Trump Is A Conservative An Anti-Religious Nut-Job

Well, I suppose he could be both, even at the same time. But anyone who claims to support the First Amendment view of freedom of religion in America can't go shooting off his mouth like this:

Businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said the U.S. will have to "strongly consider" shutting down some of the country's mosques during a Monday morning interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

After the attacks that rocked central Paris and killed more than 100 people, the French interior minister called for the closing of radical mosques in France.

On MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough asked, if President, would Trump consider closing mosques?

"I would hate to do it but it would be something that you're going to have strongly consider," Trump said. "Some of the ideas, some of the hatred, absolute hatred, is coming from these areas."

...

Perhaps some of the problems do come from "these areas," but their solutions emphatically do not, at least in a nation that wants to be taken seriously in its claim to offer freedom of religious belief.

Religion is about belief, and belief is precisely what is protected by the First Amendment against government infringement.

All belief is protected. But not all action deriving from that belief is protected: your religion can lead you to believe in, say, ritual human sacrifice, but the First Amendment confers no right to perform such sacrifices; murder is still murder. Still, the First Amendment does not permit anyone to shut down meeting places of selected religious groups or treat them differently under law. Those who murder or threaten to murder can be arrested and charged under law, but their houses of worship may not be tainted by the fact that murderers attend.

I am not saying this is easy. We appear to have some evidence that some Muslims indeed want their ritual sacrifices in the name of their god, and are willing to misuse individual mosques in pursuit of such terroristic murders. But we still do not have a right to shut down places of worship because some bad people attend them and try to use them for nefarious purposes. If that were the case, I could surely compile a list of various Christian denominations whose most radical churches should be shut down... oh, never mind; don't get me off the topic here. The simple version is this principle: shutting down places of worship is not a valid or viable solution to the problem that some criminally or terroristically inclined people do their organizing at or through those places. The terrorists may of course be pursued— their religious institutions may not.

And besides, shutting down mosques is surely a self-fulfilling act. Shut down mosques, and you will justify acts by the very terrorists you wish to stop. Why is this so hard for some people to understand?

And so we come full circle to the antireligious Mr. Trump. Those who are contemplating voting for him should think long and hard: Will the GOP always offer presidential candidates who will shut down only mosques? or could the practice extend to churches? or synagogues? or your very own house of worship?

Protester At Trump Event Kicked, Dragged From Room As Audience Chants ‘USA, USA, USA...’

Sara Jerde at TPM:

Crowd Chants 'USA' As Protestor Is Kicked, Dragged Out Of Trump Rally

A protestor attending a campaign event for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was dragged out of the event Friday and kicked by a man described by the Trump campaign as a rally attendee, reported an NBC affiliate.

The campaign rally, ... was interrupted by three groups who were "chanting pro-immigration messages," ...

The protestor, identified by the NBC affiliate as Ariel Rojas, can be seen in a video being dragged by a man who also kicks him while he's on the ground before police removed [him] from the room.

All the while, the crowd chants "USA."

...

There's a video with Jerde's article, linked above.

(Photo of immigrants protesting Trump,
credit: Business Insider.)

We have to assume the "USA" response is typical of Trump supporters because there were enough of them to get such a chant started in response to a legitimate if unpleasant exercise of First Amendment free speech. Police removing the protester from the event so it could continue was one thing; I can't blame them for that. But unidentified crowd members with no police authority literally kicking his butt and dragging him out rather than allowing the police to remove him was another altogether... and raucously asserting that doing so was a proper response in the USA was altogether outside the pale.

I trust Godwin's Law will not prevent me from observing that this behavior by Trump's supporters is painfully reminiscent of that of Hitler's supporters. Is Trump a Nazi? I seriously doubt it. But he is personally responsible for violent treatment of uninvited people voicing unpleasant speech at his campaign rallies, because he can exercise the weight of his personal influence with the crowd to stop the violence until the police arrive.

A couple hundred years ago, America's founders legalized and constitutionally protected vocal dissent... let's not tolerate its suppression at this late date.

Pope Francis Is Wrong About Kim Davis

In an AP article about a wide range of subjects covered in an interview of Pope Francis conducted on the papal airplane, the Pope, who more or less admitted not knowing the particulars of the case, sided with Davis, saying she had a right of conscience to refuse to issue marriage licenses to LGBT same-sex couples:

...

In another issue pressing on the American church, Francis was asked about the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk jailed for several days after she refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples despite the Supreme Court's ruling making same-sex marriage legal nationwide. Davis said such marriages violate her Apostolic Christian faith.

Francis said he didn't know the case in detail, but he upheld conscience objection as a human right.

"It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right," Francis said.

...

I'm sorry, but the Pope is mistaken. It happens to every human person, especially when that person is shooting from the hip based on incomplete knowledge, and that's exactly what the Pope did in this case.

The freedom of religion conferred on American citizens by the First Amendment to the US Constitution is a freedom of belief, and that freedom is, quite rightly, very nearly absolute.

But any associated freedom of action is, necessarily, limited by ordinary secular law and common law. If that were not so, what possible effectiveness could any law have on the undesirable activity it was intended to control? If all of us could summarily rewrite or reinterpret any law in our minds and then act on that reinterpretation, the result could be, and probably would be, chaos in society.

The Pope also mistakes what it means to be a conscientious objector. America's history of conscientious objection, to war, to legally enshrined racial injustice, etc., requires that the objector be willing either to step back from the confrontation... in Davis's case, resign from her job in which her nonfeasance is illegal... or to go to jail for the illegal behavior s/he commits in the process of objection. That is the means by which an ordinary American citizen can have an impact on a law which the courts have declined to rule unconstitutional.

(ADDED: The issues in which exceptions have been carved out in law for religious conscientious objection have resulted in IMHO grossly unfair treatment of individuals whose only substantive difference is what they say they believe. A good friend of mine from middle school through college was a member of a religion which the US government recognized as having a conscientious objection to war. While most Unitarian Universalists I know object on principle to war, and I certainly did and do, there is no broad objection enshrined in the religion itself; it is left as a matter of conscience to the individual UU. As a result, my friend had an automatic draft exemption, while I was subject to the draft. I do not begrudge him his exemption, but I certainly begrudged my non-exemption. I later obtained a deferment for my left knee, wrecked in an accident when I was 13 and still troublesome to this day; eventually that deferment was commuted to an exemption. Sigh!)

In other words, the conscientious objector can, in fact, be a law unto herself or himself... but only at a price, and that price is to accept the punishment society's law imposes on him or her. It's the only way conscientious objection could possibly work without leading to unlimited lawlessness.

Davis clearly doesn't understand that (or, in my opinion, just wants to make trouble). But there is no excuse for the Pope; he should educate himself on the workings of such a fundamental principle as conscientious objection.

Donald Trump And Religious Freedom

Sara Jerde at TPM succinctly summarizes Trump's problem:

During the town hall in New Hampshire, the audience member also said that President Obama was a Muslim. Trump was criticized for not defending Obama and Muslims to the audience member.

CNN "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper asked Trump on Sunday if he had a responsibility to "call out the hatred."

"Well we could be politically correct, if you want, but are you trying to say we don't have a problem," Trump said. "I think everybody would agree. I have friends that are Muslims. They're great people, amazing people. And most Muslims, like most everything, I mean they're fabulous people, but we certainly do have a problem."

Tapper asked him to clarify what the "problem" was.

"Well, you have radicals that are doing things," Trump replied. "It wasn't people from Sweden that blew up the world trade center, Jake."

I'm going to address Trump's problem... he's almost right when he says "we certainly do have a problem," but actually, HE "certainly do[es] have a problem" ... with an excerpt from Wikipedia on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and his religion:

Jindal was raised in a Hindu household. He converted to Christianity while in Baton Rouge Magnet High School. During his first year at Brown University, he was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. His family attends weekly Mass at Saint Aloysius Parish in Baton Rouge.

Raised Hindu; converted Christian in a magnet high school; baptized Roman Catholic and attends weekly Mass... now THAT is religious freedom, as protected in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. That Constitution does NOT say an American may practice "any Christian religion," nor indeed does it require an American to practice any religion whatsoever, or to refrain from practicing any religion whatsoever, as long as s/he does not violate ordinary secular laws (e.g., forget any notion you may have of engaging in ritual sacrifice of humans; that's still murder).

So Jindal, a stalwart Republican if there ever was one, gets to practice his religion... indeed, his long series of quite different religions over the years... and that's his right under the First Amendment. But according to Trump's audience member, uncorrected by Trump, a Muslim has no similar right: the audience member is certain that America's problem is specifically Muslims, not specifically terrorists.

The late great Thomas Jefferson would have been very surprised to hear an American citizen eliminate that right for Muslims (Jefferson called them "Mahometan," but demonstrably knew what and who they were), and with equal certainty intended the First Amendment to protect them. I guess Trump, like so many right-wing nutjobs, is only selectively fond of our nation's founders, and he disapproves of Jefferson and his liberality toward a wide variety of religions.

Religious Diversity in Symbols
(UU Flaming Chalice: 2nd row, 3rd symbol)

How do you know Trump, if elected, would not at some point disapprove of your religion, if you happen not to be Christian (as indeed I am not; I'm a Unitarian-Universalist)? What would he do about his disapproval? The question is not far-fetched: a few years back, an appointed elected Republican official in Texas issued an order removing tax-exempt status for Unitarians, whose membership historically included three or four American presidents. The order was quickly rescinded under considerable public pressure, but Texas GOPers would do it again in a millisecond if they had the chance.

What's your religious freedom worth to you? More to the point, what's YOUR religious freedom worth to Trump?

Jane Fonda Aims At Reviving Fight For ERA, Demands Answers From Candidates

Please read her post at CNN. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the ERA Coalition. It's been 40+ long years since the last great battle for the constitutional amendment that would... do what? require unisex bathrooms? force all women to be trained as lesbians? Actually, the wording is a lot simpler than what some opponents (damned liars) will tell you:

Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

To paraphrase Fonda, who could take issue with that, apart from some politicians, mostly men, who genuinely wish to see women's subjugation in the political arena? Answer: you'd be surprised, in a nominally "free country," how much resistance there was back in the 1970s, and while many of those opponents have died off, their extremist views run rampant in today's America. I'll let Fonda tell you about it; she's in the middle of the battle herself.

The Pentagon Vs. Journalists

Kevin Gosztola at Shadowproof:

Pentagon War Manual Gives Military License To Target & Attack Journalists

The Pentagon has adopted a “law of war manual” [PDF], which enables commanders to treat journalists as “unprivileged belligerents.” It suggests that correspondents who report some information about combat operations may be taking “direct part in hostilities,” a disturbing argument for justifying the killing of reporters in war zones. There also is a part of the manual that encourages journalists to submit to censorship of news reports that might aid enemies.

On July 31, the Committee to Protect Journalists published an analysis on the Pentagon’s weak justifications for treating journalists as spies. The New York Times Editorial Board also condemned the guidelines in an August 10 editorial.

...

Here we go again; the Obama administration, like the GeeDubya Bush administration before it, has repeatedly treated American journalists like the enemy. Now they merely assert the right to f^<king kill the enemy. What nation did I wake up in this morning? China? Nazi Germany circa W.W. II?

Please read Mr. Gosztola's piece and then the NYT condemnatory editorial, both linked above. Then take some comfort: this is a war game the military ultimately cannot win, although they can certainly leave a lot of journalists' bodies beside the road in the process of realizing that in a genuinely free and open society,

• the press is more powerful than even the overwhelmingly powerful military, and
• between the press and the military, the press is more essential to the survival of openness and of democratic government.

Yes, you read that right: the press tops the military. Think about it for a moment. If the course of action reflected in this manual is indeed pursued, the military can successfully physically protect a society which, thanks to that very military, is neither free nor open. Ya pays yer money 'n' takes yer choice... takes yer chances, too.

The US has been through literally dozens of wars, "police actions," etc. from W.W. II to the present, and not once has the military been granted a leash on the press, let alone a whip and a chair, in wartime. In turn, the press has been largely cooperative except on those occasions in which the military has deliberately squelched things the press had every right to publish. (Obama has been as bad as Bush in trying to shut down the press.) The NYT editorial gets that part just right: the new manual is not aimed at reinforcing the unavoidably uneasy relationship between the press and the military, but rather at giving the military the authority to silence the press when it finds them inconvenient. That is not how a free society is supposed to work. I have no desire to learn military secrets or to see them exposed in the popular media, but I see no justification in America for accomplishing that protection by nailing journalists' feet to the floor. That's not merely unnecessary: it's unacceptable.

The NYT editorial asserts that "[t]he White House should call on Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to revise this section, which so clearly runs contrary to American law and principles." As I see it, that is the focus of the matter. Will the White House do that? I'm not holding my breath...

(courtesy freepress.net)

Federal Judge Gags On Idaho ‘Ag-Gag’ Law — This Is No Gag

Gosztola

Kevin Gosztola at Shadowproof reports a federal court decision that deems an Idaho law forbidding certain kinds of ‘whistleblower’ speech... specifically in this case, the documenting and revealing of animal abuse in an agricultural processing plant... to be unconstitutional. The law runs afoul of the First Amendment to the US Constitution: the whistleblower has the freedom to speak or publish information supportive of his/her assertion that abuse of the animal(s) does take place and may be criminal in nature; otherwise, there would be no point in whistleblowing in that context.

Something similar was attempted in Texas in 1996: some cattlemen sued Oprah Winfrey and a guest on her show for libel under the False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act of 1995 when Oprah and the guest discussed mad cow disease in beef cattle. (Wikipedia has a decent short summary.) The jury found Winfrey did not libel the cattlemen and did not owe them the obscenely high monetary damages they sought, but after the trial, Oprah got cold feet, refused to provide copies of the video of the original broadcast to interested reporters, repeatedly refused to speak in public about the incident, etc. Living in Texas, I can understand quite well why she might exercise such restraint.

But IMHO, those cattlemen were effing paranoid, and they certainly never had any legitimate basis for attempting to suppress speech about cows. The Constitution establishes for us all the right to defame all the cows we feel like, Texan or Idahoan, now or two decades ago, mad or merely a bit quirky. Of course it speaks more about the cowboys than the cow-critics, but the notion that any commercial product, agricultural, automotive or simply asswiping, is above public criticism is, um, fucking crazy. Let it be, pardners [sic].

Daily Civil Liberties News From DDF/BORDC

Are you following InTheNews from the Defending Dissent Foundation — Bill of Rights Defense Committee? No? You could be a better informed patriot, Fourth of July or any other day, if you did!

Clear Your Browser Cache — Be Charged With Obstructing Justice, Even If You Never Knew FBI Was Seeking A Warrant Regarding Your Computer

Juliana DeVries at The Nation provides details of one case and a sketch of the history of the use and abuse of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002). Yes, you could be prosecuted for clearing your browser history if you were under investigation by the FBI, even if you had no knowledge of the existence of the investigation, and yes, it has happened to one or more people in real life. In the case in question, the cab driver was charged with four counts of obstruction of justice, three for lying to the FBI (always a bad idea) regarding the Tsarnaev brothers of Boston Marathon bombing infamy, and one for removing some material from his personal computer that might have associated him with the Tsarnaevs.

It beggars belief that the simple act of clearing your browser cache, something many people do routinely, something about which your intent or state of mind in doing is almost impossible to prove absent independent evidence, could get you sent to jail for decades.

What an era we live in! I doubt our nation's founders would recognize what has become of federal law enforcement as being in any way related to, let alone descended from, the system they created.

Once again, I wonder whether Mr. Godwin's long-valuable wisdom still reflects reality... I keep having a deep-seated inclination to violate Godwin's Law regarding cases like these.

Rand Paul: Rights And Liberties For Me... But Not For Thee, Not If You Are Female

Are any women out there thinking Rand Paul might be the presidential candidate for them, based on his emphasis of the often-mentioned "right to be left alone" by the government? If so, you'd better read what Zoë Carpenter at The Nation has to say:

“The right to be left alone is the most cherished of rights,” Kentucky senator and presidential aspirant Rand Paul said over the weekend in San Francisco. He was there to sell himself to the young tech elite as a civil-liberties crusader; the only candidate willing to take an uncompromising stand against government surveillance. He cares so deeply about privacy that he’s planning to filibuster the renewal of parts of the Patriot Act.

"What every woman really needs is
one of my fingers." - Sen. Rand Paul

But the leader of “the leave-me-the-hell-alone coalition” is simultaneously, albeit more quietly, arguing that women should have little privacy in their healthcare decisions. “The government does have some role in our lives,” Paul said at a summit organized by the anti-choice Susan B Anthony List in April, by which he meant making abortion illegal. Paul describes himself as “100 percent pro-life.” Along with all of the other Republican presidential candidates he supports a bill that resurfaced this week in the House that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

...

Oh, yes: Rights for him; no rights for you. Women of reproductive age, take note...

A Hell Of A ‘Compromise’ To Get Loretta Lynch Confirmed — UPDATED

Emily Crockett, Federal Policy Reporter at RH Reality Check, explains what Turtle McConnell has done:

Senators announced a compromise Tuesday that would move two long-stalled legislative items: a human trafficking bill that has been embroiled in a fight over abortion restrictions, and the confirmation of Loretta Lynch to be the nation’s first Black female attorney general.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had refused to bring Lynch’s confirmation up for a vote until the Senate passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA), despite Lynch’s undisputed qualifications and strong record on prosecuting human traffickers. The tactic enraged advocates and Black leaders, some of whom staged a hunger strike in protest.

McConnell said Tuesday that once the JVTA is passed, the Senate will move on to Lynch “in the next day or so.”

...

Lynch

Apart from the raw unmitigated arrogance Sen. McConnell displayed in his throw-away remark about "the next day or so," and (IMHO) the very real possibility he will get the bill he wants and then fuck the removal of the anti‑abortion language, the bad news here is that it establishes Turtle's ability to blackmail the entire US Senate... hardly any senator opposes the essence of the bill, or Ms. Lynch's confirmation... to get whatever he goddamned well wants. I am glad Lynch will be confirmed, but I am far from confident we will not live to regret this "compromise."

UPDATE: an agreement has been reached. The bill has passed; Ms. Lynch will be voted on... on Tuesday. It seems goddamned Turtle is in no hurry to fulfill his part of the bargain... what else is new?

Man Who Took Video Of SC Cop Shooting/Killing Fleeing Suspect Feared For His Life

Caitlin MacNeal at TPM:

Man Who Videoed S.C. Cop Shooting: I Thought My Life 'Might Be In Danger'

Feidin Santana, the witness whose video led to murder charges against a South Carolina police officer, spoke out on Wednesday for the first time since the incident and said that he was so scared he thought about deleting his recording.

"I even thought about erasing the video," he said during an interview on MSNBC with Craig Melvin. "I felt that my life, with this information, might be in danger.”

...

Is Santana's fear justified?

Most photographers who have often wandered the streets looking for interesting material have confronted a question like this at one time or another. While toting my camera, I've never confronted a cop, but I've confronted an angry business owner who didn't like my taking pics of his storefront sign even though I was standing on the city sidewalk in front of his business. I faced the man down and demanded that he call the cops; he repeatedly refused to do so, perhaps knowing that he hadn't a leg to stand on. (Now I'm the one... oh, never mind!)

But that was an easy case. I knew my rights, and the business owner was an ordinary asshole, not an asshole credentialed by the city to put lead in my back. If I had been in Santana's circumstance, I'd have felt the same doubts he did.

So what are your rights in the streets with a camera, still or video?

Let's let ACLU tell us. The good news: courts have ruled you have rights. The bad news: they're not absolute. Here's what ACLU says, quoted directly from their article on the subject:

(Updated July 2014)

Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply. Learn more »

Your rights as a photographer: 

• When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public oversight over the government and is important in a free society.
• When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner's rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply).
• Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant. The Supreme Court has ruled that police may not search your cell phone when they arrest you, unless they get a warrant. Although the court did not specifically rule on whether law enforcement may search other electronic devices such as a standalone camera, the ACLU believes that the constitution broadly prevents warrantless searches of your digital data. It is possible that courts may approve the temporary warrantless seizure of a camera in certain extreme “exigent” circumstances such as where necessary to save a life, or where police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that doing so is necessary to prevent the destruction of evidence of a crime while they seek a warrant.
• Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances. Officers have faced felony charges of evidence tampering as well as obstruction and theft for taking a photographer’s memory card.
• Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations. Professional officers, however, realize that such operations are subject to public scrutiny, including by citizens photographing them.
• Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. For example, if you are trespassing to take photographs, you may still be charged with trespass.

The remainder of that ACLU article explains what you should do if the police stop you from photographing, and special rules particular to video recording (hint: the video and audio portions may be treated differently under the law, although ACLU says that constitutionally they should not be).

Unfortunately, these days, Santana's fear that the cops will not treat him in accordance with the law and the Constitution are not wholly unjustified. We live in parlous times: the police officers associated with the alleged killer may or may not be Santana's friend.

If you carry a camera (and a lot of people do these days, even if they call it a "cell phone," almost as many as carry guns), good luck to you.

Chicago Police Systematically Deny Counsel To Arrestees

Is this still true?
Even in Chicago?

In my not-so-humble opinion, denying the Sixth Amendment right to counsel to people arrested in the context of exercising their First Amendment right to free speech in protest of government action, especially denying that right systematically, is arguably one of the most egregious sorts of police misconduct possible. I mean, if Chicago PD is doing this, they might as well be firing rubber bullets into crowds, assaulting peaceful protesters with billy clubs, using tasers on nonviolent protesters, etc. (Oh, wait...) Police denying arrestees' access to an attorney is behavior characteristic of a totalitarian government, not a representative democracy.

Kevin Gosztola at FDL has details. This is no April Fool's joke!

‘CISA Isn't About Cybersecurity, It's About Surveillance’

It seems these days that no bad bill that's been killed (*cough* CISPA *cough*) stays dead, and these undead bills, in this case transparently renamed CISA, stalk the halls of Congress looking to give America's law enforcement entities surveillance powers over its citizens, powers unheard of in the entire history of the Republic. Here's some of what you need to know, from

• security expert Bruce Schneier (latest book, Data and Goliath, on this very subject) (H/T CTuttle at FDL),
• the ACLU, and
• an assortment of "civil society organizations, security experts and academics" writing in a letter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (.pdf).

This bill as it stands is condemned by every one of these experts, yet is under consideration now by the Senate Select Committee. If CISA should pass and be signed into law, at least... at the very least... your Fourth Amendment rights will lie dead in the street, trampled by the forces who believe every American should be subject to surveillance, everywhere s/he goes, in every activity, at any time.

How little difference one letter makes!

How does that sound to you? Right... me too. Please read the linked articles and then HOWL to Congress, for all the good it will do...

War And Peace War And Police

I promise this post is shorter than the first proposed title would indicate. But the subject it addresses - the military-style up-armoring and officer training of America's police departments - is already underway and growing rapidly. Tom Engelhardt has the basics in his article at The Nation, What Does the Future Hold for a Country Forever at War? — The domestic arms race in America is a one-way street—and the question is what awaits us up the road. Two paragraphs out of the middle should crystallize what concerns me... and of course Engelhardt himself... so much:

...

Reminder to officers:
Don't be a cartoon!

The occasion for such reflections: machine guns in my hometown. To be specific, several weeks ago, New York Police Commissioner William J. Bratton announced the formation of a new 350-officer Special Response Group (SRG). Keep in mind that New York City already has a police force of more than 34,000—bigger, that is, than the active militaries of Austria, Bulgaria, Chad, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Kenya, Laos, Switzerland or Zimbabwe—as well as its own “navy,” including six submersible drones. Just another drop in an ocean of blue, the SRG will nonetheless be a squad for our times, trained in what Bratton referred to as “advanced disorder control and counterterror.” It will also, he announced, be equipped with “extra heavy protective gear, with the long rifles and machine guns—unfortunately sometimes necessary in these instances.” And here’s where he created a little controversy in my hometown. The squad would, Bratton added, be “designed for dealing with events like our recent protests or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris.”

Now, that was an embarrassment in liberal New York. By mixing the recent demonstrations over the police killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others into the same sentence with the assault on Mumbai and the Charlie Hebdo affair in France, he seemed to be equating civil protest in the Big Apple with acts of terrorism. Perhaps you won’t be surprised then that the very next day the police department started walking back the idea that the unit would be toting its machine guns not just to possible terror incidents but to local protests. A day later, Bratton himself walked his comments back even further. (“I may have in my remarks or in your interpretation of my remarks confused you or confused the issue.”) Now, it seems there will be two separate units, the SRG for counterterror patrols and a different, assumedly machine-gun-less crew for protests.

...

The cop to viewer left
does not give me confidence...

In America, the police should emphatically not be viewed as a branch of the military, or as a separate military entity for domestic use. That way lies the demise of our freedom, probably quickly and certainly not cheaply in money or lives. The situation is not mitigated by the obvious readiness with which grand juries nationwide are willing to no‑bill law enforcement officers who may have committed crimes in performance of their purported duties. (We'll never know, will we, if no trials ever take place.). The people who put these institutions in place in virtually every big city in America (and not a few smaller ones) need to read their goddamned history! And they need to do it before we find ourselves living in pre‑W.W. II Germany. (Yeah, I know; that knocks on the door of Godwin's Law. Better that than a no‑knock raid...)

The other great loss, of course, is that of the wisdom conveyed by active public protest. (If you think there is no such wisdom, you've probably ended up on the wrong blog; maybe you need something more toward the right.) In my younger, healthier days, I felt confident in standing in the Main Street esplanade traffic circle in Houston, holding my own handmade sign or one end of a banner, with people of similar mind, demonstrating (word chosen advisedly) the nonviolent alternative to conventional wisdom to a public that might otherwise never give it a thought... the conventional wisdom always being "go to war, America!". For better or worse (I can see it either way), the groups I participated with were always orderly, never violent and on the rare occasions a permit was required (usually when we anticipated blocking traffic), duly filed for one. That was enough to keep us out of jail, though that was not a primary goal.

Today, literally any protest, however orderly, would be deemed "terrorism," and paddy-wagons full of protesters would promptly be on the way to jail or, worse, to a hospital to be patched up after they were beaten. Yes, by cops, drunk on the power conferred by all their new equipment and (inadequate) military training.

Do we want to have and keep the freedoms talked about by our nation's founders and fleshed out by many of our forebears since the founding? This is sure as Hell not the way to get to them!

M.D. Anti-Vaxx Nut-Job Doesn't Care If His Kids Endanger Your Kids: ‘Not My Responsibility’

Brendan James at TPM:

An Arizona cardiologist told CNN in an interview that went online Monday that he doesn't care if his refusal to vaccinate his kids gives other children grave, preventable diseases.

“I’m not going to sacrifice the well-being of my child. My child is pure,” Dr. Jack Wolfson said in the interview. “It’s not my responsibility to be protecting their child.”

...

[/sigh] Dr. Wolfson, put aside your Hippocratic Oath for a moment. Put aside every physician's minimal commitment to do no harm.

Rather, place yourself simply in the role of a responsible parent, and then apply the Golden Rule.

Finally, think about the consequences if you follow through with your threat NOT to apply the mutual do‑unto‑others rule... what will another parent whose child becomes gravely or terminally ill because of your indifference be justified in doing in response?

How about... PICKING UP A SHOVEL AND BASHING YOUR GOD‑DAMNED BRAINS OUT, DOCTOR? I'd probably vote to acquit if I were on that jury...

I'm not arguing for that action and I certainly would not undertake it myself; people who know me well think I am a pretty peaceable guy... but that possible consequence is very real. Does it change anything for you? If you don't care about the other parent's kids' wellbeing, do you at least care about that possible outcome?

I've occasionally run across the anti-vaxx argument that not vaccinating kids is actually better for the kids. (Dr. Wolfson offers a version of the same argument.) This changes nothing. People have a right in America to believe things that are merely incorrect, things that are flagrantly in contradiction of well‑established facts, even things that are full‑blown bat‑sh!t crazy... but their right to act against other people based on those beliefs is still limited by law. Get over it, folks; we live under a government of laws, not a government of (possibly crack‑brained) individuals.

Eugene Robinson: ‘What Is The GOP Thinking?’

Please read his WaPo op-ed. There are several things he presents that I haven't seen explicitly said elsewhere. Here's a tiny sample:

...

At least there are some in the [Republican] party who recognize how much trouble Republicans make for themselves by breaking the armistice in the culture wars and launching battles that cannot be won. It looks as if the nation will have to stand by until GOP realists and ideologues reach some sort of understanding, which may take some time.

...

Indeed. There's scarcely any point in getting worked up about all the stunts the GOP is pulling this week. The only one that might have real consequences is McConnell's threat to eliminate the possibility of filibustering a Supreme Court nominee, and it's not clear to me that he would win that one hands-down.

Robinson again:

...

You might think the [anti-abortion] demonstrators already had reason to cheer. The abortion rate is at “historic lows,” having dropped by 13 percent in the decade between 2002 and 2011, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The main reason is that there are fewer unwanted pregnancies, which suggests logically that if Republicans really want to reduce abortion, what they should do is work to increase access to birth control.

...

Every time I've pointed this out to a rank-and-file Republican, s/he has waved hands in the air and ranted about some other imaginary cause for the reduction in the number of abortions. I know people need to pat themselves on the back for how effective their political stunts are, but American opinion on abortion in the four decades since Roe has been all over the map, and it's a simple fact that if you're not pregnant, you don't need an abortion.

Robinson:

...

At issue, apparently, is that, in making exceptions for abortions of pregnancies resulting from rape, the [failed House] bill specifies that the rape must have been reported to law enforcement. This restriction cannot help but bring to mind the grief Republicans suffered in 2012 over Senate candidate Todd Akin’s appalling attempt to distinguish between “legitimate rape” and some other kind of rape.

...

Republicans need to recognize... c'mon, it isn't that difficult... that any time they attempt to compromise a woman's ability or legal permission to obtain an abortion when she has been raped, they are only confirming in the public's mind that they, GOPers, truly are waging a War on Women.

The problem for Republicans is, as Robinson points out, that whenever they win big in an election, the entire radical-conservative faction of the party (and it is a faction; not all Repub's are like that) runs out and screams and shouts in its intention to punish not only Democrats but also moderate Republicans for their reasonable recognition that, one, some abortions are inevitable in a just society, and two, they probably can't force everyone to do what their most conservative wing would like. Reality is a b!t<h, ain't it, GOPers?

‘How Do We Save Roe?’

Wrong question, says American University government professor Chris Edelson. I agree wholeheartedly. If we wish to save an American woman's right to choose abortion, we'd better adopt a more constitutionally sound basis on which to argue it. (Sarah Weddington posited a similar approach in her book, A Question of Choice.)

Read Mr. Edelson's article, carefully, perhaps twice through. He doesn't argue strategy; we must adopt one appropriate to the task... but he does assert a simple constitutional basis, not in an implied right of privacy (always a dicey, nonspecific argument in constitutional terms) but rather as a First Amendment freedom-of-religion matter. Think about it; you may agree.

Bill Would Strip Citizenship Of ‘American Terrorists’

Digby, first quoting TPM inline:

[TPM]
Two arch-conservatives unveiled legislation on Friday to revoke the U.S. citizenship of anyone who seeks to join a group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Expatriate Terrorist Act, offered by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), amends the Immigration and Nationality Act so as to deny an American passport to — or strip the existing citizenship of — an individual

whom the Secretary has determined is a member, or is attempting to become a member, of an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist pursuant to section 12 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 13 U.S.C. 1189).

"I believe these American terrorists have voluntarily renounced their citizenship upon taking an oath to a foreign terrorist organization (FTO)," King said in a statement.

[Digby]
In case you are wondering why this is considered necessary, I'm guessing it's so that they can deny Americans their rights under the constitution. I would hope that it isn't possible to do this before they are convicted of anything (under the constitution) but once they are, I guess they could be sent to Guantanamo after President Huckabee expands it.

Great... you could be stripped of citizenship without even a trial. And seriously... can an ex post facto application of the law be far behind? An American citizen joins an organization, e.g., an Islamic charity; then the State Department (or FBI?) declares it a terrorist organization...

The Blind Bleeding The Blind

In this case, it's the morally blind depriving the physically blind, a child no less, of his one compensation that allows him to function in the world. Via Kos again, we have WDAF TV Kansas City (yes, damn it, it's Fox):

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two North Kansas City parents are outraged after they say their blind son’s cane was taken away from him at school by a bus driver.

Eight-year-old Dakota Nafzinger attends Gracemor Elementary School. Rachel Nafzinger said school staff took away her son’s cane as punishment for bad behavior on the bus and then gave him a swimming pool noodle to use as a substitute.

The school wouldn’t go on camera, but North Kansas City School District Spokeswoman Michelle Cronk confirmed taking away Dakota’s cane, calling it school property that was given to him when he enrolled. They said they took it away after he reportedly hit someone with it and wanted to prevent him from hurting himself or others.

His family said it was a way to humiliate him for misbehaving.

...

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore..."

I am not blind, and the good Dog willing, with today's meds, I needn't go blind the way my maternal grandmother did at an age slightly younger than I am right now. But I do walk with a cane most of the time, even around the house and especially out in public where the obstacles to safe passage are formidable even without hostile people exhibiting needless cruelty. And I am declaring emphatically right now: if you believe it is appropriate punishment, ever, to take someone's cane away, and you attempt to enforce your belief against me, I shall beat you senseless with it.

What part of the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual punishments" do these butterfingers not understand?

For people too ignorant to distinguish I provide an illustration:

Walking Canes

NOT Walking Canes