Russian Police Cracking Down on… Toys!

Like I’ve said numerous times before:  Putin is evil!

And, with a commie like O’bommie in office, America isn’t that far behind Russia in shutting down free speech:

- Near as I can loosely translate, it says, "President - Do Not Confuse the Interests of the People with Your Own Interest!!!"

Doll ‘protesters’ present small problem for Russian police
Police in Siberian city ask prosecutors to investigate legality of protest involving display of toy figures holding miniature placards
– Miriam Elder in Moscow – guardian.co.uk

Russian police don’t take kindly to opposition protesters – even if they’re 5cm high and made of plastic.

Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: “I’m for clean elections” and “A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin”.

“Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events – using toys with placards at mini-protests,” Andrei Mulintsev, the city’s deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. “In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event.”

Activists set up the display after authorities repeatedly rejected their request to hold a sanctioned demonstration of the kind held in Moscow to protest disputed parliamentary elections results and Vladimir Putin’s expected return to the presidency in a March vote.

Passersby admired the display with giggles, but police took it more seriously, examining its details and writing down each placard.

“The authorities’ attempt to limit citizens’ rights to express their position has become absurd,” said Lyudmila Alexandrova, a 26-year-old graduate student and protest organiser. “We wanted to hyperbolise this attempt and show the absurdity and farce of officials’ struggle with their own people.”

Think SOPA is Bad? Take a Look at the Treaty Obama Has Already Signed

And, to think, the Internet was suppose to be a place where you could exchange ideas and programs unfettered by your government:

Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA

White House bypasses Senate to ink agreement that could allow Chinese companies to demand ISPs remove web content in US with no legal oversight.

Paul Joseph Watson – Infowars.com – Thursday, January 26, 2012

Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was signed by Obama on October 1 2011, yet is currently the subject of a White House petition demanding Senators be forced to ratify the treaty. The White House has circumvented the necessity to have the treaty confirmed by lawmakers by presenting it an as “executive agreement,” although legal scholars have highlighted the dubious nature of this characterization.

The hacktivist group Anonymous attacked and took offline the Federal Trade Commission’s website yesterday in protest against the treaty, which was also the subject of demonstrations across major cities in Poland, a country set to sign the agreement today.

Under the provisions of ACTA, copyright holders will be granted sweeping direct powers to demand ISPs remove material from the Internet on a whim. Whereas ISPs normally are only forced to remove content after a court order, all legal oversight will be abolished, a precedent that will apply globally, rendering the treaty worse in its potential scope for abuse than SOPA or PIPA.

A country known for its enforcement of harsh Internet censorship policies like China could demand under the treaty that an ISP in the United States remove content or terminate a website on its server altogether. As we have seen from the enforcement of similar copyright policies in the US, websites are sometimes targeted for no justifiable reason.

The Death Knell: Tolerance of the Intolerant

Better put your Senators’ phone numbers on speed-dial:

Could You Be A Criminal? US Supports UN Anti-Free Speech Measure

Forbes

While you were out scavenging the Wal-Mart super sales or trying on trinkets at Tiffany and Cartier,  your government has been quietly wrapping up a Christmas gift of its own: adoption of  UN resolution 16/18.  An initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly Organization of Islamic Conferences), the confederacy of 56 Islamic states, Resolution 16/18 seeks to limit speech that is viewed as “discriminatory” or which involves the “defamation of religion” – specifically that which can be viewed as “incitement to imminent violence.”

Whatever that means.

Initially proposed in response to alleged discrimination against Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11 and in an effort to clamp down on anti-Muslim attacks in non-Muslim countries, Resolution 16/18 has been through a number of revisions over the years in order to make it palatable to American representatives concerned about U.S. Constitutional guarantees of free speech. Previous versions of the Resolution, which sought to criminalize blasphemous speech and the “defamation of religion,” were regularly rejected by the American delegation and by the US State Department, which insisted that limitations on speech – even speech deemed to be racist or blasphemous – were at odds with the Constitution. But this latest version, which includes the “incitement to imminent violence” phrase – that is, which criminalizes speech which incites violence against others on the basis of religion, race, or national origin – has succeeded in winning US approval –despite the fact that it (indirectly) places limitations as well on speech considered “blasphemous.”

What’s worse, the measure codifies into the UN agenda support for the very notion democracies now wrestle with, and which threatens to destroy the very fabric of our culture: tolerance of the intolerant, or rather, the question of whether a tolerant society must also tolerate ways of life that are intolerant – that oppress women, say, or advocate violence against homosexuals, or force strangers to marry against their will.  It is, in fact, this very concept that the OIC has long pressured Western governments to adopt in other ways, and that those supporting the adoption of Sharia law in the west have emphasized. Yet if we fall into that trap – as it appears we are – we will have lost the very heart of who we are.

Vanderbilt Suppressing Christian Student Groups

I am old enough to remember when institutions of higher learning encouraged groups to ask questions, seek answers and decide what was right and best for them. Looks like vanderbilt has crossed the line between education and indoctrination.

This was never about religion, tolerance or limiting exclusionist policies, this is about group think. Old vandy now gets to decide what you believe and why. Parents save your money and send your kids to a school that has values.

26 September, 2011, Fox News
Is Vanderbilt University flirting with the suppression of religion? Yes, according to Carol Swain, a professor at Vanderbilt’s Law School.

Specifically, Swain is referring to four Christian student groups being placed on “provisional status” after a university review found them to be in non-compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

Vanderbilt says the student organizations cannot require that leaders share the group’s beliefs, goals and values. Carried to its full extent, it means an atheist could lead a Christian group, a man a woman’s group, a Jew a Muslim group or vice versa.
-I didn’t check but I am guessing they have no ROTC program because the work your way up into a leadership thang would also violate their policy.

If they remain in non-compliance, the student organizations risk being shut down.

So what’s behind this? Flashback to last fall. An openly gay undergrad at Vanderbilt complained he was kicked out of a Christian fraternity. The university wouldn’t identify the fraternity, but campus newspaper the “Hustler” reported it was Beta Upsilon Chi. As a result, the school took a look at the constitutions of some 300 student groups and found about a dozen, including five religious groups to be in non-compliance with Vanderbilt’s nondiscrimination policy. All were placed on provisional status.

Among the groups threatened with shut down is the Christian Legal Society. It ran afoul with this language from its constitution. “Each officer is expected to lead Bible studies, prayer and worship at chapter meetings.” CLS President Justin Gunter told me, “We come together to do things that Christians do together. Pray, and have Bible studies.”

To that, Rev. Gretchen Person – interim director of the Office of Religious Life at Vanderbilt – responded “Vanderbilt policies do not allow this expectation/qualification for officers.” Gunter has been negotiating with the university and has taken some language out of the CLS constitution – including the requirement that Student Coordinators “should strive to exemplify Christ-like qualities.” But he says he has to draw the line at the requirement regarding Bible studies, prayer and worship.

He told me, “At the point where they’re saying we can’t have Bible studies and prayer meetings as part of our constitution – if we go beyond that – we’re compromising the very identity of who we are as Christians and the very thing we believe as religious individuals.”

Vanderbilt officials refused to be interviewed, and instead released a statement saying in part “We are committed to making our campus a welcoming environment for all of our students.” In regard to the offending student organizations, officials said they “continue to work with them to achieve compliance.”

-It is doubtful that even with a vandy education the officials would not understand why allowing non-religious people to lead prayers is about as discriminatory as asking the Jewish students to sponsor a build large ovens contest.

Obama Denies Boston Herald Newspaper Access to Fundraiser Event

The message is clear:  Suck up to Our Thin-Skinned Dark Overlord or you will be shot:

White House shuts out Herald scribe

By Hillary Chabot – Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The White House Press Office has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser today, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.”

“I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters,” White House spokesman Matt Lehrich wrote in response to a Herald request for full access to the presidential visit.

“My point about the op-ed was not that you ran it but that it was the full front page, which excluded any coverage of the visit of a sitting US President to Boston. I think that raises a fair question about whether the paper is unbiased in its coverage of the President’s visits,” Lehrich wrote.

[…]

“Newspapers don’t have to be unbiased to get access. You can’t just let only the newspapers you want in,” said Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles.

Exactly!  Apparently, Obama and his “psychophants” have forgotten their history; a plethora of America’s newspapers were originally created to foist their candidates onto the public. 

Hence, we have such great politically “unbiased” newspapers, like:  St. Louis Globe Democrat; American Democrat; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Log Cabin Democrat; Lonoke Democrat; Appeal-Democrat; The Mountain Democrat; The Press Democrat; The Union Democrat; The Daily Democrat; Herald Democrat; Tallahassee Democrat; The Star Democrat; Natchez Democrat; Foster’s Daily Democrat; Democrat and Chronicle; Muskogee Daily Phoenix & Times Democrat; Albany Democrat-Herald; The Tribune-Democrat; etc, etc.

I could go on and on!  Suffice to say, ALL newspapers have a political or ideological slant to them. 

Obama just doesn’t want negative press and is clearly abusing his position of power to censor opposing points of view.

[…]

The administration has a history of controversial clashes with the press.

The White House was seen to be at war with Fox News early in the administration, with its communications director calling Fox an “arm” of the Republican Party, while the president avoided Fox interviews until his health reform proposal ran into trouble. Since losing control of Congress, Obama has sat down with conservative Fox commentator Bill O’Reilly.

In April 2010, Bloomberg’s Ed Chen, president of the White House Correspondent’s Association, met with then-Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to hash out complaints about limitations on the press, saying, “In my 10-plus years at the White House, rarely have I sensed such a level of anger … over White House practices and attitudes toward the press.”

Last month, a San Francisco Chronicle editor reported the White House threatened to bar Hearst reporters from pool duty after a Chronicle reporter shot video of protestors mocking Obama at a fund-raiser.

Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who has followed White House-press relations at right-leaning Instapundit.com, said a pattern appears to be developing.

“It’s all about control,” Reynolds said. “At some point this will blow back on them. Most presidents behave in a more refined fashion. Experience has shown that acting presidential is good politics and to their advantage.”

‘Transparent’ Obama Banishes Reporter for Videoing Protesters at Fundraiser in SF

How’s that “Transparency in Government” working out for you?  How about that little thing called “Freedom of the Press?”  You can’t say that I didn’t warn these journalists even before the 2008 elections that Obama was going to throw their cherished 1st Amendment rights right out the window.  He does it all the time, and still the “psychophants” in the reporter pool continue to fatuously engage in administration fellation:

Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia
SFGate
The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.

White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.

The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times -shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

She was part of a “print pool” – a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues – which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as “pen and pad” reporting.

But that’s a pretty Flintstones concept of journalism for an administration that presents itself as the Jetsons. Video is every bit a part of any journalist’s tool kit these days as a functioning pen that doesn’t leak through your pocket.

[…]

The President and his staffers deftly used social media like Twitter and Facebook in his election campaign and continue to extol the virtues and value. Except, apparently, when it comes to the press.

So what’s up with the White House? We can’t say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.

Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was “informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter.” Which shouldn’t be a secret in any case because it’s a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.

What’s worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public. Really? That’s a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.

[…]

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/bronstein/detail?entry_id=87978#ixzz1Kw82ehi5

Free Speech Prevails in Sweden – Jury Finds Carl Herslow Not Guilty of Agitation Against Ethnic Group

Good news from Sweden! Let’s just hope that the Dutch kangaroo court will take note and use a modicum of common sense when rendering its verdict in the ridiculous trial of Geert Wilders.

"MUHAMMED WITH WIFE"

If you really must…CLICK HERE for the uncensored version.

Politician on trial for nude Muhammad poster

Published: 3 Mar 11 – thelocal.se

A Swedish politician facing charges for producing a poster depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad naked together with his nine-year-old wife was found not guilty by a jury in Malmö on Wednesday.

Carl P Herslow, leader of the Skåne Party (Skånepartiet), a small right-wing populist regional party, is charged with agitation against an ethnic group (hets mot folkgrupp).

The poster included the text: ‘He is 53 and she is nine. Is this the kind of wedding we want to see in Skåne?’.

Herslow admits producing the poster but contested the charges. He said the aim of the poster was to stimulate a debate about Islam, which he argued was incompatible with democracy and equality.

“The intention was to provoke a strong reaction among both Muslims and non-Muslims,” he said.

Prosecutor Bo Birgerson, representing the Chancellor of Justice (Justitiekanslern – JK) – the country’s top legal official, who is responsible for prosecution of cases involving freedom of speech – said that the distribution of the poster showed disrespect to Muslims.

Birgerson argued that previous cases in the Supreme Court showed that conviction for Herslow would not violate his right under Swedish law to freedom of speech.

“A conviction is important to show where the boundaries are for debate in an open and democratic society.”

The prosecution argued that Herslow should to be given a suspended prison sentence and for the posters to be confiscated.

But after deliberating less than an hour the jury, which are only used in Sweden in freedom of speech cases, told the court that Herslow was not guilty of agitation against an ethnic group.

As a result, the court cannot convict the politician when it delivers its formal verdict on March 16th.

ABC News Suddenly Notices Obama’s Fascist Control of the News

Yeah, it’s not like ABC didn’t already have a heads-up concerning Obama’s fascist control of the news.   After all, Anita Dunn let the cat out of the bag over a year ago when she famously explained:

“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. … We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it.”

Hey, ABC, how’s that “transparency in government” working out for ya’?:

Obama’s Media Machine: State Run Media 2.0?
White House Hones Online Messaging Operation Ahead of 2012 Campaign

By DEVIN DWYER – ABCNews

As the 2012 presidential campaign kicks into gear, President Obama’s White House media operation is demonstrating an unprecedented ability to broadcast its message through social media and the Internet, at times doing an end-run around the traditional press.

The White House Press Office now not only produces a website, blog, YouTube channel, Flickr photo stream, and Facebook and Twitter profiles, but also a mix of daily video programming, including live coverage of the president’s appearances and news-like shows that highlight his accomplishments.

[…]

But while these innovative communications tools ostensibly offer greater transparency and openness, critics say they have come at a troublesome expense: less accountability of the administration by the independent, mainstream press.

Over the past few months, as White House cameras have been granted free reign behind the scenes, officials have blocked broadcast news outlets from events traditionally open to coverage and limited opportunities to publicly question the president himself.

Obama’s recent signing of the historic New START treaty with Russia and his post-State of the Union cabinet meeting, for example, were both closed to reporters in a break with tradition. And during a recent question and answer session with the president and visiting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the White House imposed an unusual limit of just one question each from the U.S. and Canadian press corps.

“The administration has narrowed access by the mainstream media to an unprecedented extent,” said ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton, who has covered seven administrations. “Access here has shriveled.”

Members of the press have always had quibbles with White House media strategies, calling cut-backs in access an affront to transparency, even as administration officials insist they’re simply taking advantage of new technologies.

But some say the current dynamic is different, and dangerous.

“They’re opening the door to kicking the press out of historic events, and opening the door to having a very filtered format for which they give the American public information that doesn’t have any criticism allowed,” said University of Minnesota journalism professor and political communication analyst Heather LaMarre.

[…]

“If Nixon had announced he was going to start the ‘Nixon channel’ and said they were only going to put up stuff he approved of, people would have said, ‘Oh my God, this is like Communist Russian state media,'” said David Perlmutter, director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

“But now social media have a friendly face on them, so these media tools are not seen by the public — particularly younger Americans — as some sort of power grab by the president or government,” he said. “They’re just modern ways of reaching out and communicating.”

[…]

And the Overton Window moves even further to the Left…

Our government sucks

Even though it seems to be missed by our own government, I realize that there are multiple groups attacking islamic countries and for multiple reasons. Egypt and Tunisia are not anomalies.

As young men are worked into killing frenzies by corrupt muslim sheiks and imams, they are standing right by people wanting jobs, freedom of choice and politicians that work for the people. That last goal mirrors what Americans want. Not relevant to my main point but I needed to rant.

Since our own country fell, we have seen attacks by corrupt leaders on our basic freedoms:

Free speech; including TV, Radio, News and now the net itself. Our politicians want everyone but Americans to have the ability to discuss current affairs unencumbered by censors. Our rulers are idiots; we built the net and can by pass their attacks on it.

The right to assemble; the tea party were verbally attacked for doing what our government praised the Egyptians for-speaking out. Our government has also attempted to silence Christians by why quibble?

The right to limit congress and judges; our government has used unelected czars to take over commerce, power and industries, we are no longer a constitutional republic.

Ban Congress not guns

By Ronin, 11 Jan, 11
As expected, some of our beloved elected officials (sarcasm) and non-elected political obama appointees (thugs aka czars) want to take advantage of the latest tragedy and push their own personal agendas.

Our leaders are cowards; they want to stop people from discussing and exposing their corruption, agendas and yet they still demand protection. They want to limit guns around them. Now, from a “protect me, I am a coward” standpoint that seems like a good idea. From a “what about the voter perspective” they have a lot of nerve.

A young Black male has a much higher chance of being murdered by a firearm than any member of congress, despite that, there is no bill being introduced to protect them, no funding available for lobbyists, study grants or calls for laws to demand that gunmen stay 300 feet away from Black males.

Although it might not be used to protect anyone, additional money to protect voters living in high crime areas might be available had we not-bailed out failing companies, failing banks, un-necessary special interests, political pork, governments that hate us and only God knows what else.

If we ban congress and or buy every American voter guns and ammunition, our beloved elected officials (sarcasm) just might think twice before spending our money and refusing to respect the voting majority, our constitution and our rights.