This was Sunshine Week (surprise to me). As usual news and the media decry the lack of it; but one article, "Government undermining 'right to know' laws," by Gary Pruitt, CEO of Associated Press, is very revealing. One of his revelations:
To its credit, the U.S. government does not routinely overcharge for copies of public records, but price-gouging intended to discourage public records requests is a serious problem in many states.
Officials in Ferguson, Missouri, billed the AP $135 an hour for nearly a day's work merely to retrieve emails from a handful of accounts about the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. That was roughly 10 times the cost of an entry-level Ferguson clerk’s salary.
Other organizations, including BuzzFeed, were told they would have to pay unspecified thousands of dollars for emails and memos about Ferguson's traffic citation policies and changes to local elections.
***
 |
| Mike Keefe, The Week |
***
This cartoon sums up the current state of GOP candidacy for the presidential election pretty well, in my view.
***
 |
| Gary Varvel, The Week |
***
While the Secret Service has taken fire for a number of lapses in the last year or so, consider what it's like to protect the first 'black' president. A president that the House Republicans hate so much they've set themselves up as a barricade to any action he accomplished or attempts. Think about the 56 times they voted to repeal or undermine some or all of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Here's an article, "Inside the world of Obama's secret-service bodyguards," written in 2010, that talks about protecting him and his family.
***
 |
| Steve Sack, The Week |
***
Bibi Netanyahu may have won the election in Israel, but he doesn't have all Jews' hearts, primarily because of his stance against Palestinians. Here is some history of the Palestine-Israel Conflict written by the Jews for Justice in the Middle East.
***
 |
| Steve Breen, The Week |
***
-- Marge
No comments:
Post a Comment