May 18th, 2013 by Ed Brayton
The Obama administration has a terrible track record when it comes to pursuing whistleblowers and leakers, far worse than Bush ever had. But why are they going after the Associated Press so aggressively over the leak about the CIA operation in Yemen? No operational details were released and the AP even held off on the story and left some things out at the request of the administration, they weren’t being uncooperative when it comes to protecting national security secrets. Marc Armbinder suggests several reasons: Read more
Posted in Civil Liberties | 3 comments
May 18th, 2013 by Ed Brayton
Remember that situation a couple weeks ago at a school in Georgia where a coach and 50 student prayed together in his office for two hours as the students missed class? Things seem to have been much worse than originally indicated. The FFRF has written a letter to the school with new information from their investigation. Read more
Posted in Church and State | 27 comments
May 18th, 2013 by Ed Brayton
The Dearborn Arab International Festival has been the site of many clashes between the police and Christian evangelists who go there to preach to the mostly Muslim crowd. This has resulted in several arrests that ended in acquittals and lawsuits that vindicated the protesters and forced the city to apologize. But in one case from last year, a federal judge has endorsed the heckler’s veto and dismissed a lawsuit by a Christian group that was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after Muslims at the festival through bottles and other things at them. The ruling describes what happened: Read more
Posted in Civil Liberties, Constitutional law, Free Speech | 34 comments
May 18th, 2013 by Ed Brayton
In Ray Comfort’s latest column for the Worldnutdaily, he decides to teach people how to proselytize to gay people. He offers up this conversation he allegedly had on an airplane with a lesbian couple as the perfect example of how to do this the right way: Read more
Posted in Wingnuttia | 31 comments
May 18th, 2013 by Ed Brayton
You should read this. It’s a moving and disturbing story about Kamran Rizvi, who has gone from a political prisoner of the dictator General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan to a human rights adviser to Benazir Bhutto to an impoverished immigrant working at a gas station in America. It includes this story: Read more
Posted in Human Rights | 15 comments