Limited Tolerance for Intolerance: Westboro Church Protest in Oregon Ends Abruptly

by Nomad

Westboro Baptist Church is famous for its controversial protests aimed at attracting the maximum amount of attention. In Portland, Oregon, the demonstration didn't turn out quite as they had planned.  

According to the law, Westboro Baptist Church has as much right to free speech- no matter how abhorrent and mean-spirited- as anyone else. However, when members of the extremist Church showed up at a sporting event in Portland Oregon to protest gay marriage, they got a little taste of the free speech of other people. 

Several hundred angry people, actually.

Counter protesters showed little tolerance to the inflammatory Westboro message and a scuffle reportedly broke out between the two groups. After twenty minutes, the Westboro members made a hasty retreat.

The counter-protesters celebrated with dance party "complete with stage lights and speakers." 

A good time was had by (nearly) all.

Elliot Njus, writing for The Oregonian has the full story here.

If You Want to Understand the Basic Premise behind Fox News, Read this!

by Nomad

Benghazi 2.0 and The Republican Party in Action!

by Nomad

Nothing means success to the Congressional Republicans like last year's failure. They've just declared the wild goose chase known as Benghazi will re-commence and taxpayers can expect more time and money to be wasted.

Despite a definitive report which found absolutely no validity to any of the wild allegations made by Republicans, the GOP in House has decided to reconvene the Select Committee on Benghazi later this year. 

Using their majority, the Republican procedurally dismissed Democrat's rejections, by preventing any debate on the continuation of the special panel. Furthermore the panel was given an open budget and no limits for its work. 

As Yahoo points out, this one panel alone (there were at one time five ongoing committee investigations on this one event) cost "upwards of $1 million to operate last Congress, when the House voted to establish it."

How the Reactions to Charlie Hebdo Events Reveal Fault Lines in Turkey

by Nomad

Reactions to the Paris attacks on Charlie Hebdo underscore deep divisions in Turkish society where some say freedom of the press and freedom to mock are under attack.

A cartoonist for a Turkish newspaper Daily Hürriyet, Latif Demirci, cartoonist  gives his own take on the deadly Jan. 7 attack on Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine.

When it came to the events in Paris. the Turkish reactions revealed hidden fault lines.  Officially, there was widespread condemnation for the attack. Yet a certain minority of the 99% Muslim nation seemed to suggest that the cartoonists had brought it upon themselves for mocking the prophet Mohammed. 

According to an earlier Hürriyet article:

Two Islamist newspapers in Turkey have drawn ire on social media with their headlines that “justified” the deadly attack on a French satirical newspaper.

Facebook pages for one of the two newspapers had supportive comments from its readers. One particular comment expressed the hope the attackers would "continue [to kill] infidels" and gave "thanks to those who did it.”

Türkiye, another newspaper close to the Turkish government, chose the headline: “Attack on the magazine that insulted our Prophet.”

The headlines provoked a wave of public condemnation on Twitter. Many Turks accused the editors of the newspapers of “justifying a terror attack,”
.