Welcome to my blog! I'm Victoria, and I love liberty, individual rights, and writing about politics, trials, and current events. Read more about me here.
For the third episode of his TV show, The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange got another impressive guest: Moncef Marzouki, the president of Tunisia. The main topic of discussion was the West’s double standards on human rights. Watch above or on YouTube.
Photo by Gage Skidmore
Although the Republican presidential candidate is presumably Mitt Romney, that hasn’t stopped Ron Paul supporters from scoring some victories. Massachusetts held its Republican caucuses over the weekend, and in many districts, well-organized Paul supporters secured victory for their slates of delegates (known as the Reagan Unity Liberty Slate), ousting the pro-Romney delegates. In total, the Reagan Unity Liberty Slate won 17 out of 27 available slots.
The delegates will head to the Republican National Convention in Florida this summer, where they will be required to vote for Romney on the first round of ballots because he won the state’s popular vote, but where they will still have a chance to influence the party’s platform and choice of vice-presidential candidate, and to support whomever they like if voting goes to a second round. Garrett Quinn blogs that Paul’s caucus victories don’t have much practical significance. But they are victories nonetheless, and a sign that the liberty movement is very much alive and kicking.
Seamus Light described his experience at District 1′s caucus, and the New American has a good recap of Paul’s victories in Massachusetts, as well as Louisiana and Alaska, as he continues his campaign against the status quo. Rob Eno also wrote a great post at Red Mass Group explaining why Saturday’s caucuses were a great day for the Massachusetts Republican Party.
This has been a busy week in various cases and trials that The Freedom Bulletin is following. I did not have time to post about all of them during the week, so here is a recap of some of the more newsworthy (in my opinion) goings-on that you may have missed:
The trial of confessed mass-killer Anders Behring Breivik continues in Norway. Last week, he described the massacre that he carried out in chilling detail, said that he would rather be executed than face the “pathetic” maximum sentence of 21 years in prison, and proclaimed that he has no regrets and “would do it again.” This week, testimony turned to a psychiatric report that called him legally insane, which Breivik strongly criticized, saying, ”To a political activist, the worst thing that can happen is to end up in a mental hospital. That would delegitimise everything you stand for.” Survivors of Breivik’s bombing of a government building took the stand yesterday, and survivors of his shooting rampage will likely testify next week. Time has an interesting comparison of the Norwegian and American justice systems as shown by this trial.
Pvt. Bradley Manning had three days of court hearings this week, which unfortunately did not go very well for him. Col. Denise Lind, the military judge in his case, denied a motion to dismiss the charge of “aiding the enemy,” rejecting the argument that the multitude of classified files he shared with WikiLeaks did not harm national security. She also denied a motion to dismiss four other charges for being redundant. However, Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, did win the opportunity to access government reports about the dangerousness of the leaked documents. Manning’s court martial is scheduled for September.
An anonymous commenter tells me that Alexander Pring-Wilson‘s civil case settled on Tuesday. This case involved whether a homeowner’s insurance policy on his home should be held responsible for the damages that were awarded to the estate of Michael Colono, whom Pring-Wilson killed in a fight back in 2003 (he’s always maintained it was self-defense). This week, the insurance company agreed to pay Colono’s estate, represented by executrix Cindy Guzman. This is a case that I’ve been following for a long time, and I am glad that both Colono’s relatives and Pring-Wilson can finally put this mess behind them and move on with their lives.
Sgt. Gary Stein was officially given an “other than honorable” discharge from the armed forces for creating the Facebook group, “Armed Forces Tea Party,” and posting criticism of President Obama. He vows to appeal, and he is also launching his own radio show. After the decision, Sgt. Stein posted on Facebook, ”Even though I will be discharged no one can take the title of Marine away from me… Today is just the start of the rest of my life. Semper Fi.”
Dominique Strauss-Kahn recently did an interview with Edward J. Epstein, who wrote an article in the NY Review of Books last year suggesting that the infamous attempted rape case may have been a set-up. DSK agreed with this sentiment in the interview and shared a few new thoughts and observations, which are interesting to read since he has rarely spoken publicly about the case. The interview is part of Epstein’s new book, entitled “Three Days in May.”
Lawyers for George Zimmerman disclosed that their client raised over $200,000 to help with legal bills via his (now defunct) website. Unfortunately for Zimmerman, this triggered a new dispute over bail, with prosecutors asking that his bond be increased, and a lawyer for Trayvon Martin’s family accusing him of deceiving the court by failing to disclose the sum earlier.
The town of Concord, MA now holds a dubious distinction: it is the first in the U.S.A. to ban the sale of bottled water. Over 700 residents gathered to vote on the issue last night, and the ban passed 403 votes to 364.
This is the third attempt to pass such a law, spearheaded by 84-year-old grandmother and environmental activist Jean Hill. The first time, the law was passed, but the Attorney General’s office repealed it (due more to technicalities than the substance of the law), and the second time, it was defeated by the voters.
Starting at the beginning of 2013, any store found selling plastic water bottles of 1 liter or less will be punished with a warning for the first “offense,” a fine of $25 for the second, and $50 for subsequent ones.
I agree with Concord resident Adriana Cohen, who told the Herald:
“These bans are very serious because they open up Pandora’s Boxes to allow special interest groups to ban anything. People’s freedoms get stripped away when this happens… I see the writing on the wall. If you ban one thing, you can ban anything.”
Concord did not (yet), however, manage to pass a much-debated leash requirement for cats. Yep, that’s right, leashes for cats. Read about the reasoning behind that one here.
As Congress is debating CISPA – the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act – the Obama administration has, surprisingly, come out strongly against the bill. Although not (yet) as high-profile or as widely opposed as SOPA or PIPA, CISPA poses similar threats to privacy. According to Tech Dirt and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, it would allow companies to collect and monitor basically any of your communications and share them freely with the government or with other companies, as long as they meet the very vague definition of “cybersecurity threats.”
From a statement (PDF) by the Office of Management and Budget:
“The American people expect their Government to enhance security without undermining their privacy and civil liberties. Without clear legal protections and independent oversight, information sharing legislation will undermine the public’s trust in the Government as well as in the Internet by undermining fundamental privacy, confidentiality, civil liberties, and consumer protections.”
I was pretty surprised that the Obama administration opposed SOPA and PIPA, and I’m glad that they have the same opinion of CISPA. It is a pleasant surprise that the White House values privacy and civil liberties when it comes to Internet security. If only they could have the same values about airport security, jail security, and health care…
On the second episode of his talk show, The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange hosted a debate of sorts about the right and left of Europe. Representing the left was philosopher and psychologist Slavoj Zizek, a former communist dissident who turned communist. Representing the right was David Horowitz, a former member of the Black Panther Party who became a right-wing Zionist. Watch it above or on YouTube.
The Internet is a great thing. It allows people to find information about almost anything without having to go to a library or bookstore, and allows people (like me!) to express their views who otherwise would not be able to. But that can actually be a bad thing, as many recent tweets about George Zimmerman illustrate.
Unsurprisingly, when Zimmerman was released on bail last night, hordes of angry, often not very intelligent people took to Twitter to proclaim things like, “Ima kill zimmerman myself,” and “I WOULD KILL DA SHYT OUTTA DAT ZIMMERMAN DUDE IF I SAW HIS ASSS,” and “Start Writing Your Will! Justices Has Not Been Served.” *
And those are among the milder ones.