Did you know this about tear gas?
I can't imagine to whom that makes sense.
I'd say it's time we get that changed.
Don't you?
Showing posts with label ACLU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACLU. Show all posts
Monday, December 3, 2018
Did You Know This About Tear Gas?
Did you know this about tear gas?
I can't imagine to whom that makes sense.
I'd say it's time we get that changed.
Don't you?
Saturday, December 29, 2012
A Tea Party member, the ACLU and I all agree
Holy cow, who could have predicted this one?
I agree with a Tea Party member over in Missouri:
Drones raise fears of spies in skies
Casey Guernsey doesn't trust the government.
So the idea of the government deploying unmanned aircraft to patrol Missouri's skies terrifies him.
"It would be a nightmare scenario for me," Guernsey said. "It isn't far-fetched that we could see government agencies deploy drones to spy on individuals and businesses around the state."
That's why Guernsey, a two-term Republican state representative from Bethany, drafted legislation aimed at banning government agencies from using unmanned aerial vehicles -- more commonly known as drones -- to conduct surveillance without a warrant.
If it passes, Missouri would be the first state regulating drones.
"I don't want to see our state government get in the business of monitoring the citizens any more than we do right now," he said.
And the issue has brought Guernsey -- who considers himself a staunch, Tea Party conservative -- an unlikely partner in his quest: the American Civil Liberties Union. ---Now, if anything, Ms. Guernsey, the ACLU and the Missouri state legislature all need to go one step further and make this same proposal apply to private companies as well. Link: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/drones-raise-fears-of-spies-in-skies/
Monday, March 12, 2012
Kansas Legislators coming between Mothers/patients and their child
Radical, Right Wing, Republican legislators are at it again--still, really--with a new piece of legislation that would allow a woman's doctor to come between a mother/patient and her soon-to-be born child, if the doctor is strongly against abortion: "Buried in a sweeping anti-abortion bill is a provision that would immunize a doctor who discovers that a baby will be born with a devastating condition and deliberately withholds that information from his patient. ...[A] doctor who opposes abortion could decide to lie about the results of your blood tests, your ultrasound, your cvs or your amnio. Lie to you so that you won't have information that might lead you to decide to end your pregnancy or that might lead you to learn more about your child's condition so that you are prepared to be the best parent you can be to your child." Instead of solving Kansas' tax problems or working on creating jobs, these legislators seem intent, instead, on legislating morality to mothers and fathers who otherwise, in this scenario, would be lied to and then taken out of the decisions on the mother's body and the child's condition. This is both appalling and disgusting. And it's happening right now in Topeka, Kansas. This is what Kansas is in the news for, nationally and internationally. That is sad. And sick. If you are from Kansas, please go to this link to write Senate President Steve Morris a note, making clear you are against this bill: http://www.senatorstevemorris.com/content/contact-me. Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom/kansas-pregnant-women-little-lie-your-doctor-wont-hurt-you
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Republicans also now disenfranchising Military Veterans
More shamelessness from the Right Wing and Republicans. Not only are they disenfranchising the elderly of the country and Hispanics and poor and possibly Black Americans and other minorities but now, what with their limiting the voters with various voter ID requirements, it's gotten worse and its come down on our military veterans. Veterans want to know why a military service ID card is good under the new Wisconsin voter ID law, but a photo ID card issued by the VA isn't. Crazy, right? But that's your Republican Party for you. They don't want us voting. Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/willing-die-their-country-unable-vote-it
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The ACLU vs. KCMO: Are you kidding me?
After reading the fine print in the Kansas City Star yesterday, I see I overlooked that "the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said a court challenge was likely" regarding a possible curfew on the Country Club Plaza, because of the shootings. Right up front, I'll tell you, I am usually always (but not always) a supporter of the ACLU and their fight for our basic rights. On this matter, however, I have to say I come down squarely agin' 'em. I mean, come on, what's more important here, teenagers rights or their lives? If it's either letting them wander free in the city so they have their "rights" or letting them get shot at, I think I'm absolutely having them get off the streets after 9 pm rather than possibly being targets for some idiot with a gun. And it's not as though the ACLU hasn't got plenty of other, far more important and bigger issues on their collective plate, either. If they want or need something to "go after", then let them pick apart all the parts and wrongs they can of the "Patriot Act", let alone all the other goofy, probing, prodding the Right Wing of the country keeps coming up with to get into our private lives, in spite of their calls for "small" and "non-intrusive" government. If the ACLU goes ahead with this and files suit, then I say we demand they fly in everyone they can on their staff and everyone else they need, so they can guard and protect people, every weekend, ad infinitum, so everyone's safe--children, adults and otherwise. If they can't or won't do that, then I suggest they butt out and file no such lawsuit. But thanks, anyway, ACLU.
Link: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/15/3078819/curfew-option-has-kcs-attention.html
Thursday, March 12, 2009
I just got this in an email
And what kills me about this is 1) that one guy in here sings "my creed is equality" which is all well and good but I hope he doesn't think we have that yet, here in the "Land of the Free" and 2) I dearly, dearly wish we could all separate church and state, once and for all.
What is so hard about that?
Conservatives talk about small government but then want to throw in their Bible, into the mix. To wit: "my Bible and my Bill of Rights", they sing.
Oh, really?
I wonder if everyone knows there is an organization whose sole purpose is to support the Bill of Rights and they get heck all the time, for people wanting to go against them.
Know who it is?
The ACLU.
And don't get me started on "Faith-based Initiatives".
It makes sense. It's simple:
Government out of religion; religion out of government.
It should be a Conservative mantra.
If only we could have it.
What is so hard about that?
Conservatives talk about small government but then want to throw in their Bible, into the mix. To wit: "my Bible and my Bill of Rights", they sing.
Oh, really?
I wonder if everyone knows there is an organization whose sole purpose is to support the Bill of Rights and they get heck all the time, for people wanting to go against them.
Know who it is?
The ACLU.
And don't get me started on "Faith-based Initiatives".
It makes sense. It's simple:
Government out of religion; religion out of government.
It should be a Conservative mantra.
If only we could have it.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
More good news!
Between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) and the ACLU, it looks as though we really are going to look into what our government was up to the last 8 years, after alll, God willing.
It seems Senator Whitehouse was quoted as saying the new President may not "look backwards" but that he intends to examine what's been going on in our supposedly open government.
Now, news today from the ACLU that they may be getting the documents from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel on the Bush Administration's anti-terrorism policies.
It would be nice to know whether our own government has been operating within the law, after all, don't you agree?
This good news follows the fact that Attorney General nominee (who is, apparently, sure to get the job this week) testified before the Senate in his confirmation hearings that, yes, he thought like most of the rest of the free world that waterboarding is, in fact, torture.
And then there's this:
"Since Obama's directive on disclosure, Melanie Ann Pustay , the director of Justice's Office of Information and Privacy , instructed federal officials that they should process requests for records with a 'clear presumption in favor of disclosure, to resolve doubts in favor of openness, and to not withhold information based on 'speculative or abstract fears.'"
"In another indication that the ACLU may get its way, the nominee to head the OLC, Dawn Johnsen , has previously indicated she thinks that such memos should generally be released."
"Before her nomination, Johnsen wrote in an article for Slate, the Internet magazine, that the central question in the debate was whether OLC could issue 'binding legal opinions that in essence tell the president and the executive branch that they need not comply with existing laws — and then not share those opinions and that legal reasoning with Congress or the American people? I would submit that clearly the answer to that question must be no.'"
It seems that, all along, what we've needed to do was shine light in the dark corners of our government.
But with old "Tricky Dick" Cheney, that just wasn't going to happen--not on his watch.
But his time is over, thank God.
Links here:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/13/whitehouse-investigate-bush/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090128/pl_mcclatchy/3154778
It seems Senator Whitehouse was quoted as saying the new President may not "look backwards" but that he intends to examine what's been going on in our supposedly open government.
Now, news today from the ACLU that they may be getting the documents from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel on the Bush Administration's anti-terrorism policies.
It would be nice to know whether our own government has been operating within the law, after all, don't you agree?
This good news follows the fact that Attorney General nominee (who is, apparently, sure to get the job this week) testified before the Senate in his confirmation hearings that, yes, he thought like most of the rest of the free world that waterboarding is, in fact, torture.
And then there's this:
"Since Obama's directive on disclosure, Melanie Ann Pustay , the director of Justice's Office of Information and Privacy , instructed federal officials that they should process requests for records with a 'clear presumption in favor of disclosure, to resolve doubts in favor of openness, and to not withhold information based on 'speculative or abstract fears.'"
"In another indication that the ACLU may get its way, the nominee to head the OLC, Dawn Johnsen , has previously indicated she thinks that such memos should generally be released."
"Before her nomination, Johnsen wrote in an article for Slate, the Internet magazine, that the central question in the debate was whether OLC could issue 'binding legal opinions that in essence tell the president and the executive branch that they need not comply with existing laws — and then not share those opinions and that legal reasoning with Congress or the American people? I would submit that clearly the answer to that question must be no.'"
It seems that, all along, what we've needed to do was shine light in the dark corners of our government.
But with old "Tricky Dick" Cheney, that just wasn't going to happen--not on his watch.
But his time is over, thank God.
Links here:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/13/whitehouse-investigate-bush/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090128/pl_mcclatchy/3154778
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