The president violates civil rights again!
In another move aimed at undermining any opposition, the president had a journalist locked up for mocking his latest state of the nation address. It's totally unbelievable - the kind of repression heaped upon... Russians.
MOSCOW -- Prosecutors are investigating a journalist for publishing an article mocking President Vladimir Putin over his call to pay Russian women to have more children, an official said yesterday. The article was published by Vladimir Rakhmankov, editor of the online newspaper Kursiv in the central city of Ivanovo, said Andrei Galchenko of the regional prosecutor's office. The piece poked fun at Putin's recent state of the nation address, in which the president called for economic incentives to boost the country's plummeting birth rate. Russian media reported that the publication suggested that animals at a local zoo had already heeded Putin's call and increased their mating. Rakhmankov could not be reached for comment yesterday, and his website had been shut down. Galchenko said the investigation was launched because the article ``contained phrases of an insulting nature aimed at the president." If convicted of insulting a representative of the authorities, Rakhmankov faces up to 12 months of corrective labor or a fine, Galchenko said. (AP)
So the next time a liberal whines about a government data bank that monitors incoming phone calls from known terrorists, offer them a free trip to Moscow where they can enjoy a life free from intrusion, hell, probably free from phone service...
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all he had to say was practice makes perfect.
Comment by elmers brother— 2006/05/25 @ 04:40 PM — (Reply)
Comment by A Conservative Realist— 2006/05/25 @ 04:44 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2006/05/25 @ 04:44 PM — (Reply)
I wish we had reporters with the balls of that dude.
Comment by Dugg— 2006/05/25 @ 06:01 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2006/05/25 @ 06:27 PM — (Reply)
ah amore!
Comment by elmers brother— 2006/05/25 @ 06:39 PM — (Reply)
Comment by A Conservative Realist— 2006/05/25 @ 06:44 PM — (Reply)
So, in Russia, the government arrests journalists for mocking them. Here in the US, our journalists are free to mock... they just can't actually do any investigation:
Or maybe I missed the part were reporters from ABC where "known terrorists"??
Comment by A liberal dreamer— 2006/05/31 @ 08:54 AM — (Reply)
So, in Russia, the government arrests journalists for mocking them. Here in the US, our journalists are free to mock... they just can't actually do any investigation:
Or maybe I missed the part where reporters from ABC were "known terrorists"??
Comment by A liberal dreamer— 2006/05/31 @ 08:55 AM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2006/05/31 @ 09:12 AM — (Reply)
Comment by Cate— 2006/05/31 @ 09:13 AM — (Reply)
No indication, true. But didn't I see something about 'slippery slopes' somewhere else? Thing is, we don't know what this administration is and isn't doing- they won't tell us (or even Congress). The little bits that we've found out have only come from investigative journalists. I'm not gonna get all hyper-paranoid, but isn't it past time that Congress do a little more checking-and-balancing? "Trust us" doesn't cut it. Like Reagan said, "Trust, but verify"
Comment by Still me...— 2006/05/31 @ 09:18 AM — (Reply)
I thought you said they weren't allowed to investigate?!
Congressional committees already had oversight of most of these security matters - there wasn't any problem until leaks to the press resulted in public outcry. IMHO these are political witch hunts.
Where was the concern for individual rights when Elian Gozalez was forcefully taken from his family? Where was the concern over WACO? People talk like this president does things with impunity but these programs have been briefed to Congressional committees and subcommittees - the Whitehousepresscorp is just miffed because they were the last to know and now they are spearheading the "big brother is watching you' campaign of fear.
Comment by Cate— 2006/05/31 @ 10:01 AM — (Reply)
All good points, and I'll be clear. I don't think this administration holds the exclusive rights on intrusion. It's slowly been building up since, oh, the Truman administration (and probably even before then). Each President, Dem or Rep, has to varying degrees expanded the powers they feel are inherent in the office, and Congresses have (to varying degrees) complicitly gone along with it. Watergate was the only real hiccup to this.
But it is true that a number of these programs have NOT been briefed to Congress, or those that have, were to only select members who were then under gag orders not to speak about it. Some secrecy is to be expected, but my own feeling is that it's gone too far in a lot of places. A screening list at airports? Why does the name "David Nelson", "John Johnson" or "Ted Kennedy" appear on this 'watch list'? Who created this list? How is it maintained? Is there a shoe-bomber out there going under the name "Daniel Brown"?
That story, by the way, was the most annoying for me. A Marine reservist, coming home from Iraq, wasn't allowed to board the plane because his name was on this watch list. A hero, fighting for our freedoms, is treated like a suspected terrorist because of a list that NOONE can seem to explain how it's created.
Comment by Still that guy— 2006/05/31 @ 10:22 AM — (Reply)