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right to film:https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/a-major-victory-for-the-right-to-record-police/533031/
Americans have a constitutional right to film on-duty police officers in public, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled Friday. The three-judge panel’s decision is not the first of its kind, but it marks a significant milestone: Half of U.S. states are now covered by rulings protecting the videotaping of law enforcement.
In its decision in Fields v. City of Philadelphia, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel said the First Amendment’s protections extended to two people who used their smartphones to record police interactions with a third party….
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….Despite the broader victory on First Amendment grounds, the panel handed Fields and Geraci a major defeat on the lawsuit itself. Two of the three judges agreed with the city that qualified immunity applied for the officers in both situations, effectively shielding them from legal liability for the incidents. That drew a partial dissent from Judge Richard Nygaard, who agreed with his colleagues on the First Amendment question but parted ways on the qualified-immunity ruling….see linkI think Immigration is a winning issue for Trump because I think it will energize his base more than it will energize the “blue” base.
And here is where I believe we are in this country. I think we are at a Crossroad. Probably the biggest Crossroad since the Civil War, but certainly the biggest Crossroad since the Civil Rights Act. I think that the pundits got it all wrong when they said Trump was appealing to blue collar folks who lost their union jobs, although there is some truth to that. I think the issue that we are actually fighting over is the picture of what America is.
Demographics are changing in this country. Whites are becoming a smaller percentage of the country, and Christians are becoming a smaller percentage of the country. That is the trend.
The people who love the idea of America as God’s Favorite Country, and a country founded on enlightened principles (insert whatever subjective vision of enlightened you want here, even if it contradicts history), a country of do-it-yourselfers who persevered against all odds to tame the wilderness and innovate itself without cumbersome government, a star-spangled awesome fireworks display of WHITE European descendants…those people are pitted against a pluralistic America, one that includes the Chinese New Year parades on equal footing with hotdogs at the 4th of July picnic, an America that believes the “justice for all” portion of the Pledge include LGBQT, Muslims, blacks, and god-knows-what-else, and which is simply willing to let Mayberry go away as a defining vision of America. That is what I think we are fighting about at its core.
Trump is willing to destroy the constitution (and the entire world alliance) in order to preserve the former, and the Ayn Randian Kochs, Mercers, and Cato Institute types are happy to slipstream his ass because he’s now the lead blocker for a breakaway run for absolute power.
But at its core, this is a Civil War over America’s Identity. That is the key issue. And Trump supporters right now are willing to have everything taken away from them if it means that the multi-culturalists don’t win. So Immigration is Trump’s strongest play with those people, and I believe he has the upper hand in that debate in the sense that I think more of his base will come out in response to that issue than the multi-culturalist’s base, as I said earlier.
A couple of things work against Trump and the GOP, though. One is that a lot of “swing voters” are going to be put off by the WAY he is going about this, and the way he is going about everything, basically. He is going to fire up the Party Uber Alles types, but alienate the swingers. That’s one thing against him. The other thing is that Mueller hangs over him like Damocles’ sword. Although Mueller has been about as off-the-record as possible, it was said that he wants to conclude his investigation sooner rather than later because he doesn’t want it to come out and influence the election before people have had proper time to process the report.
No matter what is going on right now at the border, and in the courts, and in the Red Hen, the Mueller Report is going to blow all of that away and completely redefined the midterm elections. And there is Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit. That stuff is going to make the difference in the end as to who votes, and how they vote.
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Well, I dont know. There are so many factions on the right, and factions in the center and factions on the ‘left’, and progressives of various kinds — that i dont know how to articulate a grand-narrative about what any of this means.
Everyday i try to put together some sort of story or narrative, and none of them quite fits. Or all of them seem partly-true.
So, i dunno.
All i see at the moment is a great big, red-white-and-blue Salvadore Dali painting.
And i dont like Dali. Never have.
…PS. I got that “Adults in the Room” book u were posting about. Its damn good, so far.
PPS. The Immigration thing. I know in my gut the immigration issue is an ultra-powerful one for trump because (1) His smart-evil advisors have all said so, and (2) In my OWN progressive, far-leftist heart that immigration issue pulls even ME towards the dark side. That issue is like Sauron’s Ring. It poisons people. I mean, I have this deep-gut-instinct that sez “hell yes, we have too many people now, we dont need more…” Thats inside ME. I have to fight that INSTINCT with reason. Which of course takes mental-effort. So if the issue does that to a leftist like ME….
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