Showing posts with label Free Speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free Speech. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

CBS Kills Siegelman Story After WH Pressure

By Cernig

If you've been following the case of ex-Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL), then you'll know about Jill Simpson, the Republican lawyer who's testified that Alabama Republicans often chattered about how the Justice Department and local U.S. attorneys would take Siegelman down with White House approval. You'll also know about the way in which Republican lawmakers have rallied around the White House flag to question Simpson's credibility.

Now, via Larisa, comes news that the White House has been leaning on the media as part of its program to make Simpson's whistle-blowing go away.
Well folks, seems that 60 Minutes is postponing (read "killing") its Siegelman story. The excuse I am told for this lapse in ethics is that the network needs more time to vet the whistle-blower, Dana Jill Simpson. You see, the reason the network suddenly needs more time to vet Simpson is that the White House has launched a direct campaign inside CBS to discredit her and just to make sure the dirt sticks, they have called in some favors too. I am told that Senator Jeff Sessions has been instructed to help the White House discredit Simpson as part of his "Senatorial" duties. Nice system of government we have here, eh?

So, two things are going to happen now. The first is, we will be including what 60 Minutes did not report as part of the Raw Story series on the case. Instead of 5 installments, we will now have 6. Second, all of you as citizens of this nation must voice your concerns about this situation to CBS. You want a free press? Then fight for it!

ADDRESS:
60 Minutes
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

EMAIL: 60m@cbsnews.com
PHONE: (212) 975-3247

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Is this freedom?

By Libby

My critics often dismiss my complaints about the Bush administration's relentless destruction of our civil rights by telling me how lucky I am to be living in a free country where I'm able to criticize my government without fear of penalty. They might want to talk to John Nirenberg about that.

John walked from Boston to Washington DC to express his support for impeachment. His wife joined him at the end of the march to stand with him on the steps of the National Archives in a peaceful protest. They weren't allowed to assemble there -- on taxpayer funded property. They were told by guards that this was a place of business and apparently that business doesn't include the right of citizens to hold signs criticizing the president. They didn't make an issue of it and staged a small gathering across the street. But then they wanted to go inside the building and view the Constitution and Bill of Rights so carefully protected for posterity in its state of the art viewing tomb. No luck with that either.
As John's wife Allison reports at the March in My Name site, she was stopped and told she couldn't enter wearing the yellow rain poncho with a protest slogan on it. The slogan -- "Save the Constitution"!*
The rent-a-cop wouldn't provide a copy of the regulation that prohibited her entrance or provide any further explanation. He simply and steadfastly forbade her to enter for wearing a coat that expressed the desire to save the most important document in our history. She finally left without viewing it. How free does that sound to you?

Read the whole story at the link and there's more at The American Street. You can see these are not rabblerousing activists. They are ordinary citizens who were denied their most basic rights. Furthermore, it's not a rare occurrence.

Thus, I say to my critics, we used to be a free country, but that was before this administration instituted perverted the use* of free speech zones. You're only free to assemble, if you agree. Dissent is only allowed by decree within government proscribed corrals, located as far as possible from the president's eyes so as not to disturb, as his mother put it, his beautiful mind.

Who can honestly call that freedom? [via]

[* - Post edited in response to comments.]

Friday, December 21, 2007

The Four Horsemen On Video


By Cernig

Imagine that the four authors who have received most media attention for their writings against religion - Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens - produced a 2-hour video of them discussing "the tough questions about religion that face to world today" and proposing "new strategies for going forward".

Now suppose that prceeed from the sale of this video will go to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust.

Now imagine conservofundie heads exploding as they try to decide whether to hate the atheism or love the donations to their favorite anti-Islamic European.

Luvverly.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Give The Dictator's Money Back, Hillary

By Cernig

As Benazir Bhutto continues her campaign in the US press to force the Bush administration into doing more than just talking the mildest of talk, as she exhorts her people to join protests against Pakistan's martial law that have already been brutally supressed, as Musharaff's regime double-talks about how long they intend keeping their seized power...

...isn't it shameful that the Democratic Party's frontrunner has accepted tens of thousands of dollars worth of campaign contributions from the dictator's Washington lobbyists?

Give the cash back, Hillary.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Phelps' church to pay $10M in damages to soldier's family

by shamanic

Fred Phelps' church, the "God hates fags" people, has been hit with a $10.9M judgment for pain and suffering from a protest at a soldier's funeral. Look, I think what Phelps does, and has done for decades, is among the most grotesque displays of callous hatred toward families in their most vulnerable time, but I disagree strongly with this ruling.

If free speech means anything, it has to mean that you can't be destroyed financially for communicating your hateful religious beliefs. And to clarify: I don't think that religious beliefs are inherently hateful, but Phelps' definitely are.

But free speech even applies to complete assholes worthy of scorn and loathing. It's how it is. The ruling monetary judgement should be reversed.

(Edited to reflect, you know, what I meant to say.)

Thursday, October 11, 2007

I pity the hatemongers

By Libby

It's taken me a full week to be able to address the vicious attacks on the Frost family with a civilized response and by now everything that can be said about this instant matter, has been, and quite eloquently by many, including our own Shamanic, but I can't stop thinking about it. Maybe because my initial response makes me cringe. I read what I said and I feel icky and embarrassed because I sound like -- them. It makes me realize what a fine line there is between righteous anger and brute savagery.

My anger has dissipated into resignation. They are what they are and surprisingly, I'm left with pity for the hapless horde that blindly answer Malkin's siren call to willing dash their humanity on the rocky shoals of hate. How pathetic an existence must it be to measure your self-worth by your ability to gang up and terrify a fellow citizen, and for what? Simply it seems, to curry an approving glance from a intellectually bereft and morally bankrupt blogger who might throw you a link and boost your traffic count for a day or two? If there's a higher purpose to their rage, I can't see it.

When they took down Rather, they felt powerful and important. They had singlehandedly hounded a journalist out of his life's work and the eyes of the world were upon them. They've been trying to recapture that moment ever since, but after Jordan Eason, they began to set their sights on ever smaller victims. Now no target is too insignificant to satisfy their bloodlust. The ability to destroy became more important than the issues.

Look at who they have destroyed since then. They got minimum wage tele-clerks answering phones at WalMart and CNN fired for making a single exasperated remark in response to a flood of crank calls they generated themselves. A quartet of 18-20 year old college kids endured a deluge of death threats for daring to dissent against the war. A photographer was similarly frightened and intimidated for doing her job, accepting an assignment to photograph Cheney's home. Jamil Hussien may be dead for all we know for simply speaking to the press. Scott Beauchamp, an active duty soldier in Iraq, currently lives in hell for telling a story that is mild compared to the documented atrocities contained in official Pentagon records. And now a working class family, struggling to make ends meet while dealing with the serious injuries to two of their children are under attack for daring to accept government assistance rather than lose what little security they they managed to accumulate over 15 years of hard work. These are your neighbors, your brothers, your average Jakes that are under attack, not influential political players.

Malkin deserves nothing but derision. Her lame refusal to answer Ezra's challenge proves her ignorance, her arrogance and her cowardice. Personally I think she should be indicted under the hate speech statutes for inciting mobs. But her useful lemmings who have been seduced by her malice and dutifully assemble under her command, deserve our pity for their empty existence. They apparently still believe they're in the majority and apparently can't see that every time they fall into rank behind her to attack ordinary Americans, they only make their words more irrelevant and render their lives ever more meaningless. How sad is that?

Friday, September 28, 2007

Phony Outrage

by shamanic

I want to go on record as opposing any BS "sense of senate" resolution condemning Rush Limbaugh's perfectly acceptable political speech in his "phony soldiers" comment.

It was offensive, untrue, and a smear, but the last I checked, we're still living in America. The MoveOn resolution was utter crap, but frankly to continue playing this game of having the government of the United States condemn speech is pretty dangerous.

Politicians are free to make speeches and issue releases on this or any subject that catches their fancy, but the everyone should catch their partisan breath. The First Amendment continues to guide us in this country, and the federal government has no business chilling free speech by passing overheated resolutions on the senate floor.