Occupy Wall Street, a movement that began as a small band of protesters in Zuccotti Park, gained endorsements from major unions and progressive leaders as well as prominent politicians. Within a few short weeks, it has come to resemble a movement with more than 900 meetups in 900 cities across the country. It…
Category: Liberty
US asks court to halt Ala. immigration law
The federal government asked an appeals court Friday to halt the Alabama immigration law considered by many the toughest in the U.S., saying it could have dire diplomatic consequences abroad, invites discrimination and merely forces illegal immigrants into neighboring states. The motion, filed in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, claimed Alabama’s new law…
Calif. pot dispensaries told to shut down
Federal prosecutors have launched a crackdown on pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law. In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the…
96-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Denied Voter ID Because She Didn’t Have Her Marriage License
Swept up in the craze of preventing widespread voter fraud that doesn’t actually exist, Tennessee Republicans passed a voter identification law this year that they claimed would put an end to fraud and ensure fair elections. Like similar laws in other states, Tennessee’s version has come under scrutiny from voting rights advocates, civil…
Reports Of Arrests And Pepper Spraying At Wall Street Protests
There have been multiple reports of arrests and pepper spraying of protesters on Wall Street tonight. According to the Guardian, “there’s a flashpoint on the intersection of Broadway and Cedar Street, with reports of a number of arrests. Police have deployed orange netting to contain protesters. Subway trains have been ordered not to stop at…
Obama Denounces New GOP Voting Laws, Says the Justice Department Is Investigating
In an interview with Philadelphia radio host Michael Smerconish last week, President Obama for the first time denounced the wave of new laws passed by Republicans designed to restrict the right to vote for millions of Americans. Said the president: I will say that my big priority is making sure that as many people are…
Have a license for medical pot? You can’t have a gun, U.S. says
Michigan’s medical-marijuana users can’t catch a break. Three major state appeals court decisions have gone against them in the last month. Now, federal authorities have issued an order that licensed medical-marijuana users nationwide can’t possess a gun. That means no hunting, no target shooting, no gun collecting and no guns for personal protection —…
Occupy Wall Street Protests Poised to Grow Rapidly With Union Support
The “Occupy Wall Street” protests, now entering their third week, are poised to get a whole lot bigger than its core of 200 to 300 people, potentially even exceeding the protesters original goals of 20,000 demonstrators, thanks to recent pledges of support from some of New York City’s largest labor unions and community…
Stupid voters enable broken government
We have to move away from easy-to-repeat campaign slogans and promises of easy solutions, because we’re a country with more than 300 million people, a complicated racial and religious history and the world’s largest GDP. There are no easy solutions. So if you’re the kind of person who likes to say “I don’t follow politics,”…
Wall Street Protesters Penned and Maced
While on a peaceful march near Union Square in downtown Manhattan, multiple female protestors were penned up in the street by orange mesh baricade, then maliciously maced. The women were peaceful and unarmed. They were secured by barricade with an overwhelming police presence. And they were then sprayed directly in the face with pressurized mace……
Republican Debate Audience Boos Gay Soldier Stephen Hill After DADT Repeal Question VIDEO
Of course, the big news of the exchange will once again be about an audience reaction. After Fox cut back from the clip of Hill, several members of the audience were heard, in a shocking demonstration of disrespect for one of our soldiers, lustily booing him. Very sad. via Republican Debate Audience Boos Gay…
EMU joins other Michigan universities in banning medical pot on campus
Eastern Michigan University became the latest university to formally ban medical marijuana on its campus. Despite state laws allowing those with medical marijuana cards to smoke the drug, federal law still lists it as illegal. That makes it necessary for universities to ban it as well, university officials said, because EMU and other higher education…
‘Anonymous’ Wall Street Protesters Arrested Under Antique ‘Anti-Mask’ Law
And as for the police response to the protests, well, that too has proved to be creative and unpredictable. Seven individuals had been arrested as of Monday, according to Bloomberg. But up to five people have been issued a citation for violating an 1845 “antimask law” that prohibits masked gatherings of two or…
Yahoo Appears To Be Censoring Email Messages About Wall Street Protests
Over the weekend, thousands gathered for a “Tahrir Square”-style protest of Wall Street’s domination of American politics. The protesters, organized online and by organizations like Adbusters, have called their effort “Occupy Wall Street” and have set up the website: www.OccupyWallSt.org. However, several YouTube users posted videos of themselves trying to email a message…
The ‘Violent Muslim’ Hysteria Goes Much Deeper Than You’d Believe
I kinda yawed a little when I read Spencer Ackerman’s scoop on the FBI’s bigoted, brain-dead Islam training. You think this is bad? As a soldier and former first responder, I’ve been sitting through this dreck for the better part of a decade. It’s just part of the noise in the system that…
Michigan House Moves to Ban Domestic Partnership Benefits
Domestic partners of Michigan state employees were supposed to start getting state benefits on October 1, but the Republican-controlled state House is having none of that: The bills, HB 4770 and 4771, prohibit any government entity in the state – including universities and city governments – from providing such benefits and prohibit unions from including them in collective bargaining…
Strict eavesdropping law ruled unconstitutional in Illinois case
An Illinois judge ruled the state’s eavesdropping law unconstitutional as applied to a man who faced up to to 75 years in prison for secretly recording his encounters with police officers and a judge.Share: · Facebook· LinkedIn· EmailPrintLink“A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen’s privacy cannot be used as a shield for…
N.Y. Worker Accuses State of Illegal GPS Spying
A New York state worker has accused government officials of violating the state constitution after they installed a GPS tracker on his private car and recorded its whereabouts for a month. The state Department of Labor placed the device secretly on the worker’s car without a warrant and tracked the vehicle 24 hours a…
Study: Privatizing government doesn’t actually save money
The theory that the federal government should outsource its operations to private firms usually rests on a simple premise: It saves money. But why should we believe it saves money? Often the argument is made by pointing to salaries for public- and private-sector employees in comparable jobs and noting that the private-sector employees make less….
Why Americans stopped relocating, in one graph
Migration from state to state increased sharply in the wake of World War II. It continued to creep up through the 1960s and 1970s, too. But moving started slowing down in the 1980s — and never stopped. “By most measures, internal migration in the United States is at a 30-year low,” the NBER authors Raven…