Cameras during the Republican convention

I will be volunteering with the Ohio ACLU during the Republican convention that begins on the 18th, monitoring the media coverage though I have not yet been told exactly what I will be doing. At a meeting some months ago to prepare, concerns were raised that the police might try to stop the public from recording their actions using their mobile phones. These citizen produced videos have altered the dynamic in police-public relations in that in the past, the statements of the police as to what happened were largely taken at face value but now we often have video and audio of the events as they unfold, sometimes even livestreamed, and this has often exposed the use of extreme and unnecessary and even deadly force, especially targeting people of color.
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Gretchen Carlson on Fox News

Here is a supercut of the kind of banter that took place on Fox and Friends with Gretchen Carlson who has filed a sexual harassment suit against the head of Fox News Roger Ailes. It is hard to imagine in this day and age that people could be so obviously sexist and obnoxious, though they clearly seem to think they are being complimentary. They are like the men on the street who ‘compliment’ women on their looks as they pass by.
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Good luck with that, Archbishop Chaput

Honestly, sometimes I think that the Catholic Church goes out of its way to make itself look ridiculous. A prime example is the recent document issued by the archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput. It concerns divorced Catholics who remarry without an annulment of their first marriage which means that the church does not recognize the second marriage as valid. Since they are living in sin, they are forbidden from taking part in the communion rite. But Chaput says that there is a way that they can receive communion, and that is if they abstain from sex and live together as “brother and sister.”
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Chilcot report blasts Tony Blair and UK decision to attack Iraq

The long-awaited inquiry by Lord Chilcot into the UK decision to join with the US in waging the illegal way against Iraq has ended and its final report has been released. The investigation was started in 2009 to look into the decision that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the region and created anarchy and lawlessness that have become the breeding grounds for vicious and deadly groups like ISIS. The report offers a searing indictment of former prime minister Tony Blair and the entire way that the government made that fateful decision.
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Charges of sexual harassment at Fox News [UPDATED]

It has long been obvious that the objectification of women is an integral part of the Fox News business model. The network features a bevy of attractive women who are required to wear dresses that emphasize their cleavage and show their legs and some shows even have a ‘leg cam’, a camera placed strategically to get the best view of whichever woman on the panel happens to have the ‘best legs’ that day, whatever that means. I kid you not.
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Our two-tiered justice system on full display

As Robert Mackey writes, the decision by the FBI to not prosecute Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server is being celebrated by the Clinton camp even though the FBI says that she had been “extremely careless” in her treatment of classified material and had lied repeatedly about whether she had sent classified emails through her unclassified private server.
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Pakistan sinks further into the depths of religious intolerance

Pakistan once had the promise of becoming a truly modern secular state but it has increasingly succumbed to indulging religious fanatics who seek to impose a theocracy on the nation. Their blasphemy laws have been used to attack both Muslims and non-Muslims, using bogus allegations that the victims had made statements denigrating the prophet Mohammed or desecrating the Koran.
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