http://www.infowars.com/united-nations-tries-to-save-face-on-libya-occupation/
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Cypress College Settles Free Speech Case From Pro-Lifers
From http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/30/cypress-college-settles-free-speech-case-from-pro-lifers/
Cypress College Settles Free Speech Case From Pro-Lifers
by Steven Ertelt | Cypress, CA | LifeNews.com | 8/30/11 1:34 PM
State
Officials at the California-based Cypress College have settled a free speech case pro-life advocates brought against the college. Members of the Survivors, a pro-life group for young adults, filed the suit after Cypress College squelched their free speech in 2007.- 5
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Members of the team were arrested for criminal trespass but the Orange County District Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against the pro-life advocates. The presiding judge went one step further and declared the team “factually innocent” and ordered that the record of the arrest be erased from the Department of Justice criminal records database.
A civil lawsuit was filed against Cypress College for the 2007 arrest seeking $20,000 for each of the three people arrested and $25,000 each from the city, college and college district. Today, the Life Legal Defense Foundation announced the settlement of the case, and it includes significant changes to the school’s free speech policy and payment to plaintiffs for both monetary damages and their attorneys’ fees.The first suit arose from an incident in February 2007, when three members of the Survivors, based in Riverside, California, were arrested and jailed for refusing to stand in a yellow painted square marked “free speech area” that was located next to a construction zone. The young people were accused of trespassing on property not open to the general public, though their peaceful activities took place entirely in open areas of the public college.
The second suit arose just one year later, when the Survivors returned to Cypress College to once again engage in peaceful free speech activity. Cypress College administrators directed the arrest of the five pro-lifers and this time accused them of causing a disturbance on campus. All criminal charges were dismissed when the prosecutor reviewed video coverage of the activities that proved that no disturbance had occurred.
During the arrests, Survivors members said campus police indecently frisked three of the pro-life women and placed them in the back of squad cars for an hour before charging them with a crime.
In response to the false arrests, LLDF attorney Allison Aranda filed suit challenging the constitutionality of Cypress College’s free speech policy. After three and a half years of litigation, Cypress College has agreed to amend their free speech policy, thereby opening up the main areas of campus for peaceful First Amendment activities.
“This victory is a long time coming,” said Katie Short, legal director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation. “We have been battling Cypress College over their free speech policies for years. This victory shows that, with a lot of patience and persistence, it is possible to open the eyes of college administrators and successfully preserve the free speech rights of young people on our public college campuses.”
“We must do something to prevent college administrators and officials from blatantly violating the Constitutional rights of young people on public school campuses simply because the administration disagrees with the message these young people speak,” she said. “It is clear from the facts of both cases that the sole objective of the Cypress College administration is to silence the pro-life message being shared on their campus.”
Aranda urged pro-life advocates to make it clear to officials at other colleges and universities that stopping free speech rights is not allowed.
Debates
Your alternative is for us to be in the Republican plantation. No thank you since you do realize that the Republicans agree with the war on terror, anti-civil liberty laws (like the Patriot Act & the USA Commissions Act), torture centers, economic austerity, and the massive cuts to the social safety net. Most black people henceforth reject that agenda and with good reasonings. I'm an Independent. I'm not a Republican nor Democrat. Topix AA forum shows a section of black Americans not every black American. You reactionary types always exaggerate issues and try your best for black people to worship your political philosophies. Yet, we don't because we black people are wise enough to see that your views have been discredited from trickled down economics to the Pax Americana foreign policy deception. Also, many black people don't live in the ghetto. The ghetto is a location and a wide spectrum of African Americans live in the ghetto that don't fit into your stereotypical perceptions.LMFWAO. If the Topix AA forum is truly representative of black Americans in general, you lot are going to be on the modern, 21st century democrat plantation living in the ghetto until the end of time.
-By Timothy
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The republican plantation is based on merit and self reliance. I can understand why you would reject it. Thankfully great American heroes like Col. Allen West do not. Apparently the progressive liberal president also agrees with these things. Apparently you are fine with borrowing 1.65 trillion dollars a year from communist China, a gross human rights violator. Some people you want to be indebted to there.. The only reason they reject the republican party is because they do not want to be forced to compete on merit with a level playing field. The only thing you are independent of is individual thought. That much is obvious. Fine example of Freudian projection. Clearly you do not understand the forst thing about economics. Not suprising. Most progressives are like that. If you did you would understand that the Keynesian nonsense the socialist democrats spew has now been proven a failure in the worlds biggest economy as well as all over Europe. What I know is far too many do live in the ghetto. Far too many are on the dole. Far too many are in prison and far too many buy into the bull___ that folks who want a smaller government to guarantee liberty for 'all' are racists.
-Zaius
My Response to the deluded man:
Once again, you are a funny man. I don’t do plantation since I’m a grown black man and I reject submission to archaic political views. Now, any reasonable human being accepts merit and self reliance. Yet, your bag is that you believe that a poor man in every circumstance can just get up by their own bootstraps to solve their own problems. Many people can do this and I respect that. Some individuals can’t do it, because of numerous reasons. You have to give a man boots first, and then allow the man to walk. You can’t tell a bootless man suffering like crazy in extreme poverty to just get charity and let the free market to save your life. That is why the social safety net was created to assist those in poverty to help them escape it (not embracing some permanent dependency mentality). Col. Allen West is one man. He is a man. I don’t view him as less of a man. He is just wrong on foreign policy and other issues. A sincere man can be wrong. Also, the Republican plantation is filled up war mongering, anti-civil liberty policies, and wicked austerity measures that you don’t deny. That alone will not make me a Republican.
I respect human civil liberty and progressive thinking. The President agreeing with these things has nothing to do with my thinking. I don’t agree with the President on every precise issue, but I won’t slander the man as a birther, as a Communist, or as a Muslim radical like people in your Republican plantation have done. That’s your plantation as you put it. I’m not fine with borrowing that much money from the Chinese. You might be fine with Wall Street receiving $12.3 trillion in bailout cash and the super rich hoarding ca.$1.8 trillion in cash. You are fine with a war on terror costing billions of dollars per year. Black people reject the Republican Party mostly because of numerous Republican wanting the playing field to benefit corporate interests (not because of wanting the playing field to be level). The playing field isn’t level when we have record bailouts for Wall Street, record low taxation among the wealth, and record wealth inequality worldwide. That’s like a mountain slope not a balance beam. That is why need economic populist solutions to handle our affairs (and we can get money by investments, real tax increases on you know who, ending the war on terror, possibly have a Greenback system, etc.). I have independent thinking on a myriad of issues. I know economics a lot. I’ve made excellent grades in college level economic courses. I’ve studied economic history for years. You just have worship Austrian (fools gold economics) and I reject it. I don’t worship Keynesianism totally since we should take consideration on the debt. I just believe that we need revenue growing policies first and then handle the debt later. People’s lives and job growth has a superior emphasis in my mind than debt slashing. Public works programs have worked in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and other nations. These nations don’t follow your Austrian liquor of austerity or deficit hawk propaganda. There are problems in the ghettos. Yet, these problems exist nationwide in the trailer parks, the suburbs, and a wide spectrum of communities worldwide. I believe in solutions too, but you just want private solutions.
I believe in both private and public solutions to solve problems within the black community. Smaller government vs. bigger government is a distraction to me. I want more efficient government at every level to help solve problems. Government can’t solve every problem, but the government can be a part of the solution. Liberty guarantees have been violated by small government via the states for years during the 1960’s (and before that time), so human rights trumps states rights. The federal Bill of Rights and the federal Constitution are superior to states rights.
-By Timothy
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The GOP Lies: 97% of Small Businesses Would Not be Affected by Increasing Taxes on the Wealthy
Recently, BuzzFlash at Truthout talked about how Republican Congressional "deficit reduction" and tax cuts for the rich and corporations don't help and even hurt small businesses in America, because the actual policies facilitate large companies in crushing small business competitors. But another reason the GOP claim to tax cuts for the wealthy is dishonest in that most small businesses bring home less that $250,000 a year. That means if the US reinstated the taxes for the rich from the Bush administration, small businesses would not be affected, but our national defiicit would decrease -- and perhaps some funds could be allocated to really help small businesses. That is because President Obama wants to keep the tax cuts for those households making less than $250,000 a year, but raise them for wealthier households.
The New York Review of Books recently noted, "But relatively few small business owners earn $250,000—in fact, fewer than 3 percent of the 20 million people who file business income on their personal tax forms (the 1040s) earn that much."
As Elizabeth Drew -- seasoned Washington DC analyst (formerly for the New Yorker)-- writes in the New York Review, the Republicans have controlled the debate on "debt reduction" by continuing to move the goal posts, as the White House then gives up more yardage. But facts cannot be argued, as in the case of small businesses, in reality, getting the short end of the stick from the GOP. As Drew observes:
The antitax dogma of the Republican Party is strongly rooted in mythology. The theory that tax cuts create jobs has been discredited by the results of George Bush’s tax policies. The Republicans cling to the myth that “small business” owners are the “job creators,” and so they oppose proposals to eliminate the Bush rate cuts for even those earning over $250,000. But relatively few small business owners earn $250,000—in fact, fewer than 3 percent of the 20 million people who file business income on their personal tax forms (the 1040s) earn that much.
In fact, to repeat, the GOP Congressional policy hurts small businesses -- as they are shrinking in America -- by facilitating the growth of mega-corporations that drive small stores and manufacturers out of business. That turns the Republican Party into a job killer.
________
A good comment made on that article on that website:
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12902
They're purposely conflating "half of small businesses" with "half of small business profits." That's the 3-Card Monty they're playing. And the country - and the press - got completely suckered in by it.
In actual fact, half of all small business profits are made by the top 3% of small businesses.(So says the SBA.) Big difference.
And, most of those businesses are S-corps -- one-man shows. Authors with million-seller books and such. Only 4 million of the 17 million small businesses in this country even have employees.(so says the SBA.)
Mitch McConnell played this 3-Card Monty several months ago on Press the Meat, and sure enough the very next day David Brooks regurgitated the lie in his column - "Half of small businesses will be affected by sunseting the Bush Tax Cuts!"
The implication of the lie is that profits are evenly spread over the entire "population" of small business owners, and that those owners have a proportional spread of employees. Which is nonsense.
The thing they scare you with is to remind you that half of the jobs in this country are in small business. Which is true. But they falsely extrapolated from there that half of half of American jobs will be impacted with sunseting the Bush tax cuts (which they falsely framed as a tax hike.)
The one statistic that has never been put forth in this entire discussion is the answer to this key question:
"Exactly how many people are employed by small business owners who earn over $250K/yr?"
Answer that one question, and the Republican lie falls apart.
Under Clinton taxes were higher and 23.1 million jobs were created.
Under Dubya taxes were lower and only 3 million jobs were created.
I'm still waiting for a right winger to dispute these facts..lol.
-District9
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http://www.topix.com/forum/city/paragould-ar/TMEEA39JGOPTLB3EH
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Zaius,
Did you know what Henry Ford paid his workers back in 1914?
http://corporate.ford.com/about-ford/heritage...
Wow, amazing? No UAW. No NLRB. No government regulations at all.
You really do not understand how oppressive government regulations and excessive taxes are driving business out of the country, do you?
Enough said.
We live in the 21st century not the 19th or the 20th century. We live in a complex world and simplistic systems sometimes don't work.
We need some government regulations. If you want to ban all government regulations, then enjoy child labor, poisons in our water, corrupt medical practices, massive discrimination, massive pollution in our atmosphere, and other evils. Even mainstream Republicans believe that some regulation (not overbearing kinds of regulations) is fine.
Ford did do some decent things and other things that weren't decent (you know what I'm talking about right. WWII rings a bell). How can taxes be oppressive when we have record low taxation among the super wealthy in more than 5 decades. The corporations are going overseas since they want plainly desire profit (let's keep it real) and some just desire the exploitation of labor (to disregard legitimate taxation). The same type of people yelling about welfare support corporate subidies. Globalization, NAFTA, and other policies have facilitated that reality. We have a liberalization of economic policies since the 1970's.
This influenced the financial reality that we witness today.
-By Timothy
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