A collection of opinionated commentaries on culture, politics and religion compiled predominantly from an American viewpoint but tempered by a global vision. My Armwood Opinion Youtube Channel @ YouTube I have a Jazz Blog @ Jazz and a Technology Blog @ Technology. I have a Human Rights Blog @ Law
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Dem Rep. Ellison: Obama should be ‘firmer’ on voting rights - The Hill's Video
Read more: http://thehill.com/video/house/307837-dem-rep-ellison-obama-needs-to-be-firmer-and-clearer-on-voting-rights-act#ixzz2XiOC3EMx
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Dem Rep. Ellison: Obama should be ‘firmer’ on voting rights - The Hill's Video
At the Battle of Gettysburg, choices mattered | The Japan Times
At the Battle of Gettysburg, choices mattered | The Japan Times
Saturday, June 29, 2013
American Mayors - Let Them Smoke Pot - NYTimes.com
American Mayors - Let Them Smoke Pot - NYTimes.com
Roberts Pulls Supreme Court to the Right Step by Step - NYTimes.com
Roberts Pulls Supreme Court to the Right Step by Step - NYTimes.com
U.S. Army Restricts Access To 'The Guardian' Website
In simple terms: If you're accessing the Internet at an Army facility across the country, you would not be able to access parts, if not all, of the website for the British newspaper.
The Herald reports:
"Presidio employees described how they could access the U.S. site, www.guardiannews.com, but were blocked from articles, such as those about the NSA, that redirected to the British site."
The Guardian, if you remember, was the first news outlet to publish leaked information about top secret National Security Agency surveillance programs.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Mayor Bloomberg: NYPD 'Stops Whites Too Much And Minorities Too Little' | ThinkProgress - "“Mayor Bloomberg needs a math lesson. The NYPD’s own data shows that only 11 percent of stops last year were based on suspicion that the individual has committed of a violent crime. More than half of the stops were based on ‘furtive movement’ a catch-all category that encompasses all sorts of innocent behavior. But perhaps the most compelling fact is that since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, nearly 9-10 of more than 5 million police stops were of completely innocent people. That is some truly troubling math." People like Bloomberg need to be heckled and followed wherever they go. Give them peace. Let them know how it feels to be harassed.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Least Action Heroes When it comes to passing borderline meaningless legislation, Congress is the best around.
The Supreme Court strikes down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and Texas wastes no time in disenfranchising minority voters.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - Political Comedy - Fake News | Comedy Central
A Watered-Down Vision of Equality - Room for Debate
A Watered-Down Vision of Equality - Room for Debate
Justice Scalia Hates Judicial Review, Except When He Doesn't
That is jaw-dropping. It is an assertion of judicial supremacy over the people’s Representatives in Congress and the Executive. It envisions a Supreme Court standing (or rather enthroned) at the apex of government, empowered to decide all constitutional questions, always and everywhere “primary” in its role.
Justice Scalia Hates Judicial Review, Except When He Doesn't
Four years ago, Ed Snowden thought leakers should be ‘shot’
Four years ago, Ed Snowden thought leakers should be ‘shot’
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
John Lewis: Supreme Court stabbed civil rights law "in its very heart"
John Lewis: Supreme Court stabbed civil rights law "in its very heart"
How to Update the Voting Rights Act
How to Update the Voting Rights Act
How to Update the Voting Rights Act
How to Update the Voting Rights Act
Windows 8 Update Failure Thanks To Apple Mac OS X - Society and Religion
Windows 8 Update Failure Thanks To Apple Mac OS X - Society and Religion
Supreme Court guts landmark civil rights law — MSNBC
The decision, announced Monday morning, invalidates—at least for now—Section 5, a crucial tool for fighting racial discrimination in voting, and comes at a time of rising concern over efforts to restrict access to the ballot box. It represents a victory for conservatives, and a blow to the voting rights of millions of non-white Americans.
“If the Court struck down or weakened Section 5, it would lead to the largest rollback of American democracy since the end of Reconstruction,” Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told reporters recently in advance of the ruling.
Supreme Court guts landmark civil rights law — MSNBC
China and US wage war of words over Snowden's flight from Hong Kong | South China Morning Post
The remarks from the Chinese foreign ministry and earlier comments from state media have underscored the strain in ties between the two countries since Snowden, who is wanted by the US government on charges of espionage, fled Hong Kong on Sunday.
China and US wage war of words over Snowden's flight from Hong Kong | South China Morning Post
Snowden sought Booz Allen job to gather evidence on NSA surveillance | South China Morning Post
Snowden sought Booz Allen job to gather evidence on NSA surveillance | South China Morning Post
Monday, June 24, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Nelson Mandela In Critical Condition
Nelson Mandela In Critical Condition
Whistle-blower update: Snowden lands in Moscow; WikiLeaker's Gmail searched
Whistle-blower update: Snowden lands in Moscow; WikiLeaker's Gmail searched
Syria Scorecard - NYTimes.com
Syria Scorecard - NYTimes.com
Saturday, June 22, 2013
For secretive surveillance court, rare scrutiny in wake of NSA leaks
For secretive surveillance court, rare scrutiny in wake of NSA leaks
Extreme Budget Cuts of 2014 - NYTimes.com
Extreme Budget Cuts of 2014 - NYTimes.com
Republicans Face a Choice: Expand or Expire - NationalJournal.com
Conservatives who think their party can prosper by opposing immigration reform are kidding themselves.
Republicans Face a Choice: Expand or Expire - NationalJournal.comFriday, June 21, 2013
The Guardian: UK Spying Scandal Even Bigger Than In U.S.
LONDON — British spies are running an online eavesdropping operation so vast that internal documents say it even outstrips the United States' international Internet surveillance effort, the Guardian newspaper reported Friday.
The paper cited British intelligence memos leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to claim that U.K. spies were tapping into the world's network of fiber optic cables to deliver the "biggest internet access" of any member of the Five Eyes – the name given to the espionage alliance composed of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The top secret rules that allow NSA to use US data without a warrant
Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information "inadvertently" collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target "non-US persons" under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.
As marijuana becomes more accepted --and in some places, legal -- a UCLA researcher has reexamined the question: does smoking marijuana cause lung cancer?
In the June edition of Annals of the American Thoracic Society, Donald P. Tashkin, MD, emeritus professor of medicine at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, says that light to moderate marijuana use does not cause increased lung cancer risk and that the verdict is not out on heavy use.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
How Snowden empowers China - Salon.com
New NSA revelations could give the Asian superpower bargaining leverage in future negotiations with the US
How Snowden empowers China - Salon.comThe F.B.I. Deemed Agents Faultless in 150 Shootings - NYTimes.com
The F.B.I. Deemed Agents Faultless in 150 Shootings - NYTimes.com
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Google challenges DOJ's surveillance gag order
Google challenges DOJ's surveillance gag order
Since this conservative Supreme Court has ruled that spending money by corporations is speech than clearly corporations speaking is speeech. Let us see what happens.
John H. Armwood
Actor James Gandolfini dead at age 51
Actor James Gandolfini dead at age 51
FBI Director Says Agency Is Using Drones Over The U.S.
"FBI hostage negotiators used surveillance drones during a standoff earlier this year with an Alabama man who had taken a boy hostage inside a makeshift underground bunker.
"Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) about what privacy protections are used in deploying drones and storing the images they collect, Mr. Mueller said their use was narrowly focused on specific incidents.
" 'It's very seldom used and generally used in a particular incident when you need the capability,' said Mr. Mueller, who said he wasn't sure what becomes of the images recorded by such drones. 'It is very narrowly focused on particularized cases and particularized needs.' "
All In : Bank of America employee: We were told to lie
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
All In : Bank of America employee: We were told to lie: ""
(Via.)
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Trying to Revive Mideast Peace Talks, Kerry Finds a Conflicted Israel - NYTimes.com
There is, of course, the bitter enmity between Israelis and Palestinians, hardened over decades, with many on each side questioning the other’s claim to the land bridging the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There is the deep rift between the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions that many recent reconciliation meetings have failed to resolve. And there is a cleavage within Israel over whether the two-state solution is desirable or even possible.
With Secretary of State John Kerry planning his fifth visit here in three months to revive peace talks, the Israeli divide was on stark display last week, as several right-wing ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government professed their profound opposition to a Palestinian state and promised to prevent one. While Mr. Netanyahu distanced himself from the remarks, questions about the sincerity of his recent pleas for peace resurfaced. Clearly, a dissonance exists in Israeli public opinion, where a strong majority supports two states, but only along parameters the Palestinians have roundly rejected.
“One of the tragedies of the last decade is that the security fears and pressures have dulled the Israeli conscience,” said Yossi Klein Halevi, an author and fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute here. “You come to a certain point where the disparity between what Israelis want and what Israelis believe is possible starts to break down. Given that there are no good alternatives, that’s a frightening possibility in the evolution of Israeli thinking.”
Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said there was a consensus in Israel favoring a Palestinian state, but not along the 1967 borders (as the Palestinian leadership insists); not with East Jerusalem as its capital (a cornerstone of every Palestinian plan); and not without maintaining an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley (which Palestinians reject as a challenge to their sovereignty). Israelis have also become more vigilant about security and less trusting of so-called moderate Arab leaders in the wake of the Arab uprisings exploding around them.
“There’s the idea of a two-state solution in the abstract, and then there’s converting it into a map,” said Mr. Gold, a former peace negotiator and Netanyahu adviser. “Israelis want negotiations, they want to see a settlement that addresses the issue, but they also have certain red lines that they don’t want any arrangement to cross.”
Trying to Revive Mideast Peace Talks, Kerry Finds a Conflicted Israel - NYTimes.com
Monday, June 17, 2013
Hardball: Faith and Freedom Coalition looked like 2012 GOP primaries all over again
This Arizona law clearly violated the federal preemption clause of the Constitution. Arizona has become the new Mississippi. Their crooked Sheriff just got slapped by the Federal Courts for racial profiling. What a pathetic group of people who can't stand that Arizona is returning to it's original demographic.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
The End of the Solid South
The End of the Solid South