Skip to main content

Friday Nite Videos -- July 18, 2014

Portside
Spike Jonze Presents: Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma. If Latinos Said the Stuff White People Say. Johnny Winter: Live at the Fillmore East. Reggae Got Soul. Murder on Abortion Row.

Murder on Abortion Row

In 1994, John Salvi, a radical young Catholic abortion opponent, opened fire on two clinics in Brookline, Mass., just outside Boston, and killed two women: Shannon Lowney, a 25-year-old receptionist at Planned Parenthood, and Lee Ann Nichols, who worked as a receptionist at PreTerm, the clinic down the street.

The killings ignited a fierce debate about the intersection of free speech, abortion and religion, a debate reignited by the recent Supreme Court decision overturning a buffer space around clinics in Massachusetts. For the first time, the 1996 Frontline documentary Murder on Abortion Row is streaming online.

US Lawmakers Must End Efforts to Curb Free Speech on Palestine

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu Common Dreams
I remain forever hopeful that, like the nonviolent efforts that have preceded it, the BDS movement will ultimately become a catalyst for honest peace and reconciliation for all our brothers and sisters, both Palestinian and Israeli, in the Holy Land.

The ‘Next Citizens United’ May Fuel a Popular Uprising

Katrina vanden Heuvel The Washington Post
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission any day now. Given the Roberts court’s track record, the biggest campaign-finance decision since Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is likely to blow another gigantic hole in the fabric of our democracy.

labor

NLRB Poster Rule Likely Dead After Second Federal Court of Appeals Ruling

Amanda Becker Reuters
The decision on Friday by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a 2011 rule that required employers to post, physically or electronically, a notice describing workers' rights under the National Labor Relations Act. It was the second time in as many months that a federal appeals court has rejected the rule, after the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals said last month the poster rule violated employers' free speech rights.

Media Bits & Bytes - As The World Turns edition

Portside
AP drops the "i-word"; FCC’s future; When Google lost its cool; Are alt-weeklies toast?; A ‘disruptive’ cable channel; ProPublica meets Reddit; Time’s big lie; Kochs shop for dailies; Exxon > freedom of speech; NLRB Rules In Favor of CWA Against Cablevision

Congress Responds to Move to Amend Grassroots Organizing with “We the People” Amendment

Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap Common Dreams
The growing grassroots democracy movement took another huge step forward this week when Congressional Representatives Rick Nolan (DFL-Minnesota) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) joined Move To Amend coalition organizers Ben Manski and George “Leesa” Friday at the National Press Club to announce that the “We the People Amendment” was being introduced in Congress (H.J.Res. 29).
Subscribe to Free Speech