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By Ted Gioia
$18.45
By Ilan Pappe
$22
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AP Photo / John Marshall Mantel
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Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive and author of “You Have No Rights,” explains how our president became a “medieval king,” and why your civil liberties are in greater danger than ever.
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In case you missed it, this week’s original podcast features Robert Higgs, author of “Neither Liberty nor Safety.” He speaks with Truthdig’s James Harris and Joshua Scheer about how political opportunists and fear mongerers are gobbling up our individual liberties.
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While speaking with Fox News about his debate confrontation with Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani trotted out that tired old slogan that utterly fails to explain anything. Also, Giuliani tells Sean Hannity, “If you can’t face reality, you can’t lead.” We couldn’t agree more.
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By Amy Goodman — A group of American veterans from the Spanish Civil War recently gathered to commemorate their fight against fascism before it was a popular cause. They fought for freedom and civil liberties, and they have a few words to say about our current morass.
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AP Photo / David Guttenfelder
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By Scott Ritter — With his security barrier in Baghdad, a wall along the Mexican border and the provocative missile defense shield plan in Europe, President Bush’s interest in barrier-building is a betrayal of his conservative forebears that does not bode well for the spread of freedom and democracy.
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Vladimir Putin’s regime, with the aid of 9,000 police officers, attempted to prevent a rally in Moscow by arresting opposition leader Garry Kasparov along with dozens of other protesters and even some journalists. The chess phenom has accused Putin of trampling on democracy.
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A federal judge has ruled that Florida’s Okeechobee High School must grant the same privileges to the Gay-Straight Alliance that it grants to other student clubs.
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sfgate.com
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After spending 7 1/2 months in jail, longer than anyone else in a modern journalism rights case, blogger Josh Wolf reached a deal with prosecutors and was set free Tuesday. Wolf turned over unedited video of WTO protesters and, in exchange, was excused from identifying the individuals shown in the footage. He said he proposed the same deal in November but was turned down.
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Yet another court has ruled against the 1994 Child Online Protection Act, a major victory for civil rights advocates. The law has been a mess from the start. With the stated goal of protecting kids from pornography, it would punish offending websites with $50,000 fines and jail time for exposing children to “harmful” material, whether intentionally or not. Innocent sites like Salon and BoingBoing could’ve been targeted under the legislation.
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soulforce.org
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By Chris Hedges — Gays are the first target of the Christian right’s campaign against human rights, but they won’t be the last.
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Police say Ivan Safronov, a military correspondent for a major Russian newspaper, jumped out of a fifth-floor window. But the media and friends say it’s likelier that he was murdered because his reporting had embarrassed Vladimir Putin’s government. Thirteen Russian journalists were killed in 2006, making it the third-most-dangerous country to report from.
(h/t: Largest Minority)
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washingtonpost.com
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When Qin Zhongfei took 10 minutes to scribble down a satirical poem about local bureaucrats, he had no idea it would land him a month in jail—a sign that free expression still languishes in China, despite hopes that President Hu Jintao’s economic reforms would translate to a more open society.
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eur.news1.yimg.com
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Cuba’s acting president, Raul Castro, hinted at boosting freedom of expression this week, inviting university students to debate without fear. The remarks signal a departure from the practices of his brother, Fidel, who handed over power after undergoing surgery in July.
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By Andy Borowitz — “You have taken people’s attention from the mess I have made of things,” the political satirist quoted Bush as saying. “And that’s something that even talking about phony issues like gay marriage and immigration could not do.”
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French fries and French toast are back on the menu on Capitol Hill—nearly three years of being tagged with the substitute moniker “Freedom.”
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Check out this video a blogger (and AlterNet) made of being tossed out of Sean Hannity’s “Freedom Concert” simply for being liberal.
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By Molly Ivins — Molly Ivins is on vacation. In this column from 2001, she argues that in a country where CEOs make 475 times the salary of their employees, most people’s “economic freedom” is limited to a choice between cinnamon- and mint-flavored toothpaste.
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According to USA Today: “The federal government will pay a Texas law school $1 million to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of sensitive data available to the press and public through freedom-of-information requests.”
Seriously, this s*#t just got ridiculous; the Bush administration is already the most secrecy-crazed in the 20th century. Now it needs more layers of secrecy?
Posted on Jul 7, 2006
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The Senate is due to vote Wednesday on the Net Neutrality bill.
Click here and CALL. YOUR. SENATOR.
Otherwise, when AT&T is deciding which content streams fastest to your computer, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.
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The panel recommended a version of the Net neutrality bill that would bar telecom companies from charging premium fees for Web companies that sell video and other content.
This is far from a full victory, but it’s a step in that direction.
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Companies like AT&T and BellSouth are backing an organization claiming to be saving the Internet by keeping it free of “burdensome and unnecessary regulation.” But that’s nonsense. They’re the ones that want to put toll lanes on the Internet. (These are the same companies that reportedly handed over America’s phone records to the NSA.)
Buzzflash sorts it out.
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From NSA.gov
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By Robert Scheer — UPDATE: Michael V. Hayden, nominated by President Bush to head the CIA, is the man responsible for the most extensive attack ever on the privacy of U.S. citizens.
While head of the NSA, he oversaw the program that recorded the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans.
Want to take action? Check out StopHayden.org (includes video proof that Hayden is smugly incorrect about the privacy foundation of the Fourth Amendment).
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via Feministing
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On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved Enovid, the first birth control pill, for clinical use. Many court cases, a sexual revolution and a fundamentalist backlash later, use of and access to contraceptives is still very much a hot-button issue in the U.S. Read a roundup of information and opinion relating to the release of an explosive report last week connecting a spike in unwanted pregnancies among the poor to decreased contraceptive use. (h/t: Feministing)
REPORT: A Tale of Two Americas for Women: The Contraception-Abortion Connection press release | PDF (Guttmacher Institute)
Timeline: The Pill (PBS)
Posted on May 9, 2006
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Fox via CNN
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OK, OK, we know that it’s a waste of breath of get exercised over the ignorance educational quirks of the American populace, but get this: Only one in four people can name more than one First Amendment freedom, while half of people in a poll can name at least two “Simpsons” family members.
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Sullivan, whose N.Y. Times Magazine essay on the connection between Islam and 9/11 was perhaps the best ever mainstream treatment on the subject, now takes on the Islamic cartoon controversy. | essay
Also, a German journalist talks about his mixed feelings about running the cartoons in his paper. | Op-Ed
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The entire editorial staff of The New York Press, an alternative weekly, quits in the wake of the paper’s decision not to run the controversial Muhammad cartoons. | story
Posted on Feb 7, 2006
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The Tehran city council-owned newspaper says it is testing the West’s arguments about freedom of expression. | story
Meanwhile, Four Afghans are killed in cartoon-related protests near the U.S. base in Bagram—the first time violence has been directed against America in the controversy. | story
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By Molly Ivins — I do hope this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.
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The former president lashes out at the int’l community over its stance on Iranian nuclear research. | story
Posted on Jan 10, 2006
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Kindergartners to learn Arabic, Farsi, Chinese. | more
Posted on Jan 5, 2006
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For the Bush White House, the good news from Iraq just never stops. But the joy that President Bush has expressed over the country’s latest election, though more restrained than his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech, will similarly come back to haunt him.
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Terracide and the Terrarists: Destroying the Planet for Record Profits
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