Any one of those stories would be enough to knock an Administration back on its heels. All three — and with the IRS and AP stories coming in rapid succession over the past 96 hours — threaten to permanently derail Obama’s plans to fortify his presidential legacy in the first 18 months of his second term.
The problems are both practical and symbolic. They have both short term and long term political consequences. And almost none of it portends well for President Obama and his Administration.
Another point here worth considering: “Remember that President Obama was elected in 2008 in no small part because of his pledge to be the anti-George W. Bush. That is, prizing competence over all in governance and putting a premium on transparency. And both of those pillars are undermined by developments in the past four days.”
The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will hear a case challenging the per-biennial cycle limit on campaign contributions from individuals.
The case, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, argues that the limit on what individuals are allowed to give candidates ($46,200 per two-year cycle) and parties and PACs ($70,800 per two-year cycle) is an unconstitutional violation of the individual donor’s free speech rights.
While the last election certainly disproved the narrative, that changes in our campaign finance regulations would allow a certain political party to buy elections from here on out, we can all certainly expect to hear a great deal from those on both sides of this idea in the days ahead. Thoughts?
Let’s not let arguments over the Constitution’s Second Amendment violate the spirit of its First. President Obama believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. However, the Constitution not only guarantees an individual right to bear arms, but also enshrines the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press — fundamental principles that are essential to our democracy.White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, responding to the Alex Jones-initiated petition to deport Piers Morgan.
The State has failed to provide any explanation or evidence as to why a public advertisement or offer to assist in an otherwise legal activity is sufficiently problematic to justify an intrusion on protected speech rights.The Georgia Supreme Court • In a unanimous ruling on a 1994 assisted suicide law that said two things — one, it didn’t fully make assisted suicides illegal, and two, it blocked legal forms of free speech, meaning that the law ran smack-first into the First Amendment. As a result of the incident, members of the Final Exit Network, who were facing charges over allegedly helping a cancer-stricken man die, won’t face trial for the incident. The 1994 law, passed in the wake of Jack Kevorkian, made it a felony for anyone who ”publicly advertises, offers or holds himself or herself out as offering that he or she will intentionally and actively assist another person in the commission of suicide and commits any overt act to further that purpose.” source (via • follow)
After journalist arrests at Occupy Wall Street, US drops 27 spots on global press freedom index. Now ranked 47th in the world.
List of countries ahead of US on the Reporters Without Borders global press freedom index:
Finland, Norway, Estonia, Netherlands, Austria, Iceland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Cape Verde, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Ireland, Cyprus, Jamaica, Germany, Costa Rica, Belgium, Namibia, Japan, Surinam, Poland, Mali, OECS, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Niger, Australia, Lithuania, Uruguay, Portugal, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, Slovenia, El Salvador, France, Spain, Hungary, Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, South Korea, Comoros, Taiwan…
Then the United States of America at #47.
Source: Reporters Without Borders global press freedom index, released today.
The U.S. falls on the Global Press Freedom Index thanks in part to Occupy. Fascinating.
Police brutality that’s not “Occupy”-related: It’s been ignored by most Western media, but a police crackdown on a labor strike in Kazakhstan earlier this month resulted in 16 deaths (officially reported; protesters say the number is much higher), one truly disturbing video of protesters getting shot and beaten as they run away, and now, charges of a torture basement beneath a Kazakh police station. Here’s what’s being reported.
Governor Scott Walker’s New Anti-Protest Strategy: First Amendment Fees
Governor Scott Walker(R-WI) is quickly learning that, when you take away people’s rights, they get angry. And when they get angry, sometimes they show up by the thousands and protest outside your office. For several months.
Well apparently Governor Walker has had enough, because a new set of protest regulations went into effect on December 1st in his state. And they’re not exactly protest-friendly…
The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reports:
Groups of four or more people must obtain permits for all activity and displays in state buildings and apply for those permits at least 72 hours in advance. The policy requires permits for 100 or more people outside the Capitol. The policy does provide some leeway for spontaneous gatherings triggered by unforeseen events.
Groups holding demonstrations could be charged for the costs of having extra police on hand for the event. Costs associated with a counterprotest could be charged to that second group. The costs would be $50 per hour per Capitol Police officer - costs for police officers from outside agencies would depend on the costs billed to the state. The police could require an advance payment as a requirement for getting a permit and also could require liability insurance or a bond.
The new rules, which many legal experts warned raise serious first amendment concerns, could also hold demonstrators liable for any/all damages and clean-up required as a result of the protest. The clean-up and repairs statute, Walker claims, is a result of protesters allegedly causing $7.5 million in damage to Wisconsin’s Capitol building.
Surprisingly, the Wisconsin chapter of the ACLU is not challenging, but remains skeptical, of the new laws. The potential damage to free speech protection is not lost on them either.
As for the Administration, they claim to have reached out to the one of the groups of protesters who do still have a weekly presence, in an effort to make sure everybody’s on the same page.
One group that meets every weekday at the Capitol is the Solidarity Singers, a pro-labor chorus that has been singing in protest of Walker’s policies since last spring.
Department of Administration spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said an agency lawyer had reached out to the leader of the Solidarity Singers, Chris Reeder, and would be meeting with him about the policy.
Reeder said his group has been willing to take its singing outside on days when other events such as blood drives are happening.
We believe what we’re doing is protected by the First Amendment,” Reeder said of the new policy.
While there doesn’t appear to be any major push-back at this time, it’s unclear if Wisconsinites approve of the new rules, or are too busy collecting signatures for the various Recall Walker campaigns to bother fighting back. If they’re successful, he’ll be gone in a few months anyways.
If you can’t beat ‘em, charge ‘em.
From @schuyler: “A CS grenade, and two 12 ga shotgun shells purportedly used by the police to propel the beanbag bullets. #OccupyOakland”
Meanwhile, police are reporting that they didn’t use any method like this at Occupy Oakland. I can’t get past the image of what looks like a peace sign made of shotgun shells.
So frustrating to see these kind of tactics being used against peaceful protesters.
Police pen up and mace female “Occupy Wall Street” protesters
In a disturbing scene from today’s “Occupy Wall Street” protests, a group of peaceful female protesters were rounded up in an orange-colored mesh pen by police and subsequently sprayed with mace without any provocation.
In spite of multiple reported incidents of possible police violence, major media outlets seem to be content to let the protests go by completely unreported, following the same “who-cares” attitude they have taken toward recent revelations that the NYPD has violated the Constitutional rights of American citizens by spying on them as possible terrorists and enemies of the state despite a complete absence of evidence of any crimes.
This is absolutely disturbing. Penning people up to mace them is police brutality. Period. What will it take to get the mainstream media to pay attention? If you follow the #OccupyWallStreet, you’ll find out that at least 80 were arrested today. AP and Wall Street Journal mentioned the arrests briefly today.
Here’s a longer video that shows slightly more context. Literally, the macing of these protesters came out of nowhere. “I was on the ground sobbing and couldn’t breathe,” said Chelsea Elliott, one of the victims of the macing, who the New York Times actually interviewed in their front-page story on the protests. Elliott claimed she was arrested after shouting “Why are you doing that?” after another protester got arrested. What the heck is this? Why was this reaction called for?
Supreme Court strikes down violent video game law 7-2: Now this is a decision we can get behind. Some of the recent ones haven’t been quite so hot lately. Read the decision over here. Key line: “The Act does not comport with the First Amendment.” (via @BreakingNews)
We meant to post about this yesterday. But the story of Evan Emory, who just accepted a plea deal for splicing an explicit song with a clip of him singing to first-graders, is just offensive from a First Amendment perspective. They threatened to charge this kid on child porn charges. They wanted to send him to jail for two decades. They wanted to list him as a sex offender! All because he was a moron and wanted to make an attention-grabbing YouTube clip. “Won’t someone please think of the children?” More like, “Won’t someone please think of the kid who made a dumb mistake and is now being vilified by his community?” Doesn’t everyone make a mistake like this once in their life? What do you think?
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