Some Justice (Good News from the Federal Courts)

After an appalling week of Supreme Court decisions (see here and here), a US District Court decided to allow David House, a friend of Bradley Manning and a co-founder of The Bradley Manning Support Network, to continue with his lawsuit against the government and rebuked the government's request to have the lawsuit thrown out of court for national security reasons.

The background of the case is as follows; David House, a US Citizen, has been stopped by the Department of Homeland Security several times when he has returned this country.  During one of these stops, DHS agents repeatedly asked him about his political beliefs, specifically relating to his work with the The Bradley Manning Support Network, and confiscated his laptop, zip-drive, and cellphone, all without a warrant.  After seven weeks, he finally had his property returned to him, with the government saying that it took much longer than it had anticipated because their agents were unfamiliar with the computer's operating system.

At no time during this ordeal has the government accused David House of any criminal activity.  Even during Houses questioning by DHS agents, the government was only concerned about his involvement in a group whose aim was to raise money for Bradley Manning's defense and speak out against Manning's detainment.  Both of those aims fall well under the protection of the First Amendment.  Any person with a basic understanding of constitutional law and relevant Supreme Court precedent knows that the government is not allowed to punish people for political speech.  Unfortunately, Obama's Department of Justice, much like his predecessor's, just clearly does not give a shit about constitutional rights.  Especially when the can easily scream "Terrorism" and hope that federal judges decide to throw the case out of the courts.

Reboot Update

I tried to keep writing on this blog, but I fell behind and it became quite neglected.

However, two personal updates came to light in the last week.

The first, and most important, is that I am going to Thailand this summer for two months.  I still have to finalize my plans while I am there, but I bought the tickets and they are nonrefundable.

Second is that I have a year long Fellowship for my studies next year that will pay for my school, which means I do not have to take out more loans, all of which are now unsubsidized.

At the moment, I am in Michigan at the moment due to some unplanned family business, and hopefully, I will update this blog more.

Good Professors Train Good Students

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article about a study from Penn State that indicates students are more likely to return if they have professors who teach well:

Good teaching and exposure to students from diverse backgrounds are some of the strongest predictors of whether freshmen return for a second year of college and improve their critical-thinking skills, say two prominent researchers.

Patrick T. Terenzini, a professor of higher education at Pennsylvania State University, and Ernest T. Pascarella, a co-director of the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education at the University of Iowa, spoke to an audience of chief academic and fund-raising officers convened by the Council of Independent Colleges here on Sunday.

The two men are co-authors of a highly influential book, How College Affects Students, and they sought on Sunday to synthesize what recent research says about student learning, while also weighing in on recent controversies in higher-education research.

Mr. Pascarella based his observations on the findings from the first year of the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education, which followed thousands of students at 19 liberal-arts colleges. It recorded the background information of entering freshmen, asked them about their experiences, recorded their outcomes after their first year, and collected the same information again after their fourth year.

Good teaching was not defined by test results. Instead, its attributes were identified on a nine-item scale, which included student appraisals of how well the teacher organized material, used class time, explained directions, and reviewed the subject matter. [emphasis mine]

The likelihood that freshmen returned to college for their sophomore year increased 30 percent when students observed those teaching practices in the classroom. And it held true even after controlling for their backgrounds and grades. "These are learnable skills that faculty can pick up," Mr. Pascarella said.

Two-Tiered Justice System Operating in Milwaukee

In his new book Liberty and Justice for Some, which I do not have the money to buy or the time to read at the moment, Glenn Greenwald writes about what he calls "Two-Tiered Justice System" of America.  At the higher tier, inhabited by political and financial elites, promises scant if any charges or prosecutions relating to serious and damaging crimes, such as the creation of the Bush Torture Regime and the events that led up to the Financial Collapse of 2008.  Most other people, including me and everyone else I know, fall into the lower tier of the Justice System.   If most people are charged with a crime, they have the largest, most well-funded criminal justice system in the world bearing down on them; which includes district attorneys who can and do break the law and violate constitutional rights with few, if any, legal ramifications, a brutal punishment-oriented prison system, juries that assume a defendant's guilt before the trial begins, and a broken, underfunded public defense system.

For people who read up on issues like criminal justice, Greenwald's point is not news.  And from the reviews I've read, his focus on elites, both political and financial, misses what is one of the worst routine miscarriages of justice in the country: the relative immunity of police officers.  Unless the crime is particularly violent and heinous, such as the shooting death of Kathyrn Johnston or the New Orleans Police murders on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina, police officers almost never face criminal prosecution for the crimes they commit, which often include assault and battery, false arrest, and depriving citizens of their constitutional rights.

Close to home, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently finished a two year long investigation into Milwaukee police who commit crimes.  And the picture the investigation paints is not pretty:

Torture Does Not Work

Jennifer S. Bryson, a former US interpreter and interrogator, wrote an article in Public Discourse that attacks the US Government's use of torture during the interrogations of terrorism suspects.  She joins the ranks of other experienced interrogators, such as Glenn Carle and Ali Soufan, who argue that the torture of detainees not only violates the law, but gathers inaccurate information that actually hurts the intelligence community.  Bryson's article, which I highly recommend every one reads, goes further to explain why torture during interrogations dehumanizes both the interrogator and the detainee, and why that dehumanization hurts the process of gathering useful intelligence:

Music Mondays

The move into my new apartment is almost complete.  The internet is connected and I unpacked almost all of my boxes.  However, I am in Michigan for until Wednesday, so I will still post sparingly until I return to Madison. 

That aside, here is this week's music brought to you by Ludo:

 

Moving

I am in the process of moving to a new apartment, and most likely will not update until I am settled into my new apartment.  The internet connection will be set up on August 16th.

Equating Religious Texts with Religious Practice

Howard Friedman over at Religion Clause has a post that directed me towards an article titled Behind an Anti-Sharia Push about the rise of anti-Sharia laws proposed in around two dozen states.  The entire article is worth reading, as it exposes how the anti-Sharia movement is not a grassroots movement, but a  well funded campaign by ultra-right wing conservatives seemingly hell-bent on crushing Islam in America.  Besides the obvious xenophobia, what irks me is when the article reports that a Tennessee State Representative named Rick Womick introduced an Anti-Sharia bill in the Tennessee legislature after reading the Quran

Tennessee’s latest woes include high unemployment, continuing foreclosures and a battle over collective-bargaining rights for teachers. But when a Republican representative took the Statehouse floor during a recent hearing, he warned of a new threat to his constituents’ way of life: Islamic law.

The representative, a former fighter pilot named Rick Womick, said he had been studying the Koran. He declared that Shariah, the Islamic code that guides Muslim beliefs and actions, is not just an expression of faith but a political and legal system that seeks world domination. “Folks,” Mr. Womick, 53, said with a sudden pause, “this is not what I call ‘Do unto others what you’d have them do unto you.’” [emphasis mine]

Wisconsin Recall Elections are Today

The recall elections for the Wisconsin legislature are in full swing today, which place six Republicans at risk to lose their seats.  Two more Democrats will face recall next week.  As the article notes, the out-of-state, third-party money fund the recall efforts at an unprecedented rate from both conservative and liberal groups:

Cash flowing into the recall elections from third-party interest groups already has approached $30 million, election watchdogs say, and total spending by third-party groups and candidates could top $40 million.

That total would double spending on all 116 of last fall's state legislative races combined. About $19.25 million was spent in those races for 17 Senate seats and 99 Assembly seats, which included 312 candidates on the primary ballot and 225 candidates in the November 2010 general election, said Mike McCabe, Wisconsin Democracy Campaign executive director. 

The money spent so far in this summer's nine recalls — one already has been decided — is believed to have already broken Wisconsin's record for state Senate and Assembly races set in 2008, when candidates and groups spent about $20 million on 115 elections.

Wisconsin State Website Leads You to Jesus

The Isthmus broke the story of how the Wisconsin state website contains a link to a page for Care Net.   

A new link to a crisis pregnancy center on Wisconsin.gov, Wisconsin's state website, has led several area advocates to accuse Gov. Scott Walker's administration of blurring the lines between church and state.

The link, found under the "Family Services" subsection of "Health and Safety," leads to Care Net, an evangelical anti-abortion group that runs some 1,100 crisis pregnancy centers throughout the nation, including the Elizabeth House on Madison's east side. According to Care Net's website, its ultimate aim "is to share the love and truth of Jesus Christ."

It also claims to be a place where "those struggling with past abortions are finding God's healing and forgiveness."

Now, imagine if the same website, with the same exact services offered, instead claimed its aim was to share the true word of God as told by the last prophet, Muhammad.