MGx - Musings, Essays & Ballads

Bill Moyers address the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis, June 7, 2008. Presented by FreePress.net, full text here

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Washington State trooper confuses codes. These citizens have stood out weekly with a sign “Education not Incarceration” for over a year but this cop over reacted. Where have we seen that happen before?

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This is America?!?! Peaceful teens endure hate filled insults in Florida highschool . Evidently, to be an American
“We’ve worn handmade peace shirts every Thursday since the first week of school, without fail,” Skylar said.
But what started out as a light-hearted gesture soon started to be taken out of context. Students started approaching the […]

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Went for a 42 mile bike ride at break neck speed in an effort to make some sense out of this bill passed quietly in the House with only 6 rational dissenters. Our own Peter DeFazio voted yea by the way and I will waste no time finding out what the hell he was […]

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As of yesterday the FCC have yet to announce the meeting in Seattle, although the news media have picked up the efforts to relax cross-media ownership in competing coverage areas. While it is likely that the date for public hearings will be pushed back the Seattle location will probably stay the same. Groups […]

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As everyone knows by now there are peace demonstrations planned across the country including in Seattle, October 27th. Since September, ‘05 I have attended three massive marches in DC and countless local events and believe me attending a peace march can be a very energizing thing to do. Where else can you get together […]

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Joint Urban Operations Office at US Joint Forces Command held a Joint Urban Operations, 2007 last month in DC. Nick Turse has written an in depth article about it at Asia Times. Apparently, the Pentagon has determined that urban warfare is the future and are planning for decades to come.
“We think urban is […]

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Will Show New Film about AWOL GI’s in Canada
During the last four years, more than 20,000 U.S. military personnel have gone AWOL. A couple hundred GI’s headed to Canada rather than deploy to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. Gerry Condon knows what these young men and women are going through. […]

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In light of the tasing incident at Florida University and a similar event at our nation’s capitol reaction to the obvious restrictions on free speech have been loud and frequent. Yesterday, on Hardball, host Chris Matthews discusses 1st Amendment restrictions with Joe Conason and Media Benjamin and all three agree that our civil liberties […]

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Two officers denied access to General Petraeus hearing and one is tackled and has his leg broken.

This is what our troops are fighting for?

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This is ridiculus

UPDATE: Rev Yearwood’s leg was broken and he is now in a cast

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Adam Kokesh and Tina Richards, a fellow Marine mom, are arrested for putting up posters in DC. Her son Cloy was in Falujah when my son was in Ramadi, he is 80% disabled after two tours.

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The ACLU announced a victory today when a federal judge struck down a provision of the revised ‘Patriot Act’.

A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act’s National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers.

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Every Friday evening in Bandon at the intersection of Hwy 101 and 42S dozens of citizens exercise their 1st Amendment rights. For over two years I have participated, first with Women In Black (WIB) which hold a silent vigil on the southeast corner. More recently I have stood with Veterans For Peace (VFP) on the northwest corner where I often hold a sign which reads, “Refuse to fight a war begun by men who refused to fight a war”.

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This aired in March but is worth reliving as the Senate decides who should be our next US Attorney General. He gets in a few jabs at the democrats which will annoy my favorite partisan hack but I am going to post this anyway. As always, this is relevant to Coquille as well.

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