By now those who don’t know about Phil Robertson and the debacle at A & E are most likely among those who have no access to any kind of media. They have no idea what the world is doing, because they have no way of knowing what to pay attention to. [More ... ]
Lee Camp hits a homerun in this Moment of Clarity. There IS a shocking truth about black people that we urgently need to discuss. Speaking of Lee Camp, he's on a roll:
Police have again determined that it is illegal to record them making arrests even when you are not up close or in any way interfering. From such an event in Boston, things have spiraled way out of control, as described to me by STL photographer Ed Crim, who read of this travesty and has issued this invitation to protest:
"Carlos Miller, of Miami, Florida, has been charged with witness intimidation by the Boston Massachusetts Police Department because he urged readers of his web site, Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) to call the Public Relations Officer of the Boston PD and protest the arrest of a videographer whose only offense was recording a public arrest. If you believe, as I do, that a Public Relations Officer should be willing to talk to the public about police policy, take a look at the petition and help protect our rights as photographers."
It is my belief that the reckless use of drones is a form of terrorism, and that the U.S. is engaging in the reckless use of drones against various populations in the Middle East. Therefore I noticed Glenn Greenwald recent article that the definition of "terrorism" has been broadened even further by U.K authorities:
A well-known and highly respected Yemeni anti-drone activist was detained yesterday by UK officials under that country's "anti-terrorism" law at Gatwick Airport, where he had traveled to speak at an event. Baraa Shiban, the project co-ordinator for the London-based legal charity Reprieve, was held for an hour and a half and repeatedly questioned about his anti-drone work and political views regarding human rights abuses in Yemen. When he objected that his political views had no relevance to security concerns, UK law enforcement officials threatened to detain him for the full nine hours allowed by the Terrorism Act of 2000, the same statute that was abused by UK officials last month to detain my partner, David Miranda, for nine hours. Shiban tells his story today, here, in the Guardian, and recounts how the UK official told him "he had detained me not merely because I was from Yemen, but also because of Reprieve's work investigating and criticising the efficacy of US drone strikes in my country." The notion that Shiban posed some sort of security threat was absurd on its face. As the Guardian reported Tuesday, "he visited the UK without incident earlier this summer and testified in May to a US congressional hearing on the impact of the covert drone programme in Yemen. Viewing anti-drone activism as indicative of a terrorism threat is noxious."
But what happens when President Obama aids the enemy? Will we as a nation insist that the President should also be subject to the law? Are we a nation of laws, or corrupt banana republic which only enforces the law against those powerless to resist?