Coronavirus Shows the Vulnerability of the "Chinese Model"

America's would be dictator and China's dictator.

As Donald Trump - an admirer of autocratic regimes and head of an administration that is forcing out scientists and experts who do not support his climate change denying, anti-safety regulation agenda - delivers his State of the Union speech (I'm not watching because (i) I loath the sound of his voice, (ii) his remarks will be filled with lies, and (iii) there will be countless reports on what he said),  the health emergency in instructive as to the dangers of silencing those who seek to publicize inconvenient information and truths. By all accounts other than those of the Chinese government, the coronavirus outbreak was horribly mismanaged by the Chinese government and those who early on sought to warn of the danger were harassed and punished.    Indeed, the Chinese attempt to downplay the health emergency parallel's Trump's claim that Iranian rockets had not harmed any members of the U.S. military when, in fact numerous service members had suffered traumatic brain injuries.  A piece in the Washington Post looks who the Chinese government failed its own people and have put the world potentially at risk.  Here are highlights:

The “Chinese model,” as enthusiasts sometimes describe Beijing’s autocratic system for dictating policy, can look eerily successful — until you consider catastrophic events such as the recent coronavirus outbreak.

China’s response to the epidemic that began in Wuhan nearly two months ago shows some advantages of its police-state approach, and some severe disadvantages: Chinese authorities can commandeer resources to build a hospital in 10 days. But by stifling bad news and even arresting vigilant doctors, they create deep distrust at home and abroad, risking their ability to be effective.

Chinese people simply don’t believe their government. They know that government health data is suspect, just like China’s official economic numbers.

The public’s distrust of the government emerged in interviews conducted this week by an American business executive who worked in Shanghai for three years and who shared with me conversations with former colleagues there. These Shanghai residents expressed deep skepticism about official data, which as of Tuesday showed more than 23,000 cases and 490 deaths.

“I personally doubt the numbers are accurate. I believe there are lots of missing cases, especially in rural area,” said one of the Chinese residents. “I think there are definitely miscounted numbers as some people died before there were cases diagnosed,” said a second. “Don’t trust the official numbers,” bluntly cautioned a third.

This third Shanghai resident expressed a widely shared fear that the authorities didn’t learn from the SARS outbreak in 2003: “Seventeen years after SARS, they are still making the same mistakes, nightmare mistakes, that’s my deepest despair. From holding back the truth, to [inadequate] preparations for disaster, to [slow] speed of reaction. 

A dramatic example of how China’s police-state tactics backfired is the case of Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital. In late December, Li noticed cases of a virus that resembled SARS. He posted a warning to other doctors on Dec. 30, advising them to wear protective clothing. On Jan. 1, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau, the local equivalent of the FBI, summoned Li to sign a statement that he had made “false comments” that “severely disturbed the social order.”

Xinhua News Agency joined the public shaming of Li and other doctors who had posted warnings. . . . . Three weeks after Li had tried to sound the alarm, China declared the virus outbreak a national emergency. The Supreme People’s Court later denounced the arrests of Li and others and said: “Rumors end when there is openness.”

Xu Zhiyuan, a Chinese journalist who decried Beijing’s actions in suppressing the SARS outbreak, wrote later about the costs of such censorship. The Times article quoted his social media post: “The system is successful in that it destroyed the people with integrity, the institutions with credibility and a society capable of narrating its own stories.”

The financial cost of suppressing information and letting coronavirus spread in its early weeks could run to hundreds of billions of dollars. Goldman Sachs estimated in a forecast for clients Tuesday that a severe outbreak could reduce China’s gross domestic product growth in 2020 by more than a full percentage point. Already, Chinese financial markets have taken a huge hit.

China’s command economy, managed by a one-party dictatorship, has achieved miracles in recent decades. In comparison, an open and contentious democracy like the United States can sometimes seem like a losing proposition. But we’re now witnessing a striking reminder of the need for open sources of information and public officials who aren’t cowed by political pressure.

Xi thundered on Monday that Chinese officials who “lack boldness” in responding to coronavirus will be punished. Perhaps he will dictate that patients who don’t get well quickly will be jailed, too.

Liberty University’s "Culture of Fear"

Evangelical Christians - and far right Catholics - talk about "Christian love" and a supposedly loving god, yet the entire premise of their faith construct is one based on fear: fear of eternal damnation and fear of ostracism if one does not conform to medieval dogma.  Knowledge, science and freedom of thought are evil and to be rejected.  And as for loving others, it's the opposite of what one sees in reality where hatred of others is the most defining attribute of "conservative Christians."  In Virginia, two of the leading purveyors of this toxic form of Christianity are CBN/Regent University based in Virginia Beach and Liberty University in Lynchburg. Of the two, perhaps the more toxic and bigger blight on Virginia is Liberty where the reality is the opposite of what the name suggests.  As a lengthy piece in the Washington Post lays out, a climate of fear and censorship reigns under the rule of Jerry Falwell, Jr., a Trump supporter embroiled with his own possible dirty linen involving a young pool boy. Read the entire piece.  Here are highlights which suggest Liberty is the last place one should consider sending their child:

In my first week as editor in chief of the Champion, Liberty University’s student-run weekly, our faculty adviser, Deborah Huff, ordered me to apologize. I’d noticed that our evangelical school’s police department didn’t publish its daily crime log online, as many other private university forces do, so I searched elsewhere for crime information I might use in an article. I called the Virginia Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators to find out what the law required Liberty to disclose. But the public affairs worker there told the Liberty University Police Department, which complained to Huff. She called to upbraid me: Apparently, I had endangered our newspaper’s relationship with the LUPD. Huff and Chief Richard Hinkley convened a meeting inside a police department conference room, and Huff sat next to me while I proffered the forced apology to Hinkley — for asking questions. Huff, too, was contrite, assuring the police chief that it wouldn’t happen again, because she’d keep a better eye on me.

This wasn’t exactly a rude awakening. I’d spent the previous three years watching the university administration, led by President Jerry Falwell Jr. (who took a very micromanaging interest), meddle in our coverage, revise controversial op-eds and protect its image by stripping damning facts from our stories. Still, I stuck around. I thought that if I wrote with discretion and kept my head down, I could one day win enough trust from the university to protect the integrity of our journalism.

Instead, when my team took over that fall of 2017, we encountered an “oversight” system — read: a censorship regime — that required us to send every story to Falwell’s assistant for review. Any administrator or professor who appeared in an article had editing authority over any part of the article; they added and deleted whatever they wanted. Falwell called our newsroom on multiple occasions to direct our coverage personally.

Eventually I quit, and the School of Communication decided not to replace me, turning the paper into a faculty-run, student-written organ and seizing complete control of its content. Student journalists must now sign a nondisclosure agreement that forbids them from talking publicly about “editorial or managerial direction, oversight decisions or information designated as privileged or confidential.” The form also states that the students understand they are “privileged” to receive “thoughts, opinions, and other statements” from university administrators.

It was one example of an infrastructure of thought-control that Falwell and his lieutenants have introduced into every aspect of Liberty University life. Faculty, staff and students on the Lynchburg, Va., campus have learned that it’s a sin to challenge the sacrosanct status of the school or its leaders, who mete out punishments for dissenting opinions (from stripping people of their positions to banning them from the school). This “culture of fear,” as it was described by several of the dozen Liberty denizens who talked to me for this story — most of them anonymously, to protect their jobs or their standing — worsened during my four years on campus because of the 2016 presidential election.

[T]he school’s methods became even more aggressive after Falwell endorsed Donald Trump early that year, according to multiple current and former faculty members. “The closer you get to the president’s office,” says former history professor Brian Melton, discussing a chilling effect on campus, “the worse it becomes.” Falwell’s staff now operates masterfully to squash challenges to his views and his rise in national political influence.

The dissent that did exist — from off-message campus speakers, insufficiently sycophantic board members, student activists and our newspaper staff — was ruthlessly neutralized. Liberty, founded on principles of fundamental Christianity, is now a place that has zero tolerance for new questions and ideas. Those who harbor them must remain silent, or leave.

One cause of perpetual insecurity at Liberty is the school’s militant refusal to award tenure to any faculty member (outside the law school, which must offer it for accreditation). Instructors are instead hired on year-to-year contracts; during the spring semester, they find out whether they will be coming back the next fall.

The result is constant, erratic faculty turnover. One recently fired teacher describes the spring as a cycle of stressed-out, fearful professors wandering into each other’s offices to ask if they had their contracts renewed yet. “If you’re a conservative Christian in the academic world, the chances of you getting a job are nil in many areas,” says Melton, who worked at Liberty as an associate professor for 15 years before resigning because of what he described as the school’s surveillance and fear tactics. “The administration knows that, and . . . they wield that very effectively, keeping people quiet.”

Late-notice faculty removals have also become more commonplace, according to Melton, stemming in part from Falwell’s stated desire to tame the teaching corps. . . . This June, a dozen faculty members at Liberty’s School of Divinity were notified that their contracts would not be renewed. By that late in the year, it is too late to find another job in higher education for the fall.

For former faculty members, Liberty’s culture of fear can live on. The school often requires terminated professors to sign a nondisclosure agreement if they want their severance packages, several told me — a practice that is extremely uncommon in higher education, according to Robert Bezemek, a California lawyer who represents labor unions at universities. (As Melton puts it, “They force this NDA on you by leveraging the ability to feed your family against you.”) Even former teachers who hadn’t signed NDAs told me they feared that talking to me on the record would somehow get them blacklisted from jobs elsewhere or imperil their friends who still work at Liberty.

Another onetime instructor declined to use his university-issued laptop because he thought Liberty had equipped it with spyware.

There is no evidence of Liberty firing a faculty member explicitly for his or her political beliefs, but everyone I spoke to believed that the school could easily manufacture some other pretense. “There is zero trust between the administration and faculty,” Melton says. FIRE, a nonprofit that fights for free speech on campus, put Liberty on its 2019 list of the 10 worst colleges for freedom of speech.

Things aren’t much better for the 15,000 students on campus. In 2009, Liberty withdrew funding and recognition for its College Democrats chapter because, as Mark Hine, the senior vice president of student affairs, put it, the national party defends abortion, opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, supported “the ‘LGBT’ agenda, hate crimes, which include sexual orientation and gender identity, socialism, etc.”

Student leaders have consistently helped administrators enforce the culture. After the Charlottesville rally in August 2017, members of Liberty’s Student Government Association drafted a statement expressing solidarity with Heather Heyer, the protester murdered by a neo-Nazi, and all people demonstrating against white nationalism. Then-SGA President Caleb Johnson refused to release the message and send it to university administrators for fear of what Falwell might think. . . . “There’s 100 percent an atmosphere of fear at Liberty,” says Caleb Fitzpatrick, who was then the student government’s speaker of the House and helped draft the statement. “There was a need to avoid being seen as a liberal or progressive, or even being different.”

Guests at the school who deviate from the prescribed philosophy can be targeted, too. . . . . The end finally came for the Champion when a left-leaning faith group, the Red Letter Christians, organized a “Lynchburg Revival” in April 2018 to protest Falwell’s support of Trump and what the group called “toxic evangelicalism.” Two days beforehand, Liberty’s police department notified RLC leader Shane Claiborne that he would be arrested if he set foot on campus.

I graduated last year. Since then, I’ve tried to put Liberty — and the stress and self-doubt that officials there saddled me with — behind me.

Homeland Security Will Collecting Data on Journalists

In follow up to the previous post and the growing dangers of a revival of fascism, Bloomberg has a piece reporting on a new operation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  In a move that could have legitimate benign purposes yet is also reminiscent of what the Bolsheviks did following the October Russian Revolution and what Hitler did during his rise to power, the Homeland Security will start collecting data on hundreds of thousands of journalists, media outlets and even bloggers.  While useful in identifying anti-American foreign efforts and Russian derived "fake news," the action is fraught with potential abuse.  Yes, the effort could be useful to even identify terrorist operatives, it could also be used to harass, censor or silence those simply reporting the truth and/or those critical of Der Trumpenführer regme which describes any critical pieces as "fake news" regardless of their accuracy and truthfulness.  A fress press is the number one threat to would be dictators.  Here are article highlights: 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants to monitor hundreds of thousands of news sources around the world and compile a database of journalists, editors, foreign correspondents, and bloggers to identify top “media influencers.”

It’s seeking a contractor that can help it monitor traditional news sources as well as social media and identify “any and all” coverage related to the agency or a particular event, according to a request for information released April 3.

The data to be collected includes a publication’s “sentiment” as well as geographical spread, top posters, languages, momentum, and circulation. No value for the contract was disclosed.

“Services shall provide media comparison tools, design and rebranding tools, communication tools, and the ability to identify top media influencers,” according to the statement. DHS agencies have “a critical need to incorporate these functions into their programs in order to better reach federal, state, local, tribal, and private partners,” it said.

The DHS wants to track more than 290,000 global news sources, including online, print, broadcast, cable, and radio, as well as trade and industry publications, local, national and international outlets, and social media, according to the documents. It also wants the ability to track media coverage in more than 100 languages including Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, with instant translation of articles into English.

The request comes amid heightened concern about accuracy in media and the potential for foreigners to influence U.S. elections and policy through “fake news.”

The DHS request says the selected vendor will set up an online “media influence database” giving users the ability to browse based on location, beat, and type of influence. For each influencer found, “present contact details and any other information that could be relevant, including publications this influencer writes for, and an overview of the previous coverage published by the media influencer.”

A department spokesman didn’t immediately return a phone call and email seeking comment.

I have no faith in the current Trump/Pence regime not to put such information to nefarious uses.

The First Amendment Will Not Protect the Press from Trump

One of the first things that dictators do is to legitimize the press - before taking control of it. Controlling the press and/or neutralizing it in the eyes of many is key to assuming dictatorial power and controlling the populace.  One need only look at the situation of the press in Putin's Russia or China to see the model that Trump seeks to inflict on America.  When Kellyanne "Goebbels" Conway spoke of "alternate facts" she was speaking of lies.  Anything that undermines "Dear Leader" will be countered with "alternate facts" regardless of their deliberate untruthfulness.  Some Republicans such as Lindsey Graham see the danger ahead.  Most sadly, either are remaining quite and participating in the lies through their silence or, worse, many are joining in with Der Fuhrer and seeking to deceive the American public.  A column in the New York Times looks at the increasing danger.  Here are excerpts:

When President Trump declared on Saturday that reporters are “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” it was not the first time he had disparaged the press. Nor was it out of character when, later that same day, his press secretary threatened “to hold the press accountable” for reporting truthful information that was unflattering to Mr. Trump. Episodes like these have become all too common in recent weeks. So it’s comforting to know that the Constitution serves as a reliable stronghold against Mr. Trump’s assault on the press.

Except that it doesn’t. The truth is, legal protections for press freedom are far feebler than you may think. Even more worrisome, they have been weakening in recent years.

The First Amendment provides only limited protection for the press. Over the centuries, courts have affirmed that it prohibits government censorship and offers some protection against defamation lawsuits. But journalists themselves have few constitutional rights when it comes to matters such as access to government sources and documents, or protection from being hounded by those in power for their news gathering and reporting.

There are some legal protections, but the press also relies on nonlegal safeguards. In the past, these have included the institutional media’s relative financial strength; the good will of the public; a mutually dependent relationship with government officials; the support of sympathetic judges; and political norms and traditions.

[T]he public’s good will, which long sustained the freedom of the press in America, has evaporated. In the 1970s, nearly three-quarters of Americans reported they trusted the news media, and the press was able to translate this support into substantial opportunities for news gathering: People who trusted the media were more likely to bring them leads and to demand that the press be allowed to cover newsworthy events. Today, however, public confidence in the press has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history.

As for the relationship between the press and government officials, that too has changed. Until recently, the press relied on politicians for access to information while politicians relied on the press for access to the public’s ear. This ensured that government officials would never shut out the press entirely. But with the fragmentation of the news industry, this is less true; the established news media can no longer claim to be the primary source of the public’s information.

In addition, the courts cannot be relied on — at least not as they once could be — for forceful protection of press liberties. The Supreme Court has not decided a major press case in more than a decade, in part because it has declined to do so, and in part because media companies, inferring the court’s relative lack of interest, have decided not to waste their resources pressing cases.

As each of these press-freedom pillars weakens, the one remaining pillar must bear more than its share of the weight. It’s the one, however, that President Trump now seems most keen to destroy: tradition.

It is primarily customs and traditions, not laws, that guarantee that members of the White House press corps have access to the workings of the executive branch.

This is why we should be alarmed when Mr. Trump, defying tradition, vilifies media institutions, attacks reporters by name and refuses to take questions from those whose coverage he dislikes. Or when he decides not to let reporters travel with him on his plane, or fails to inform them when he goes out in public. Or when he suggests he might evict the White House press corps from the West Wing and have his administration, rather than the White House Correspondents Association, determine who gets allowed to attend briefings.

We cannot simply sit back and expect that the First Amendment will rush in to preserve the press, and with it our right to know. Like so much of our democracy, the freedom of the press is only as strong as we, the public, demand it to be.

With far too many Americans complacent about protecting their own rights much less freedom of the press, those of us not already brainwashed by Fox News and/or Breitbart need to be very afraid and bestir ourselves to oppose Trump and his attempts to destroy the press with utmost vigor. If the press is muzzled, our right to freedom of speech will be the next target.  

Fauquier County, Virginia High School - What’s So Scary About Two Boys Kissing?

Fauquier County High School

My late father often said that Virginia could be an amazing state but for some of its residents who think small, embrace ignorance, and try to move the state backwards in time.  In many ways, the problem continues to haunt the state today, especially in rural areas where being an ignorant, backward bigot is considered a badge of honor in some circles (think The Family Foundation and today's Virginia GOP).  A while back I mentioned a controversy that had flared up at Fauquier High School located on the southern edge of Northern Virginia where a mother was having a cow because the high school library contained a book entitled "Two Boys Kissing."  The Amazon.com synopsis of the book reads as follows:

(Two Boys Kissing) tells the based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing (former) couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other.

As The New Civil Rights Movement reports, Jessica Wilson, complained to Principal Clarence Burton III that the cover of the book depicts a public display of affection, which are against school policy. Needless to say, if the cover showed a straight couple kissing, there would have been no controversy.  Thankfully, to date Wilson and similar thinking bigots have lost out in the effort to have the book removed.  Here are highlights:

Principal Burton assembled a panel of school staff and parents who reviewed the book, and voted to keep it. Jessica Wilson then appealed that decision to Fauquier School District’s superintendent David Jeck, who assembled a review committee to consider the matter. 

This week the panel invited public comment – and they got it. 

About fifty people packed the Fauquier’s “Falcon Room” where opinion for and against the book seemed evenly divided. Six letters were read from people unable to attend, including one by the award-winning author, David Levithan. Twenty-four people spoke both for and against the book.

Fauquier Now gave this rundown of the speakers:

Marie Miller, a teacher at FHS and the advisor for the school publication The Falconer said that she believes that those opposing the book were doing so not because of it’s lack of appropriateness for the students, but because it is a story about gay teens.

 

After all the speeches were made, the committee voted unanimously to retain the book in the library.

Jessica Wilson, who made the complaint, did not choose to make a public comment, but said she was happy with the turn out. She still has the option to appeal the decision to the school board, but I hope she doesn’t. I hope she listened to the back and forth and realized books and ideas are not things to be afraid of. Books don’t turn kids gay, and keeping information from gay kids won’t turn them straight. 

If you want to know what's wrong with Virginia, Jessica Wilson is a prime example as is Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation (and her fellow hate merchants) not to mention the lunatics of the Virginia GOP who jump to Victoria Cobb's whip like trained circus dogs.

 

Virginia Parent Demands Removal of "Two Boys Kissing" From School Library

While the urban areas of Virginia continue to move forward and embrace the 21st century, rural areas within the state  - and not just Southwest Virginia, although it is by far the most backward  region - race to embrace backwardness and knuckle dragging religious based bigotry.  A case in point?  A parent of a student in the Fauquier County Public Schools wants the school system to remove the book “Two Boys Kissing” from the school libraries.  God forbid her little darling be exposed to the horror that gays exist.  For non-Virginians, Fauquier County is southwest of Washington, D.C., and northwest of Fredericksburg, Virginia.  While parts of the county includes horse farms of the wealthy, other areas are not exactly what one would considered educated or open minded.  The Farquier Times looks at this effort to censor library content for all students.  Here are excerpts:

A parent's request to pull from high school libraries a book about the struggle of gay and transgender teens has triggered a public hearing on whether or not the book should remain available to Fauquier public high school students.

Fauquier County Public Schools has received a request from a parent to withdraw from student use the book “Two Boys Kissing” by David Levithan which is a part of the high schools’ library collections. A school committee at Fauquier High School decided to retain the book in its library collection, and the parent is appealing the decision to the superintendent.

The book's Amazon synopsis describes the story of "Two Boys Kissing," in which ". . .Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing (former) couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other."

In accordance with Policy 6-5.7, the associate superintendent is forming a review committee. On Wednesday, April 23 in the conference room of the school board office, the committee will consider the complainant’s request. From 1:30-3 p.m. the committee will interview the complainant and possibly others related to the decision to withdraw or retain the book. From 3-4 p.m. the committee will hold a public hearing during which time interested citizens may speak to the review committee concerning the subject. The committee will discuss its findings and render a decision on the same date. All proceedings on April 23 are open to the public.

A copy of the “Request for Reconsideration of Learning Resources” may be obtained from the office of the associate superintendent, phone (540) 422-7006.

For those who would like to share their thoughts with the Superintendent, David C. Jeck, his email address is djeck@fcps1.org , and his phone number is (540) 422-7020.  Meanwhile, whoever this parent is, I hope their knuckles do not get too bloody from dragging along the ground while they have their head up their ass.  If they find the book offensive, all the need do is for bid little Johnny or Suzie from reading it.  But for the "godly folk" that is never enough.

Russian Government Intimidating Journalists And Activists Before The Olympics

The parallels between the 1936 Summer Olympic Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games continue to grow.  One of the measures employed by Hitler and the Nazis was to shut down domestic media outlets that criticize the brutal Nazi policies and to intimidate foreign press officials into silence or  into publishing puff pieces that ignored the growing list of Nazi horrors.  Now, as Towleroad reports, evidence of similar efforts by Vladimir Putin's dictatorial regime are increasing.  Here are some excerpts:

News sites everywhere have been documenting the issues in Russia surrounding the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, including abuse of migrant workers, the health and environmental impacts of construction, and the rather severe problem Russia has with homosexuality. Russia's response to this dissent has been to try to intimidate and abuse journalists and activists, particularly in the lead up to the Olympic Games.

Human Rights Watch has extensive coverage of these abuses and includes accounts of the Sochi Branch of the Russian Geographic Society having its funding threatened, rejection of the Sochi Pride House, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on websites critical of the government and the Olympics, and several individual journalists and activists being threatened by government officials.
Rule 48 of the IOC bye-laws explicitly states: 

The IOC takes all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games.

Russia's treatment of journalists may wind up causing even more complications for the IOC as these abuses run directly counter to the bye-laws the IOC are obligated to uphold.

Here's more highlights from Human Rights Watch:

“Trying to bully activists and journalists into silence is wrong and only further tarnishes the image of the Olympics,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “One of the non-negotiable requirements of hosting the Olympics is to allow press freedom, and the authorities’ attempts to silence critics are in clear violation of that principle.”

Press freedom is guaranteed under the Olympic Charter, which has an entire section on “Media Coverage of the Olympic Games.” The IOC is obligated to take “all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media.” Other by-laws require that “media coverage of the Olympic Games shall not be impaired in any way….”

Starting in 2008, Human Rights Watch has documented the harassment and intimidation of activists, journalists, and others, regarding their actions and comments related to the Sochi Games.

“Preparations for the Sochi Games have been plagued with serious human rights abuses and other problems, many of which have only been brought to light through the efforts of activists and journalists,” Buchanan said. “If the IOC is committed to these issues, it should ask the Russian authorities to immediately stop harassing activists, organizations, and journalists, and investigate allegations of abuse.”

Some journalists told Human Rights Watch that local authorities sought to control negative or critical information about Sochi by pressuring editors to present Olympic preparations exclusively in a “positive” light. In addition, several independent online news sources and blogs that post critical materials about Olympics preparations faced highly coordinated, disabling denial of service attacks, where hackers rendered the sites inaccessible.

“Press freedom is a central tenet of the Olympic Charter and no successful Games can take place in an atmosphere in which journalists are afraid to report on stories of legitimate public interest,” Buchanan said. “The IOC should insist that the Russian authorities guarantee full media freedom for each and every journalist reporting in or traveling to Sochi.”

Harassment and intimidation of civil society in Sochi should be seen against the backdrop of the crackdown on human rights in Russia that has been underway for 15 months since the May 2012 inauguration of President Vladimir Putin.

During that time new laws were adopted restricting public assemblies, re-criminalizing libel, criminalizing religious insult, introducing additional restrictions on internet content, expanding the definition of treason, and banning “propaganda” for “nontraditional sexual relations.” A nationwide, government campaign to force nongovernment groups that accept foreign funding and engage in vaguely-defined “political activity” to register as foreign agents aims to curtail a broad range of work by independent organizations.

 All of these actions are reprehensible.  But they should not be a surprise.  After all, Putin is a former KGB thug.  Now we are seeing that he's changed very little from his KGB days.

Wingnuts: DOMA Ruling Was As Bad As Pearl Harbor

The hysteria from the far right over the DOMA decision earlier this week continues and provides yet further proof that the Christofascists truly do either (i) live in some warped alternate reality or (ii) need serious mental health interventions.   How else to explain the intense need they display to cling to very selective passages of a book written thousands of years ago by ignorant nomads and which biblical scholars agree contains many forgeries and irregularities that make it more then obvious to sentient individuals that it's anything but the inerrant "word of God."  Illustrative of this batshitery is the ranting and whining of Lisa Van Houten of the American Decency Association (yet another "family values" organization aimed at keeping charlatans employed and living the good life while trampling on the freedoms of others).  Right Wing Watch looks at Van Houten's deranged lament:

The American Decency Association’s Lisa Van Houten is warning that the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision “will live in infamy” just like Pearl Harbor. Van Houten claims that pastors will “be prosecuted for preaching” against homosexuality and refusing to perform same-sex weddings, people will be “charged with discrimination” if they don’t “embrace homosexuality,” anti-gay groups will lose their non-profit status, and, worst of all, America will face divine punishment.

As we look back on history there are dates which we now see were crossroads, turning points for nations and cultures. July 4, 1776; June 6, 1944. December 7, 1941; January 22, 1973. Battles fought, decisions made – some establishing goodness and justice, others are dates that “will live in infamy.” 

I believe today, June 26, 2013, is the latter. A date when the United in favor of same sex marriage, and undermined true marriage – one man and one woman – which States Supreme Court ruled was instituted, not by any government, but by God. 

The homosexual agenda cannot and will not abide peaceably alongside the true, biblical institutions of marriage and family as ordained by God. As the homosexual agenda is legitimized – even by the United States Supreme Court - marriage, family, and our religious liberty will be undermined.

Consider the following short list of what may be in our future :

1. Hate crime laws will be increasingly instituted and enforced. Will pastors be prosecuted for preaching what God’s Word says regarding homosexuality and refusing to perform same sex “marriage” ceremonies?

2. Homosexuality will be a protected class by the government. Christian school teachers and administrators, pastors, business owners, etc. could be charged with discrimination if they speak out against or refuse to embrace homosexuality.

3. Organizations such as our own American Decency could easily lose their (c)3 tax-exempt, non-profit status as we continue to call homosexuality what it is - SIN.

4. God will not bless a nation that puts a stamp of approval upon that which he calls an abomination. The evidences of God’s displeasure are evident and becoming more so with each passing day.

Item No. 3 is probably her biggest worry.  That said, one can only assume that Van Houten hasn't read her Bible lately - especially the Old Testament - or else she'd know that POLYGAMY, not one man, one woman is the biblical norm for marriage.  She also needs to read the Commandment against lying and bearing false witness while she's at it.  One has to wonder what these people would do if they had to get real jobs instead of making a living disseminating lies and shaking down the gullible and ignorant.  Van Houten is little more than a con-artist trying to hide behind a veil of respectability.  She and those like her deserve no respect and certainly no deference of any kind.

P.S. Among the things Van Houten's group rants and raves is the depravity of Glee.  And not surprisingly, it has some ties to anti-gay hate group, AFA. 

Lisa Van Houten

Lisa Van Houten