Turkish President Erdogan Vows to Disobey Constitutional Court's Decision on Press Freedom

by Nomad

The Turkish president sends an unmistakable signal about his feelings on the Constitutional Court's ruling about freedom of the press.

In what would appear to be the clearest sign yet of leadership problems in NATO-member Turkey. the nation's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly declared his opposition to a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

The high court's decision- which functions as a Turkish Supreme Court- was related to two well-known journalists who were arrested in November. They were charged with publicizing top secret information about arms shipments to rebels in Northern Syria. 

The journalists, independent newspaper Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief Can Dündar and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gül were accused of revealing state secrets "for espionage purposes” and for seeking to “violently” overthrow the Turkish government. They were also charged with aiding an “armed terrorist organization.” 

A UK Guardian report noted that both Erdoğan and the head of the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT), Hakan Fidan were named as plaintiffs in the 473-page indictment. Turkish government prosecutors had demanded life terms, "penal servitude for life" for the two men. 

Suffice to say, these were very serious charges indeed.

The Heavy Price of Reporting News in Turkey

The timing of the Cumhuriyet news reports could hardly have been more unwelcome, coming just 10 days before the June 7 elections. 

The stakes of the elections were high. Held in all 85 electoral districts of Turkey, the elections were to decide the party composition of the 550 members to the Grand National Assembly. The ruling party, the AK, had had a majority in parliament for years, effectively allowing the president to rule by decree. 

The news proved to be a major embarrassment for the administration who at the time were denying all existence of arms shipments.

Trump's Texas: Where the Republican Party Will Soon Become an Elephant Graveyard

by Nomad

Texas has always been good for a few eye-rolls and bitter laughs when it comes to politics. In the last few years, the barrel's bottom went bottomless.
Yet, we may soon find that Texas holds all the cards when it comes to the results of the next election. And, that's really bad news for Republicans.

It must have been a daunting task for ProgressTexas to narrow the list of worst Texans down to only ten. Texas takes a lot of bad press for the Far Right politicians it has produced. Some of them have been extraordinarily embarrassing.

The list includes such people as Cecil Bell, Jr.- named by Texas Monthly as one of 2015’s worst legislators.
Bell became famous mainly for two things, wearing a cowboy hat and filing bills to prevent gay marriage in Texas. Of the 20 anti-LGBTQ bills Bell and other Texas Republicans introduced in the legislature, all of them failed to pass.
Not only a complete waste of time but a neglect of other more important responsibilities that did not entail depriving anybody of any rights.

There's Will Hurd from Texas' 23rd congressional district. He earned his place on the 2015 list for having "voted to cut education, health care, veteran benefits and, most recently, to let terror list suspects buy guns."

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick qualifies too.

The moment he took over the Texas Senate, he changed a decades-long rule to give himself and his Tea Party buddies more power to pass his horrendous priority legislation. You can thank Patrick for open carry and campus carry. He further abused his power to wade in on repealing equal rights in Houston — so much for local control — and he’s got big plans to cut health care for the most needy Texans and to legislate discrimination under the false banner of “religious liberty.”

As I said, ten is far too small a number to capture the full scope of the political recklessness found in Austin but it's a good start. Wait til you see who ranks top on the list.

Sanity Break- Kraak & Smaak feat. Janne Schra - Never Too Late

by Nomad

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The Powerful Can Do as They Please

by Nomad

Of Foolishness and Evil: Why the Life and Words of Bonhoeffer are Important for Today

by Nomad

The life and words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer underscore a fundamental truth: silence in the face of evil is a form of complicity and foolishness is a greater species of evil.

A Form of Liberation

When the Flossenbürg concentration camp was liberated by soldiers from the United States 90th and 97th Infantry Divisions in mid-April of 1945, they arrived too late to save the 39-year-old Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

As the Allied troops advanced, the SS authority overseeing the camps attempted one last desperate and insane measure. They forced the evacuation of prisoners to other camps under German control. 

In its final hours, the Nazi machine was folding in on itself tighter and tighter, trying in vain to cover up the atrocities it had committed.

According to one prisoner, "one man was left for dead for every 10 yards along the 125-mile evacuation route from Flossenburg south to the village of Posing."

One source provides more details: 

At approximately 10:30 hours on April 23, 1945, the first U.S. troops of the 90th Infantry Division arrived at Flossenburg KZ,. They were horrified at the sight of some 2,000 weak and extremely ill prisoners remaining in the camp and of the SS still forcibly evacuating those fit to endure the trek south. Elements of the 90th Division spotted those ragged columns of prisoners and their SS guards. The guards panicked and opened fire on many of the prisoners, killing about 200, in a desperate attempt to effect a road block of human bodies. American tanks opened fire on the Germans as they fled into the woods, reportedly killing over 100 SS troops.

Only two weeks earlier, on 8 April 1945, SS judge Otto Thorbeck had condemned Pastor Bonhoeffer to death by hanging. Without any mercy or objection, the death sentence was carried out the following dawn.

The order for the execution of a man of God had come from the highest levels of the Nazi command.