Freedom of speech alert? I’d like more information. Four protesters arrested on a Texas campus on Monday during a visit by Obama.
Watch the reaction of Democrat Bill Skaggs, the Kansas City mayor pro tem (1st district councilman) and former member of the State House of Representatives when he notices that he is being videotaped on this public street, then ask yourself if this is a reasonable reaction for an elected official.
Yesterday a sheriff’s deputy from Prince George’s County, Maryland, shot and killed a family dog while trying to serve an eviction notice. This comes two years after a mistaken raid by Prince George’s police of the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights killed his two dogs. Key quote:
[Mayor] Calvo, who is suing Sheriff Michael A. Jackson, alleging his deputies engaged in excessive force when they killed his dogs, said deputies have shown a disturbing propensity to kill family pets. “This is part of a pattern,” Calvo said. From 2005 to 2008, deputies shot at least nine dogs in eight incidents, according to sheriff’s department records.
The real horror of this story for those of us who live in Prince George’s County and own dogs (as I do) is that Michael Jackson is running for county executive, and in some polls, is leading the pack.
Freedom of speech alert. Ohio officials are trying to silence a blogger by claiming that he somehow violated campaign finance laws.
In a letter response to the EPA’s effort to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, Texas has essentially told the EPA to go to hell. Three key quotes from the letter:
In order to deter challenges to your plan for centralized control of industrialized development through the issuance of permits for greenhouse gases, you have called upon each state to declare its allegiance to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently enacated greenhouse gas regulations — regulations that are plainly contrary to United State law. ….. To encourage acquiesence with your unsupported findings you threaten to usurp state enforcment authority and to federalize the permitting program of any state that fails to pledge their fealty to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [emphasis mine]
The State of Texas does not believe the EPA’s “suggested” approach comports with the rule of law.
Texas will not facilitate EPA’s apparent attempt to thwart these established procedures and ignore the law.
Talk about stupid: It seems the legal eagles at NASA have shut down a website that featured a variety of webcams, showing NASA missions.
It appears that McCarthyism and the blacklist are both alive and well, thriving happily in the field of climate research. Key quote:
It is disturbing, to say the least, that organisations and persons who would be quick to claim professional status consider that it is their current duty to disparage, or to refuse to debate with, or to muzzle scientists whose views on climate change they apparently disagree with.
Read the whole article.
FIRE has an update on that story of a college teacher fired because he described the Catholic doctrine on homosexuality to his students — in a Catholic doctrines class. It appears the college is backing down.
Another damning report from the Daily Caller on the now defunct Journolist listserv, showing how high-powered so-called objective journalists teamed up to attack Sarah Palin during the 2008 election campaign.
Freedom of speech alert. And the danger comes not from the government but from reporters of all things! Leaked emails from a now closed leftwing listserv for journalists reveal an incredible and almost frightening hatred for the right as well as an astonishing willingness by these journalists to use the government to silence opposing opinions. Key quote:
Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”
The article is astonishing. Read the whole thing.
Freedom of speech alert: the head of a local North Carolina NAACP chapter was arrested when he tried to attend a local school board meeting to protest its actions. He had been arrested for trespassing at a previous board meeting, and it is unclear if his attempted appearance this time was a trespass as well.
It appears that the guy in the pink t-shirt attacking people in this video as they try to record events at a union rally is the Director of Collective Bargaining for the California Nurses Association! Gee, I wonder if he conducts all his negotiations this way?
Brownshirt alert: Watch how these union participants at this union rally react to the fact that several citizens are videotaping the event:
Freedom of speech alert: Orders by government officials cause 73,000 blogs to be shut down.
An evening pause: One of the best television science series ever produced was The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. Rather than simply describe science and knowledge, Bronowski instead pondered the nature of humanity. The best episode of the series was Knowledge or Certainty, in which Bronowski compared the humane uncertainty of science with the terrible consequences of dogma. As Oliver Cromwell said, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
Liberty of conscious update. Further news on that story of a college professor fired for teaching Catholic doctrines (on homosexuality) in a Catholic doctrines class.
Our freedom is under attack, and it isn’t being destroyed by an evil dictator with storm troopers.
More so-called tolerance from Islam, this time helped by the secular authorities in Deerborn, Michigan. Four men were arrested and charged with misdemeanor charges because they stood on a public street and offered the gospel of St. John to passersby. The news article states the following:
The behavior of these individuals drew and incited a large crowd to a point where they were in violation of city ordinances, including breach of peace and failure to obey the lawful order of a police officer, according to the city’s public relations department. . . . Festival rules require religious groups to distribute information at paid booths or outside the event.
However, the video below paints a very different picture. It appears that at least two of the men were on public property, just outside the festival and no crowd appeared (except for a lot of cops). I find it especially disgusting how the cops force them to stop filming the event.
Update: In restrospective, it is very possible the video below was not shot at the same time the men were arrested. Even so, if the court documents do describe the events accurately, there is something disturbing about the response of the people at the Islamic festival. Why should they be so offended, almost to the point of violence, merely because others are passing out Christian literature? Moreover, the video below still shows a clear violation of the Christian activists’ freedom of speech and assembly, since they were standing on public property and had not caused any disturbances when the police moved in to harass them.
Islam once again demonstrates its tolerance. The cartoonist who first proposed and then backed off from the “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” has now been threatened with death by an Islamic cleric/terrorist.
