letten calls O’Keefe and his crew a bunch of “hobbits” and berates the filmmaker. While I am no fan of O’Keefe, I am afraid that I do not see the basis for the alleged crimes by O’Keefe or the basis for his being held by law enforcement outside of the law school. The school has banned O’Keefe from the campus after the confrontation with Letten.
We have previously discussed how students are being punished for out-of-school postings and statements on social media sites, a trend that I have criticized. Now, with the Supreme Court expanding the power of school officials to discipline students and teachers for outside activities, schools are creating their own surveillance and monitoring systems in our society. The Glendale Unified School District has hired a company called Geo Listening to monitor the conversations and postings of all of its students to detect any areas of concern. It is the latest example of how privacy in America is dying by a thousand papercuts.
President Barack Obama appears poised to take the country into yet another military campaign, according to the Washington Post. With critics mocking him over his repeated references to “red lines” in warning Syria, Obama seems to feel compelled to now act even if it could result in an expansion of the war. He is reportedly considering a two-day cruise missile and bomber campaign to hit targets unrelated to the chemical weapons of the country. It will cost hundreds of millions at a minimum, but we appear now to be at perpetual war even as we cancel key environmental, educational, and scientific programs (including program cuts this week).
Continue reading “Obama Reportedly Ready To Order The Start Of Syrian Military Campaign”
Outside Las Vegas is a facility that has served as the last line of defense for the beautiful desert tortoise — an animal forced near extinction by developers and sprawling suburbs. Tortoises are brought to the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, which is largely supported by developer fees and federal support. Now, due to a lack of federal funding, the federal government plans to euthanize hundreds of the tortoises — animals added to the endangered species list in 1990. The cost? One million dollars a year. So our government continues to waste billions in Iraq and Afghanistan while exploring a new war in Syria, but we cannot support a $1 million budget that is so important to the preservation of this species. The Administration would prefer to deliver bags of money to Karzai, buy Russian aircraft that Afghans can’t fly or maintain, or build huge buildings to be then torn down unused. Of course, we have invaded their habitat, but it appears that they are not entitled to the years of upon ended reconstruction funding because they do not threaten to tortoise extremism around the world.
After leading an assault on civil liberties and privacy in his Administration (as well as blocking efforts to prosecute Bush officials for torture), President Barack Obama may just be the last person who should be giving advice on training lawyers. Yet, Obama told lawyers last Friday that he would like to see law school cut by one-third to reduce time studying legal principles and history. Of course, given the number of constitutional provisions that Obama has effectively negated, it may take less time to study the remaining laws after the Obama years. Before law schools follow his lead to a fast-food version of legal education, we need to ask what we want in our lawyers. The President would reduce legal training to a program slightly longer than current paralegal schools.
The Obama Administration is publicly moving toward possible military strikes in Syria, a major escalation in yet another war for the United States. The reason is the likely use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government against rebel controlled areas. In the meantime, documents have been released that show that the United States has been hypocritical on the use of such weapons. According to Foreign Policy magazine (a highly respected publication), the documents show that the Reagan Administration not only knew of the use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi Regime in the Iran-Iraq war but supplied the intelligence and satellite imagery used in the attacks. The CIA then sat on evidence of the attacks while Iraq denied their use.
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? And what its causal nature [or form]? And what is it doing in the world? And how long does it subsist?” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VIII – 11
“All war is deception.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
As previously discussed, “we need to differentiate between the terms ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’. Strategy is defined in relevant part by Webster’s as ‘the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological, and military forces of a nation or group of nations to afford the maximum support to adopted policies in peace or war’. Tactics, by contrast, is defined in relevant part by Webster’s as ‘the art or skill of employing available means to accomplish an end’ and ‘the study of the grammatical relations within a language including morphology and syntax’. By better understanding the tactics of propagandists, you not only gain a certain degree of immunity from their influence, but insight into their strategic ends.”
Today we will address strategy and tactics in the form of a case study. The context is the so-called “War on Drugs” and state’s efforts to legalize marijuana for medical and recreational use. The strategy is to exacerbate so called drug crime violence by obliquely attacking the burgeoning states effort to legalize marijuana and those who trade in legal marijuana by deliberately putting them at risk. The primary tactic in question is misdirection. When analyzing propaganda, it’s important to ask who brings the message, what do they want me to think, why do they want me to think it and how do they benefit? The leader of this campaign against the American people? United States Attorney General Eric Holder. Let’s examine the what, why and who benefits from what Mr. Holder wants you to think.
Continue reading “Propaganda 106 – Waging War (A Case Study) [UPDATED]”
Elders at Ridgedale Church of Christ appear not to have read John 8:7: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Instead, the elders gathered themselves and their stones this week to ban a mother because she would not renounce her own child. The Tennessee church banned two relatives for good measure after they supported Kat Cooper, a lesbian detective with the Collegedale Police Department. Her mother, Linda Cooper, was given the choice: denounce your daughter or leave the church. It was not much of a Sophie’s Choice: she left the church and with her was any evidence of God’s grace that this church may have had.
There was an interesting moment in a White House briefing this week by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Earnest made a frank statement that President Obama had a “bias” for black colleges and universities. The statement produced an immediate backlash from some academics at non-historically black institutions. It was an honest moment and it is likely to be blown out of proportion by those who wrongly subscribe to the view that Obama dislikes whites, as stated this week by the Maine governor. However, the statement took many of us back in the academic world particularly when the question addressed all colleges and universities with regard to loans. I am pretty sure that Earnest was simply noting that the reduction of loans would affect these institutions significantly. However, various professors emailed me with the comment that spread like wildfire across academic channels. I think that the comment is being blown out of proportion and would have been less problematic with an additional line about the high vulnerability of these institutions to the loss of such revenue. Even that however would likely draw objections that schools, including law schools, are cutting back on staff and programs as revenues fall with applications across the country. Tough times understandable make for sensitive folk.
Hindu leader Asaram Bapu caused an outcry recently when he advised that rape victims like the medical student savagely beaten and gang raped in Delhi could have avoided the attack by simply addressing the men as “brothers” and asking for mercy. He also said that saying a prayer might have avoided the attack. Now the “godman” has been booked on charges of forcing a 16-year-old girl into “unnatural sex” at a Jodhpur ashram. It is not clear if she tried to call him “brother.”
There is an interesting story out of Southhampton, New York where a toxic tide of brown water has come in — killing fish and turning the ocean into a disgusting mix of dead fish and rust colored water. While people have raised questions about the water, it was the response of the state of New York that caught my eye: “The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said it cannot comment on claims that it is not doing enough to protect Long Island waterways, because of a pending lawsuit.”
Federal Judge Mark Abel in Ohio has imposed a $15 million damage award on former Somali colonel, Abdi Aden Magan, who tortured human rights advocate Abukar Hassan Ahmed. What was most striking about the decision was the statement that such damages are necessary to guarantee that the United States is not a “safe harbor for those who commit human rights abuses.” Of course, this follows a series of court decisions barring the victims of the U.S. torture program from even getting a trial, let alone damages. Those responsible continue to appear on television from George W. Bush to Dick Cheney to John Yoo. Indeed, rather than punish those who facilitated the torture program, we made one — Jay Bybee (shown right) — a federal appellate judge with lifetime tenure. That particular “safe harbor” is found in the courthouse of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Below is my column today in the Los Angeles Times. The column follows the recognition of the name for Area 51, which produced a great deal of media coverage.
Continue reading “The Truth Is Out There: The Real Cover-Up At Area 51”
Civil libertarians have long ago lost faith in Barack Obama’s and his continuing expression of support for privacy and individual rights. Just in case anyone is still not convinced, consider the petition this month to the Supreme Court by the Obama Administration. Just last week, Obama waxed poetic about his commitment to privacy. Yesterday however, his Administration took another major swipe at privacy and asked the Supreme Court to reverse the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which held that the police could not conduct warrantless searches of your cellphone when you are arrested. The decision in United States v. Wurie is below.