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• No Miranda rights, either — ''Get on your stomach or I'm gonna tase you!'" He asked them what he had done, but they wouldn't say. Instead, they asked him leading questions about other people they'd just arrested. "They said, 'so, who was in the white van you were associated with?" "I was like, white van? I don't know what you're talking about...."'
  
  'I asked him if he had been read his rights. "No, they didn't read me my Miranda rights at all. ... They cuffed me, and when I complained to one one guy about the cuffs being too tight, he was like, 'Oh yeah? Well, let me tighten that up for you.'"'
  
  (from pamshouseblend.com)
  2008-09-04 11:16:50
• 'Fascism In MN' — Like I said, we all knew free speech was gone. Just a reminder that that includes freedom of assembly, too:
  
  'Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.'
  
  (from correntewire.com)
  
  
  2008-09-03 10:20:56
• Goons in riot gear quash the free press at the Republican Convention — We all knew that free speech was history. Now we find that the press gets arrested these days for trying to cover stories:
  
  'Amy Goodman of Democracy Now -- the radio and TV broadcaster who has been a working journalist for close to 20 years -- was arrested on the street and charged with "conspiracy to riot." Audio of her arrest, which truly shocked and angered the crowd of observers, is here. I just attended a Press Conference with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and Police Chief John M. Harrington and -- after they boasted of how "restrained" their police actions were -- asked about the journalists and lawyers who had been detained and/or arrested both today and over the weekend. They said they wouldn't give any information about journalists who had been arrested today, though they said they believed that "one journalist" had been, and that she "was seemingly a participant in the riots, not simply a non-participant." I'll have video of the Press Conference posted shortly...'
  
  '...A photographer for Associated Press was also arrested today while covering the protests (h/t Edward Champion). An AP spokesman said of the arrest: "covering news is constitutionally protected, and photographers should not be detained for covering breaking news." Democratic strategist and CNN commentator Donna Brazile was hit by pepper spray on her way into the Xcel Center.'
  
  (from salon.com)
  
  Good thing we're so much better than the awful Chinese government, which trundled off all those people trying to ask questions about Tibet. Uh, wait a second...
  
  
  2008-09-03 10:15:23
• Gay-Bashing in Boston's South End — 'Fabio Brandao of Framingham pled not guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and civil rights violations in Boston Municipal Court today. The charges stem from his involvement in an apparent gay bashing in Boston’s South End in the early morning hours of Aug. 24.'
  
  Brandao was reportedly one of four men who drove by a group of four friends, shouted anti-gay slurs, then got out and attacked them.
  
  *sigh*
  
  (from baywindows.com)
  
  
  2008-09-03 10:07:46
• Homophobia at NBC — 'When asked why at no point during the coverage did NBC mention [upset gold-medal-winner and only out gay man to compete] Mitcham was gay or that his partner was in the stands, Hughes said, "In virtually every case, we don’t discuss an athlete’s sexual orientation."
  
  'When it was pointed out that in fact the network does exactly that by telling viewers about Olympic athletes’ various spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, and even in one case a heterosexual “love triangle” Hughes responded, "Not in every case..."'
  
  (from afterelton.com)
  
  
  2008-09-03 10:04:25
• Exxon posts highest quarterly profits *ever* for *any* US company — 'Exxon Mobil reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation.'
  
  Meanwhile, the number of applicants for unemployment benefits is at a 5-year high.
  
  Ah, the wonders of the Bush economy.
  
  (from biz.yahoo.com)
  2008-07-31 09:40:54
• Massachusetts House votes to repeal 1913 antimiscegentation law! — The House voted yesterday to repeal the 1913 law that disallowed people from getting married in MA, if their marriage would be illegal in their home states. Originally used for race-baiting, and then ignored for a few decades, this law was famously enforced again by then-governor Mitt Romney in order to keep same-sex couples from other states from marrying. (So much for people who argue that anti-gay discrimination is nothing like racial discrimination. If the same laws are used to do the same things to minorities of different types, well...) Since then, of course, marriage equality has become law in CA, and RI and (maybe) NY have chosen to recognize MA marriages. The state Senate voted earlier this month for a repeal. The bill now goes to Governor Patrick, who has pledged to sign in.
  
  Many thanks to MassEquality for their work on this!
  
  Update: The link includes the roll-call of who voted how, which I've had trouble finding elsewhere.
  
  (from massequality.org)
  2008-07-30 10:56:57
• A first-hand account of the shooting by a conservative American terrorist at a UU church in TN — 'In the minutes leading up to when the police arrived Jaime and I saw children with escorts looking for their parents. We saw children and adults with blood on their clothes. We saw the worst side of human cruelty we had ever seen. We knew people had been shot but we didn't know who...
  
  'While we were congregated together I noticed our friend. She is a transgender youth. She told us that Greg, her foster father, had been hit. That really hit home.'
  
  This is a pretty heart-rending account, pointedly demonstrating the naivete of assuming that all hateful acts of inhumane terrorism are committed by fundamentalist Muslims. Some are committed by white people who watch O'Reilly!
  
  (from outandaboutnewspaper.com)
  
  2008-07-30 09:01:29
• Barney Frank warns Obama about dissing the gays — 'Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told the Rothenberg Political Report Friday that he "would have a hard time voting for the [Democratic] ticket" if Sen. Barack Obama picks former United States Sen. Sam Nunn as his vice-presidential running-mate...
  
  'The Massachusetts Democrat cites a number of examples of what he calls Nunn's "real record of hostility" toward gays, placing greatest emphasis on Nunn's September 1996 vote against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which failed in the Senate by a single vote...
  
  'Frank argues that adding Nunn to the Democratic ticket would cost Obama support in the gay community and would make it impossible for the Massachusetts Congressman to be a strong advocate for the Democratic Presidential nominee.'
  
  (rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com)
  
  I'm glad to see someone as powerful as Frank bringing this issue up, and attempting to push it into the mainstream press. However, given what we've seen from Obama regarding gay rights - refusing interviews with gay press; choosing a right-wing preacher who'd formerly called gays murderers to be the key speaker at an Obama campaign event, where, nominally representing the campaign, he said homosexuality was a choice; refusing to appear with pro-marriage-equality politicians; and stating that marriage isn't for gay people - I'd be surprised if Frank's input matters.
  
  Now that Obama has announced his support for Bush's authorizing-unconstitutional-spying bill, it seems like straight people have started realizing he may not be the idealistic politician he sold himself as. I'm disgusted to see prominent so-called progressives like Atrios denouncing him on this, after they downplayed the pseudo-Realpolitik Obama demonstrated with McClurkin. The whole thing demonstrates that if you're willing to sideline the interests of the minorities that make up your base, you'll soon find yourself sidelined as well. That's something I thought progressives were supposed to understand viscerally by now.
  
  What concerns me is that these are the sorts of actions that I believe cost Kerry the election - not that middle America saw him as too far to the left, but that they saw that he wouldn't stand up for the left, and deduced he wouldn't stand up for anything. Which is precisely what it seemed to me, during the primary, that Obama supporters detested about Hillary. I don't think Kerry's vote for war authorization helped him in the presidential campaign. It certainly didn't help Clinton. I see no reason to believe that Obama's anti-gay-marriage rhetoric will help him - it certainly didn't win the White House for either of the last two people who spouted it. I don't think Obama's FISA vote will help, since it just plays into Rove's framing of national security as an area where the Republicans are always right. And I don't think choosing Nunn would be any more useful than Kerry choosing Liebermann. How many failures does it take mainstream Democrats to realize this? How many super-right-wing Democratic VP nominees who oppose the interests of the Democratic base will they choose before the light dawns?
  
  Grow a spine, and you'll win true cross-party respect - just as Bush enjoys, even with a 27% approval rating from the public. Demonstrate that you'll cave on any issue, and not only will your base detest you, your opposition and the undecided voters will as well.
  
  2008-06-23 16:48:25
• Police brutality alive and well in Memphis — 'Surveillance video of the incident shows an unidentified officer hitting Johnson several times with handcuffs wrapped around his knuckles, as another officer holds Johnson's shoulders as she tries to protect herself.
  
  'After being struck repeatedly, Johnson rose to protect herself and was maced in response.'
  
  (advocate.com)
  
  And it's all on video.
  2008-06-23 16:22:15
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Latest articles:

• Why I'm Not an Obama Fan — Friends, acquiantences, and strangers have assumed that I was an Obama supporter often enough that it's time for me to articulate why I'm not.
  2008-06-05 17:12:24
• We're doomed — MoveOn just endorsed Obama for president. I've got the same sinking feeling I had when it became clear that Kerry would be the democratic nominee.
  2008-02-01 16:02:36
• Upgrade problems: PHP and Leopard — After upgrading to Leopard, PHP doesn't work. It took me a while to figure out why.
  2008-02-01 15:39:10
• Flag Day Phew: Marriage Survives a Vote — On Thursday June 14th, the 40th anniversary week of Loving v Virginia, legislators in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention voted (surprisingly) not to put a measure on the ballot that would have allowed straight people to vote to change the Constitution to make marriage discrimination against gays and lesbians legal. (Got that all?) I tried to visit my Representative, and saw a bit of a circus.
  2007-06-15 18:20:31
• You all know that Rudy Giuliani has a thing for dressing in drag, right? — I assumed it was common knowledge that Giuliani, Republican front-runner for the 2008 presidential nomination, had a long record of cross-dressing - but I was recently talking to a bunch of people who hadn't heard about this.
  2007-06-11 22:09:16
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