THE POLICE ARE SHOOTING EARPLUGS?!
I believe these are rubber bullets, can anyone confirm? #Fergurson pic.twitter.com/iCsFi6qoIa
And the Twitter feed goes wild!
---------------------
ADDED: Reilly is one of the two journalists temporarily arrested at the local McDonalds in Ferguson during Wednesday night's demonstrations, who received a shout-out from President Obama during his comments on Thursday. ("Here in the United States police should not be arresting journalists who are trying to do their jobs.") Much ado over nothing, really...
For a real First Amendment ethical question, try this one:
“It’s surreal to be caught up in a news story instead of writing about one,” said [longtime reporter James Risen], in his soft voice.ADDED: I wonder if he knows this one:
He said he was inspired by the Watergate hearings to get into journalism and that he inherited his skepticism about government from his mom, who grew up in Indiana during the Depression, the daughter of an Irish railway machinist* who was often out of work. Every time she saw the pyramids on TV, she would say, “I wonder how many slaves died building that?”
Risen said he’s not afraid that F.B.I. agents will show up one day at the suburban Maryland home he shares with his wife, Penny. (His three sons are grown, and one is a reporter.) But he has exhausted all his legal challenges, including at the Supreme Court, against the Obama administration.
“I was nervous for a long time, but they’ve been after me for six years so now I try to ignore it,” he said, musing that he’s already decided what he’ll take to prison: Civil War books and World War II histories.
The Justice Department is trying to scuttle the reporters’ privilege — ignoring the chilling effect that is having on truth emerging in a jittery post-9/11 world prone to egregious government excesses.
Attorney General Eric Holder wants to force Risen to testify and reveal the identity of his confidential source on a story he had in his 2006 book concerning a bungled C.I.A. operation during the Clinton administration in which agents might have inadvertently helped Iran develop its nuclear weapon program. The tale made the C.I.A. look silly, which may have been more of a sore point than a threat to national security.
But Bush officials, no doubt still smarting from Risen’s revelation of their illegal wiretapping, zeroed in on a disillusioned former C.I.A. agent named Jeffrey Sterling as the source of the Iran story.
The subpoena forcing Risen’s testimony expired in 2009, and to the surprise of just about everybody, the constitutional law professor’s administration renewed it — kicking off its strange and awful aggression against reporters and whistle-blowers.
"Paddy on the railway
picking up stones...
Along came an engine
and broke Paddy's bones!
"Aye!" said Paddy,
"That's not fair."
"Poof," said the engine.
"I don't care!"
<< Home