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Week In Review: A Zygote Is A Person?, Eurozone Greek Crisis, NJ Gay Marriage, Internet Freedom

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 Eurozone crisis pushes Greece to form a Unity government, New Jersey court rules civil unions challenge may continue, is a zygote a person?

International

Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis Dominates Week, Greek PM  Prepares to Form Unity Government After Prevailing on Confidence Vote, Greece Could Return to “Drachma”

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou

In what could only be defined as an extraordinary week in Europe: Eurozone countries, the G-20 and the financial global community were completely seized with the Greek sovereign debt crisis. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, joined by Nicholas Sarkozy, President of France, brokered a 130 billion Euro rescue package in an arduous and protracted effort to rescue Greece from going bankrupt and vigorously acted in an overt gesture to calm roiling world markets.

Despite the heightened crisis, the G-20 countries failed to make additional commitments for contributions to the International Monetary Fund or to the European financial stability facility.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou responded to the rescue package by a surprise announcement that he would send it to voters before his government would agree to its terms. Members of Papandreou’s Socialist government, who were blindsided by his call for a referendum, immediately rejected a public vote, forcing a Friday vote of no confidence that he miraculously sustained by winning 153-145. But not before Berlin and Paris told Athens that it was withdrawing 8 billion Euros in immediate aid and conveyed that if Greek voters rejected the rescue package, Greece would be ejected from the Eurozone on January 1, 2012.

This morning European officials are urging Greece to form a Unity government to shepherd through a rescue package, that includes deep cuts, insuring Greece remains solvent and in the Eurozone.   Papandreou’s political future is uncertain, but in the aftermath of the no confidence vote, he said he would be stepping down to make way for financial minister Evangelos Venizelos to become leader. Papandreou was mortally wounded by his mishandling of this monetary crisis that has gripped Europe for months and weeks.

It remains unknown the extent of American exposure in the possibility that Greece would default on their sovereign debt. Neither the U.S. government, nor brokerage houses on Wall Street have addressed this question to date.

The political takeaway is that Merkel, the most powerful leader in Europe today, has indicated that the Euro currency is more important than Greece, and if need be, Greece could be forced from the Eurozone and a return to the “Drachma”.

The New York Times today notes small businesses are closing rapidly, and quotes one owner who says, “The politicians are playing games with the people … This city is boiling. I am not a protester, but soon the top on the kettle will pop.”

OSCE Representative Supports Internet Freedom, Tajik Journalists Freed

 

Dunja Mijatovic

Dunja Mijatovic is the Representative on Freedom of the Media for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the 56-member State mulit-lateral Vienna-based security organization (US and Canada are members too) that formed in 1973, serves as a mechanism to advance human rights in countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain. During the past couple of weeks, Mijatovic spoke out on behalf of Internet freedom for bloggers and activists Jabbar Savalanli and Baxtiyar Haciyev who have been imprisoned in Azerbijan for their internet activism. She called for their release on the margins of meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia on media freedom in the Caucasus. The Caucasus have been challenged and fraught with violations of media freedoms, both in traditional and new media fields.

“The emergence of new media has completely changed the way people communicate and share and receive information,” she said, according to an OSCE press release.  These new challenges underline the need to discuss how new technologies necessitate new approaches to safeguarding OSCE commitments regarding media freedom.”

In a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty  interview about the Azerbaijani bloggers, Mijatovic pointedly made specific reference to how freedom of expression should be defined in the age of new media:

“When I raise my voice for bloggers, Facebook activists, sometimes I’m told that they’re not journalists. I do not engage myself in defining journalism when I see that people are stopped by imprisonment or any other form of harassment for expressing their views freely. I think it’s my mandate to raise my voice and to ask for their release. This is actually the case with two of them at the moment.”

When this writer contacted Mijatovic last week, she was preparing to board a plane for Dushanbe, Tajikistan. She was making the long trip to launch a three-day workshop with government officials and journalists and also join a celebration with Mahmadyusuf Ismoilov and Urunboi Usmonov, journalists who had just been released from prison after she had applied pressure for their release. And that seems to be a developing pattern wherever Mijatovic goes–journalists are freed, a successful trend to watch.

National

Court Rules NJ Gay Marriage Challenge Can Continue

Marcia Shapiro and her partner Louise Walpin

A New Jersey Superior Court Judge ruled on Friday that a legal complaint filed by seven plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s Civil Union law can go forward for review that could ultimately establish legal gay marriage in the Garden State.

Judge Linda Feinberg said that same-sex couples don’t have a fundamental right to marry, but they should have a chance to prove New Jersey’s civil union law does not give them benefits equal to heterosexual married couples.

This lawsuit emanates from last year’s failure to adopt gay marriage in the state legislature in its last days before the new governor, Chris Christie, assumed office. Christie announced he would veto a measure to legalize gay marriage in New Jersey.

Garden State Equality for LGBT persons has challenged the equality of benefits which is illustrated in this video:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tnGjQKjIdaA%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

Herman Cain Leads Republican Polling, Despite Revelations of Past Sexual Harassment

 

Herman Cain denies sexual harassment charges

Herman Cain, the current Republican Party leader for the presidential nomination, was confronted two weeks ago when Politico.com broke a story  reporting that Cain had been accused of sexual harassment during his tenure as the President of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s that resulted in two women receiving compensation before leaving the group.

Cain battled back against the charges sometimes more effective than others during the week, but questioning of his conduct continued last night following a congenial “Lincoln-Douglas” style debate sponsored by the Texas Tea Party that disallowed discussion of the sexual harassment allegations. When journalists confronted Cain after the debate about the allegations, he refused to answer and said his campaign “was going back on message,” and directed his chief of staff to give a copy of a “journalistic code of ethics” to journalists who attempted question him. Takeaway political message during these events is that women’s allegations of sexual harassment are not serious matters of character for Republicans. Republican women voters take note.

Mississippi Poised to Vote on Law Declaring  a Fertilized Egg a “Person” 

Human Embryo

Voters in the State of Mississippi will have the opportunity to decide the legal definition of “personhood” on Tuesday when they go to the election polls. Advocated by anti-abortion forces in Mississippi and beyond, ballot Initiative Measure 26, which legally stipulates a fertilized egg, unattached to a woman’s uterine wall, is a person. This radical proposed constitutional amendment, is surprisingly opposed by none other than the Roman Catholic Church.

If adopted, all abortions would cease (only one abortion clinic remains in the state). In vitro fertilization in Mississippi would also be eliminated, forcing infertile couples, including lesbians seeking to become pregnant, to go out of state. If adopted, what kind of legal environment would be created by such a draconian law?  In essence, the State of Mississippi would legally be empowered to occupy and regulate the uteruses of all women residents, strikingly akin to Margaret Atwood’s chilling fictional novel “The HandMaid’s Tale.” Could Mississippi sink to even lower depths? It appears it can.

Ohio Voters Face Referendum on the Future of Collective Bargaining Rights 

Labor union supporters placed Ohio Senate Bill 5 on the ballot for voters on Tuesday to repeal a law that would strip public workers the right to organize and sharply curtail their right to engage in collective bargaining. The law is backed by the increasingly unpopular Republican Governor John Kasich and Democrats see the referendum as an opportunity to beat Republicans on an issue that is vital to labor unions, one of the Democratic Party’s core constituencies as both parties move forward into the 2012 election cycle. The anti-labor rights movement began in Wisconsin in 2010 after the election of Republican Governor Scott Walker, who is backed by the Koch Brothers, Republican business leaders who have sought to shut down unions in Wisconsin.

USAID Encourages Contractors Not to Discriminate Against LGBT Persons

A new policy at USAID that encourages contractors not to discriminate against LGBT persons sounds great (and is likely an election year initiative), but not enforceable, according to Nan Hunter, Georgetown University law professor. Hunter posted the new policy on her blog site titled “Hunter for Justice.” A report of the new policy initially was published by the Washington Blade. The new policy “strongly encourages all its contractors (at all tiers) to develop and enforce comprehensive nondiscrimination policies for their workplaces” that include the same prohibitions that USAID applies to itself.” Stopping short of President Obama issuing an executive order, this is the best that can be expected during the election season.  New Civil Rights Movement readers should bookmark Hunter’s excellent blog on LGBT related rights.

(Image: Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou)

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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6 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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News

CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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