U.S. District Court states that you don't have a First Amendment right to videotape police conduct unless you're actually challenging the police at that particular moment. Mr. Volokh is right to criticize this decision, but not necessarily on the basis of the ability to "speak effectively," although videotaping police conduct would certainly support any grievance you might have against such conduct. Rather, the Court seems to think your First Amendment rights only exist when you're actually using them, which is a real head-scratcher.
Tennessee's state legislature has gotten a lot of bad PR for its efforts to pass anti-gay "religious freedom" bills, and rightly so, but the legislature also plans to eliminate that state's interest and dividend tax. Which elimination would, ho hum, benefit only Tennessee's richest citizens (I mean, working families deciding which bills to pay don't exactly buy a lot of stocks, do they?) and would starve public services of up to $341 million annually, meaning a lot of draconian cuts down the road, after all these legislators have left office and gone to work for rich people. Gone to work directly for rich people, I mean.
Surprise, surprise, a ProPublica/Chronicle of Higher Education investigation reveals that for-profit executives do most of the regulating of for-profit schools at accrediting agencies. You might think it's common sense that our government should actually perform oversight at schools that want its students to qualify for federal loan support, but that's not the bold thinking of the right, the same bold thinking that lets banksters regulate banks because "only they understand the economy."
While we're talking about self-serving propaganda, Adam Johnson, writing at AlterNet, describes eight ways police "play the media." The consistent conservative would, I think, recognize "this job as hard" as a bit of whining -- I'm sure it is hard, but nobody puts a gun to your head and makes you become a police officer, either. I'll admit I've been taken in a bit by "the community policing myth," and although I remain sure police would rather walk beats and work cases than be smothered by armor and weapons, I concur that "community policing" does "frame() police as community problem-solvers in lieu of actual problem-solvers, like social workers, school counselors, etc." and that the term should describe more "concrete reforms" than simply "more police."
Finally, I know this has not been covered nearly as much as that surprise Trump endorsement from the weekend, but ex-KKK Grand Wizard David Duke says he supports Donald Trump for President. Unlike Chris Christie, who seemed neither thrilled nor disgusted when he endorsed Mr. Trump, Mr. Duke brings all the drama to his "non-formal" endorsement, saying that "voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage." By "heritage," I guess he means whiteness, and not "being a parasite on the economy," a heritage very, very few white supremacists actually share with Donald Trump.
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