Musical Sanity Break- A Change is Gonna Come- Aretha Franklin

by Nomad

"I Wasn't Always a Conservative...."

by Nomad

Recording the Police: When Your Constitutional Protections Mean Nothing

by Nomad

You may not know this but you really do have a constitutionally-protected right that is routinely ignored by law enforcement. And worse than that, there's not a lot you can do about it.

Civil liberties attorneys will tell you straight up that you have a right to photograph and videotape any public official doing their jobs when plainly visible in public spaces. And yes, that includes on-duty police officers. 

The Interference Limitation

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) adds that it is perfectly legal and that right includes recording the "outside of federal buildings, as well as transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties."

Delroy Burton, chairman of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Union and a 21-year veteran on the force joins that chorus:

As a basic principle, we can’t tell you to stop recording. If you’re standing across the street videotaping, and I’m in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I’m subject to recording, and there’s nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording.”

There are some important limitations, of course.
In the course of recording, you do not have the right to put your life or the lives of others in danger. You cannot break the law in order to record, such as trespassing or disturbing a crime scene. You should not interfere with officers attempting to keep the peace in, for example, a riot or civil disturbance.  

The recording should be done in a transparent manner, and not in a surreptitious or covert way. If you record public servants without their knowledge, you could be accused of - get this- eavesdropping. Privacy laws protect the police too.

As Burton puts it succinctly "Record from a distance, stay out of the scene." As long as you are not directly involved, nothing more than a citizen witness, the police have no right to tell you to stop recording.

That's the theory, anyway.

The Forgetful Senator Graham and a Flooded Two-Way Street

by Nomad

When it comes to helping people in need, Americans have always been fairly generous. Austerity-obsessed Republicans  however sometimes tend to forget what goes around, comes around.

The Great Flood of 2015
In the aftermath of extensive and deadly flooding in his state, Republican presidential hopeful Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is now making a pitch for much needed federal relief. The situation is pretty dire, from the news reports.

Some residents in the effected areas have lost everything. Even as the rains have subsided, the dangers are still mounting. Dams have been breached and other infrastructure have collapsed and rivers are still rising.
CNN reported yesterday:

Eleven people are known dead in the state due to weather-related incidents. Of those, seven drowned, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. Four others died in traffic accidents.

Local media is proclaiming the flooding a "catastrophe of incredible proportion."

The Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, declared the flooding on this massive scale was a "1000 year event." A risky thing for her to say. It's almost (but not quite) as if she is saying that the climate has changed. Or something.
She'd better watch that kind of loose talk. In the past she has received campaign funding from the climate-change denying Koch brothers.
According to one source, “The Kochs love Nikki Haley." But it is a fickle kind of love as changeable as the weather.

Greenpeace points out that the brothers have for decades been actively financing climate denial groups and lobbying against a federal and state level any climate change legislation. It's really not much of a secret.

As you might or not know, Senator Graham is- in his meek and hopeless fashion- running for president and with a showing of less than 1%, right down there with Jim Gilmore, George Pataki, and Rand Paul. 

If an effort to show off his leadership skills, he told Wolf Blitzer:

"Let's just get through this thing, and whatever it costs, it costs.