Creating chilling effects on speech is a feature, not a bug, of the surveillance state
August 24, 2013
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Hundreds of protesters rallied Friday outside Downing Street in central London to heckle the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a meeting with his British counterpart Rishi Sunak.
Netanyahu has faced weeks of escalating protests in Israel over his government’s judicial reform programme, which would increase politicians’ power over the courts and critics argue is a threat to democracy.
Demonstrators in the UK capital, many holding Israeli flags and placards critical of the country’s veteran leader, shouted “shame” in Hebrew as he greeted Sunak at the door of 10 Downing Street.
They erected the letters of the word “democracy” on Whitehall opposite the entrance to the gated street, while wielding signs accusing Netanyahu of dragging Israel towards “dictatorship”.
“It’s important to be here because maybe at some point they won’t have the right to protest in Israel,” Dana Drori, a mother-of-two in her 30s, told AFP at the protest, alongside her young daughters.
“It’s anger, it’s sadness,” she said of her emotions. “It’s just hard to believe it’s becoming a dictatorship.”
In a televised address hours before departing for London, Netanyahu pledged to restore unity within his increasingly fractured country, but gave little away about how he would do that while still pursuing the reforms.
‘Strategic ties’
Some of Israel’s allies abroad, including the leaders in the United States and Germany, have raised concerns about the controversial overhaul.
However, Sunak and his ministers have not commented on it.
The UK government released few details about the two-day visit, but Netanyahu’s office said in a statement his meeting with the British leader will “focus on the Iranian issue”.
The pair will discuss “the need to formulate a united international front against Iran in order to stop its nuclear program”, it added.
They are also expected to talk about strengthening bilateral “strategic ties” as well as issues including the war in Ukraine and developments in the Middle East, the statement noted.
Netanyahu is also set to meet hardline interior minister Suella Braverman—who has herself faced stinging criticism over contentious UK plans to deter asylum-seekers—to discuss countering global terrorism.
Further protests by pro-Palestinian groups are expected in central London later Friday, with some Palestinians attending the morning rally.
“As Palestinians from the diaspora we see ourselves at the front line of the fight for a free Palestine and when Netanyahu comes to visit in our backyard we have to protest it,” said one 24-year-old protester, who gave her name only as Yasmine.
(AFP)
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Former President Donald Trump lashed out once again ahead of his potential indictment for bookkeeping fraud in New York, suggesting there will be "death and destruction" over his arrest.
On Friday, CNN's Abby Phillip put Trump's latest comments, as well has his racially-charged remarks calling the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is Black, an "animal" and "human scum" who is "Soros-backed" and doing the "work of the devil."
"'Death and destruction,'" said anchor Poppy Harlow. "Given the history and the background of the death and violence on January 6th and the insurrection, why is the [former] president saying this?"
"He doesn't see any downside to upping the ante," said Phillip. "And why would he? Every time that he's escalated the rhetoric, the response on Capitol Hill from Republicans, even the ones who are typically more measured about Trump, has been to circle the wagons around him. So these things really feed on themselves. When trump sees the reaction to one post, the previous one, calling on his supporters to protest, and he sees that the only consequence of that had been that Republicans basically said, we've got to defend Trump, he goes one step further, and I think that's what we're seeing here. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what Alvin Bragg is going to do. But Trump is raising a lot of money off of this kind of rhetoric. And I think that he does not care if he does, in fact, spin up unrest. That's part of the strategy."
READ MORE: 'Foolish' Republicans pounded by the Wall Street Journal for falling 'into a trap' set by Trump
"Well, he raised a whole lot of money by saying, oh, I'm going to be — you know, insinuating that he was going to be indicted on Tuesday, right raise money off of that," agreed anchor Don Lemon. "But this is really disturbing me, because he's been doing this for a while, and I think we can't talk enough about it, where he's been calling these prosecutors who happen to be African-American, saying that they're racist. He called Alvin Bragg a 'Soros-backed animal.' He's turning to his old tricks here of, you know, being racist or racist-adjacent, using that type of language for people."
"And as someone who's covered trump for years, if you go back and you read his rhetoric — I mean, this goes actually all the way back to the 80s," said Phillip. "Trump has a very long history of calling Black people racist or dumb or using, you know — talking about Baltimore as being, you know, filthy, rat-infested, the same thing with Congressman John Lewis' district in the Atlanta suburbs. So he has a long history of that. These are — I don't know if we can even call them codes at this point, because I think that it's pretty transparent, but they are signals to his base, who are much more prone to see Black people, in positions of power in particular, in a racial lens, even though what the D.A. is doing at this moment actually has absolutely nothing to do with race."
"I think we've got to just stick with the facts here, wait for them to unfold and not get distracted by what Trump is trying to do, which is to rile up his his base from a political perspective on this issue," Phillip added.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Trump is whipping up unrest and it's 'all part of the strategy': CNN's Abby Phillip www.youtube.com
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Jim Jordan busted for helping Trump 'tamper' with probe: 'Beyond all bounds of what's legal'
March 24, 2023
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg rebuffed a Republican House demand for a peek inside an investigation involving Donald Trump as "unlawful," and MSNBC's Al Sharpton agreed it amounted to "tampering."
Bragg's general counsel denied a request for documents and an interview with the district attorney by Judiciary, Oversight and Administration Committee chairs Jim Jordan (R-OH), James Comer (R-KY) and Bryan Steil (R-WI), calling the congressional inquiry an "unprecedented" intervention into a pending local prosecution undertaken at Trump's request.
"Any man that is up in the middle of the night, that is going with this kind of language, is scared to death," Sharpton said of Trump, who has been posting highly provocative online attacks against Bragg. "The problem, though, is that he is inciting people, no matter how small they have become as a crowd, to do something. Add that to him having the photo of the bat at a sitting prosecutor, I mean, it's unimaginable. You're right, we'd be arrested for that."
"We have chairmen of committees telling a prosecutor, who is in the middle of an investigation, to come and give us the evidence," Sharpton added. "I mean, they're really tampering with an investigation. This is not an investigation that's concluded. Before we know whether there is an indictment or charge, they're saying bring us the evidence? I mean, this is unheard of. What is Jordan talking about? They're in the middle of a grand jury proceeding. You want the prosecutor to leave the proceeding and tell me the evidence you're giving, and we'll put it on national television so the target can understand the evidence? I mean, we are going beyond all bounds of what is legal, what is respectful, and we have a man who is scared to death, that is up in the middle of the night inciting violence, having a photo with a bat, because he's scared to death he's going to have to face this prosecution."
READ MORE: Trump is 'out of his mind scared' after late-night outburst : Morning Joe panel
Watch the video below or at this link.
03 24 2023 06 27 50 youtu.be
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