7:50 am. July 14, 1939, Oklahoma City

by Nomad

All photographs were taken by Russell Lee as part of the federally sponsored Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic documentation project of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.

The Party's Over: Has the GOP Become Incapable of Leading the Nation?

by Nomad

It's becoming harder and harder to ignore the fact that the Republican Party is in chaos. Still worse, the problem is not going away any time soon. It's a battle for the heart and soul of the party. Some are asking whether all this insurgency and infighting has made the GOP incapable of governing the nation?

An article in the Los Angeles Times by Doyle McManus notes that despite having more conservatives in Congress than at any time since the 1920s, despite having control of both the Senate and the House, the GOP is a mess. Its radical minority has left the House with "no speaker, no cohesion and no strategy for turning its conservative agenda into law."

And, as McManus points out, they have nobody to blame (certainly not Obama) for this but themselves. The establishment Republicans have negligently allowed the extremists like Cruz and others to take control.

As soon as Speaker of the House John Boehner declared his intention to step down, he decided to blast the GOP radicals. calling them “false prophets” who misled their ever gullible voters. Boehner claimed that these firebrands purposely "whipped their people into a frenzy" with lies and false promises. Things, he said, they knew full well they could never keep. Like closing down Obamacare or impeaching the president over (fill in the blank).

Turkey in Shock After Bomb Blasts in Capital Kill Nearly 100 Peace Marchers

by Nomad

After twin bomb blasts rocked the Turkish capital on Saturday morning, many Turks are shell-shocked. and wonder how much worse will things get. 

Although the entire Turkish nation is in deep shock and mourning, for some of us this horrendous attack in Ankara yesterday didn't really come as a surprise.

The viciousness and the scale were however hard to comprehend.

 Violence, Tragedy and Insecurity

The double bombing at a little after ten on Saturday morning was the deadliest terrorist attack that Turkey has seen, Nearly 100 lives were lost and with hundreds more injured. There are, reports now say, something around 160 presently undergoing treatment at hospitals. The death toll is expected to rise since 65 of the injured are in intensive care. 

There were no claims of responsibility for the attack.   

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.