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Sunday, January 31, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
France's anti-terrorism laws leave Muslims in a state of fear [feedly]
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France's anti-terrorism laws leave Muslims in a state of fear
// The Verge
Marie was feeding her twin daughters when the raid began. It was a little after 8PM on a Thursday, and she heard a loud commotion outside her apartment in the suburbs of Paris. The order came minutes later: "Police! Open your door!"
Marie panicked and rushed to move her one-year-old girls into another room before opening the door. But the police couldn't wait. Within seconds, they had broken her door and forced her to the ground. There were about 10 officers in total, she said, and some were dressed in riot gear. The children saw it all from the dinner table.
As one officer held Marie on the ground, the others set about rifling through her apartment, looking for incriminating evidence against her 28-year-old husband, who was still at work. The officers didn't produce a search warrant, but a paper that they hurriedly forced her to sign said that the raid was carried out under France's new state of emergency laws. The raid order, obtained by The Verge, lays out three accusations against her husband: he knew jihadists who had been killed, he knew people who trafficked fake passports, and that he belonged to unnamed Muslim associations that promote "religious radicalism."
Marie says the accusations are false. She and her husband are French Muslims, and they regularly go to mosque, but she says they're far from conservative. She doesn't wear a veil over her long red hair, and he's already been subjected to thorough background checks for his job in the aeronautics industry. Neither has ever traveled to the Middle East.
The police eventually tracked down Marie's husband as he was on his way home and brought him home in handcuffs. The two were questioned in separate rooms late into the night. The officers finally left around 1AM, but not without copying all the data from their smartphones and computers. No charges were filed.
"The officer who was in charge came and said, 'Okay, we're going to leave now,'" Marie, 27, said in an interview last month. Two weeks had passed since the raid, but she still couldn't talk about it without breaking down in tears. "And that was it," she continued. "They just said goodbye — no explanation for the how or why."
Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images
Marie isn't the only one looking for answers. There has been a steady stream of similar stories in the French media since President François Hollande implemented a state of emergency following November's terrorist attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people. The laws, which were extended for three months in November, give security forces expanded powers to conduct warrantless house raids, seize personal data, and place people on house arrest — all without authorization from a judge. Thousands of raids have been carried out at homes and businesses, and hundreds of suspects have been placed under house arrest on what some say are tenuous grounds. A UN human rights panel, Amnesty International, and other rights groups have condemned the state of emergency laws, but Hollande's administration has shown no signs of backing down.
This week, the president formally requested that the state of emergency be extended for another three months. On Wednesday, a high court rejected a rights group's appeal to suspend the state of emergency, saying the country still faces "imminent peril." Next week, French lawmakers will debate a bill that would enshrine state of emergency laws into the French constitution, making it easier for the president to activate them and more difficult to mount legal challenges. Hollande is also pushing for a controversial proposal that would allow convicted terrorists with dual nationality to be stripped of their French citizenship — a measure that has long been supported by far-right politicians, and which prompted France's justice minister to resign this week in protest.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has defended the state of emergency, saying that the raids are based on "objective suspicions," and that the measures should stay in place "until we can get rid of Daesh," using the Arabic term for ISIS. The laws have also enjoyed broad political and public support; a recent poll from The Huffington Post and iTV found that nearly seven out of 10 are in favor of extending the laws beyond their February 26th expiration.
"They can't make the Muslim minority pay for their own incompetence."
But there is mounting evidence to suggest that security forces are overstepping their bounds, implicating people with no connection to terrorist groups and targeting others based on little more than mosque affiliation or social media posts. Political activists and protesters have been caught up in the anti-terror crackdown, most notably during the COP21 climate change conference in December, and human rights groups say the laws have had a disproportionate impact on France's Muslim population — the largest in Western Europe.
"What the government is doing is sending a message that they're doing something, but they're doing the wrong thing," said Yasser Louati, spokesperson for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), an organization that provides legal support and consulting services for French Muslims. "They can't make the Muslim minority pay for their own incompetence in not protecting the French people."
Louati says his organization has received 228 complaints since the emergency laws went into effect, including 57 related to house arrests. So far, eight cases brought to the CCIF have been overturned in court, Louati says, but many of those targeted are still afraid to speak out, for fear of further repercussions. That's why Marie asked that I not use her real name in this article.
A Paris region police prefecture declined to provide further details on what motivated the raid on Marie's home. The Interior Ministry did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Kenzo Tribouillard/Getty Images
Since the November 13th attacks, French security forces have carried out nearly 3,200 house raids using their expanded powers, and 381 people have been put on house arrest. The raids have led to 332 arrests, and 200 legal proceedings have been opened, most pertaining to drug or weapons charges. So far, only four terrorism-related investigations have been opened.
But the laws have been enforced with little transparency, making it difficult to gauge their effectiveness. Clémence Bectarte, a lawyer at the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, says that aside from announcements about the volume of arrests and weapons seizures, lawyers and rights groups "have nothing else to understand the legal grounds, the factual grounds of these measures."
"We cannot measure the effectiveness [of the state of emergency laws] because there are no facts that would enable us to do so," Bectarte said.
"France has never been a place where civil liberties were well protected."
Media reports have helped fill in some of the blanks. In Nice, a six-year-old girl sustained head injuries after police broke down the door to her family's apartment at 4:30AM and interrogated her father. (They had the wrong address.) A Muslim man in Toulouse said his wife and two-year-old son were left "traumatized" by what he called a "brutal" raid, when police broke into his apartment in search of weapons. (There were none.)
In perhaps the most notorious case, armed police stormed the Pepper Grill restaurant outside Paris in November, breaking open the door and ordering the room full of diners to put their hands on the table. The restaurant, which is owned by a Muslim man and serves halal food, was believed to hold "people, arms, or objects linked to terrorist activities," according to the raid order. No contraband was found and no charges were filed; surveillance footage of the raid was later posted online. Four days later, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve issued a memo reminding all police prefectures to carry out raids "with respect for the law," marking the first implicit acknowledgment of possible overreach.
France has passed 15 different anti-terror laws within the past 30 years, "each one moving the needle toward state power and away from civil liberty," says Jonah Levy, a professor of comparative politics at the University of California–Berkeley and an expert on French politics. The country has also cracked down on online speech, jailing those who express support for terrorist groups or other forms of hate speech on social media.
"Despite 'liberty, equality, fraternity,' France has never been a place where civil liberties were well protected as compared to other democracies or European countries," Levy said.
Kenzo Tribouillard/Getty Images
France's most recent anti-terror legislation was passed in May 2015, following the January attacks on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris. The law, which has been likened to a "French Patriot Act," allows officials to monitor emails and phone calls of would-be jihadists without court authorization, and forces telecommunications companies to store customer metadata and make it available to the government on demand. Calls for more aggressive legislation have only intensified with the rise of the far-right National Front Party, which has pushed a nationalist, anti-immigrant agenda.
Officials have defended the measures as necessary to confront what they describe as a unique security threat. French officials foiled 10 terrorist plots last year, the interior ministry announced last month, but it's unclear whether more expansive powers would actually help prevent terrorism. The men responsible for both the Charlie Hebdo and November attacks were on French authorities' radar, but were dropped either to pursue other threats, or due to poor intelligence sharing.
"Think about the children who hid during these raids."
There are also fears that Hollande's response to the November attacks could further alienate French Muslims. Many Muslims remain socially and economically isolated from the rest of France, and there are signs that tensions have heightened following last year's terror attacks. Figures released by the interior ministry this month showed that 400 anti-Muslim crimes were committed last year in France, more than triple the number tallied in 2014.
"The problem is that now they are just sowing the seeds of further radicalization in the most fragile elements in the French population," Louati said. "Think about the children who hid during these raids, who saw their mothers humiliated, their fathers being violently handcuffed to the ground, their apartments completely trashed by the police."
Marie's daughters are still too young to understand what happened the night their home was raided, and she hopes they won't remember it when they're older. But she said they're more restless following the incident, and are more difficult to put to sleep. One of the twins now cries uncontrollably whenever there are more than a few people in their living room.
Marie is still struggling with the trauma, too. "I'm afraid to be at home," she said. "The slightest shut of a door, the slightest noise — it stresses me, it makes me panic."
She's also worried that the raid may cause problems for her husband at work, and still has no idea where the data seized from their computers and phones ended up. The family has since hired a lawyer and filed a complaint in French court, seeking damages for what Marie describes as a baseless invasion of her home.
"They can't just break into our lives and turn everything upside down," she said. "I need to know that this won't happen again."
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Thursday, January 28, 2016
Sunday, January 24, 2016
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Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Donald Trump, inevitable GOP nominee? [feedly]
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Donald Trump, inevitable GOP nominee?
// Personal Liberty Digest™
As GOP presidential hopeful continues to add voters to his base, the former top ranking official at the Republican National Committee says the door has closed on opportunities for the political establishment to quash his campaign.
Speaking to talk radio host Rich Zeoli, Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said he believes Trump is unbeatable with the current GOP field.
"I'm gonna say this and I know people are going to scratch their heads and go 'what?' but I don't think he can [be stopped]," Steele said. "That window has closed and I think Donald Trump effectively closed it over the last couple of months.
Noting Trump's continued strength in polls, Steele challenged: "You tell me who stops him and when do they do it."
The seasoned political observer said Trump's continued success will be a result of his long-standing momentum in the GOP primary race combined with the candidate's evident efforts to add more seriousness to his campaign.
"Come on, you've had eight months. You've had eight months to take him down," Steele said to Republicans who dislike Trump.
He added that Trump is changing his approach to show voters more "maturity" and "demonstrate to people that I can be president."
"I think he showed a little bit of that [during the last debate]," Steele said.
Meanwhile, new reports on presidential polling results show that Trump is doing a particularly good job of drawing the support of "lost" voters, people who haven't voted in years but are motivated to head to the polls because of the businessman's unconventional candidacy.
Polling out from Reuters/Ipsos predicts that "lost" voters will account for about 1 out of every 10 votes cast in the GOP primaries.
Reuters reports: "27.3 percent of these 'new' voters said they would vote for Trump, higher than his poll numbers among independents and Republicans who regularly vote."
The post Donald Trump, inevitable GOP nominee? appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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What was the TV channel? [feedly]
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What was the TV channel?
// The Verge
In a series of smart, terrifying articles last year, The Awl's John Herrman predicted the end of websites as we know them. With traffic increasingly dependent on referrals from social networks, many prominent news outlets beginning to publish directly to Facebook and Snapchat(!), and media companies competing with their (former?) advertisers for exposure in the same feeds, Herrman argued that it's only a matter of time before most sites die off from lack of funding. Most of the rest will probably end up existing as apps within Facebook and other social platforms, which are working hard to make sure their users never have to venture beyond their borders.
It stands to reason that TV networks are facing a similar situation — when you think about it, aren't channels and websites essentially the same thing? Both function as containers, providing steady streams of content for targeted populations. Just as you used to discover a few favorite sites and check up on them throughout the day, you would flip on the TV and surf between your go-to channels until something stimulating draws you in.
But the age of unbundling is upon us. Cable subscribers have long lamented paying for hundreds of channels they don't watch, and now with subscription streaming services and piracy rapidly gobbling up cable's market share, the biggest power players are one by one making themselves available without a cable subscription. HBO launched its stand-alone HBO Now service last year and ESPN is now available as part of a slim bundle through Sling TV. Without those anchors bringing in cable subscribers, the "lesser channels" face extinction.
Why renovate something that's just going to blow up in the revolution?
But long before HBO and ESPN got up the courage to break free from cable, modern TV consumption habits had rocketed past a la carte channels to a la carte shows. Whether through legal means or not, virtually all shows are available on-demand, regardless of their network of origin. Thus, as early as 2012, Business Insider's Henry Blodget concluded that "'Networks' are completely meaningless. We don't know or care which network owns the rights to a show or where it was broadcast. The only question that's relevant is whether it's available on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or iTunes." That's even truer now than it was four years ago. And now that those web-borne platforms are producing original series of their own — including many of today's most talked-about and/or award-winning shows — Netflix has become to TV what Facebook is to the internet.
So what's a lowly cable channel to do in this rapidly changing economy? At this point, rebranding feels a bit like reupholstering the chairs on the Death Star — why renovate something that's just going to blow up in the revolution? Or to cite a specific example from last week: why, in an increasingly amorphous TV landscape, has ABC Family chosen to become, well, Freeform?
Founded by Pat Robertson in 1977, the network now known as Freeform has changed names six times, evolving from The Christian Broadcasting Network to The CBN Cable Network to The CBN Family Channel to The Family Channel to Fox Family to ABC Family and, as of last Tuesday, to Freeform. Throughout those 39 years, its programming has undergone an ever wilder metamorphosis. Historically, it's been a brand in search of a center, never quite sure what it wanted to be. The network spent decades shuffling through a mix of religious programming, children's cartoons, game shows, black-and-white sitcoms and westerns, and family-targeted dramas, never quite cohering into a recognizable identity.
A 1988 magazine ad for the CBN Family Channel
So it's ironic that The Walt Disney Company, which has owned the network since 2001, chose a name that implies thematic chaos to rebrand the network: for once, its objectives are clear as day. They're going after ages 14-34, a demographic they're calling "becomers" (because they are "people in formation" but also because "millennials" lost its fizz many Mountain Dews ago). Granted, the network has been targeting the "between your first kiss and your first kid" crowd for a long time, unbeknownst to the general public. Last week's rebranding simply aims to alert the outside world to changes that went into effect a decade ago, when ABC Family adopted the tagline "A new kind of family" and began airing edgy, progressive melodramas aimed at a predominantly female young adult audience. Series like Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters, Greek, and Switched At Birth have long positioned ABC Family as television's answer to the YA fiction boom that turned the Twilight and The Hunger Games series into household names. (Not coincidentally, Twilight and The Hunger Games are both part of Freeform's recurring rotation of youth-oriented movies.)
ABC Family's loyal viewers are well aware of its carefully honed aesthetic — last year the network was No. 1 among women ages 18-34 — but its extensive research suggests that most people outside that viewership bubble still associate ABC Family with "wholesome," "family" entertainment and not much else. So, controversially, the network dropped "Family" from its name for the first time since 1980, along with the recognizable ABC brand, and adopted the moniker that tested best out of more than 3,000 candidates.
Very little besides the name is changing. Although the network intends to double its production of original content, Freeform's first week was indistinguishable from ABC Family's last: a Pretty Little Liars marathon leading up to the winter season premiere, the usual assortment of syndicated reruns (Gilmore Girls, The Middle), a handful of movies including Pitch Perfect and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and — much to the network's chagrin — multiple daily showings of Robertson's longstanding religious talk show The 700 Club, which Freeform is contractually obligated to air forever.
A 1998 promo for the Fox Family Channel
Freeform's best hope is its ability to serve the base
Robertson's continued presence on the channel he founded adds some unintended meaning to the name Freeform, but the network is also broadening its range in more strategic ways. The one new series Freeform has premiered so far, Shadowhunters, is slightly darker and weirder than the usual ABC Family fare. Adapted from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments novels, it's a soapy action fantasy in the tradition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except instead of impossibly beautiful humans and/or vampires, the protagonists are impossibly beautiful human-angel hybrids who protect humanity against demons. (Though, given their mutual antagonism toward Satan, perhaps the lightning-rod televangelists of The 700 Club have more in common with the sexy demon-killers of Shadowhunters than meets the eye.)
Debuting against President Obama's final State of the Union address but enjoying Pretty Little Liars as its lead-in, Shadowhunters scored Freeform's best-rated series premiere in two years. And while 1.82 million viewers isn't exactly a triumph — even Mad Men, notorious for its unimpressive ratings, averaged 2.06 million during its final season — any sign of growth is a sign of life in a downtrending industry. It's reasonable to assume that a good part of the audience were fantasy fans checking out Freeform for the first time, another win for the network.
Still, Freeform's brightest hope for the future is likely its ability to serve the base. If you caught any of ABC Family's holiday programming block 25 Days of Christmas, you undoubtedly saw ads for Recovery Road, a drama about a teenage girl who is ordered to live in a rehab facility while still attending high school. It hasn't premiered yet, but it fits snugly into the groove ABC Family spent the past decade carving out. That's the thing: contrary to Freeform's rhetoric about playing it by ear, the network clearly already understands its identity and, by extension, how to give its faithful viewers more of what they want. The name change wasn't so much about establishing a new identity as it was promoting one that's already well developed and removing the barrier to entry.
A 1987 programming promo for CBN Cable Network
In the music industry, which is also dealing with an influx of infinite streaming options, there's been a lot of talk about curation. Everyone wants the ability to be the cool friend who filters out the garbage and points people to the good stuff — and to find ways to monetize that ability. It's how Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal are striving to differentiate themselves.
Channels with narrow but dedicated audiences will survive
TV channels are already adopting that strategy in their own way. The few networks that survive outside the comfort of a bundle will be the ones that mean something to people, that have built up a recognizable point of view. HBO did it first and best. Through a combination of quality programming and savvy branding ("It's not TV, it's HBO"), the network built up such fervent loyalty that when it finally launched its own subscription service, its customers followed in droves. NBC is trying to perform a similar function with SeeSo, essentially a new comedy network they're launching in subscription-service form: "By focusing on a specific, yet large niche, and providing a curated experience, we can help viewers find good stuff they might not or cannot find."
And it's easy to imagine channels with narrow but dedicated audiences such as Bravo, HGTV, and the CW attempting a similar leap to subscription-based independence. Their distinctive rapport with viewers is what will help them outlast their competitors and maybe even television as we know it. For Freeform, a network for "becomers," the most radical transition might not be one of content but of form. Having answered the question "Who am I?" they can move on to the next urgent matter: "How good is my app?"
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Sunday, January 17, 2016
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Friday, January 15, 2016
Thursday, January 14, 2016
The Learning Network: News Q’s | Man Cuddles 1,500-Pound Bear (and Lives to Share the Video) [feedly]
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The Learning Network: News Q's | Man Cuddles 1,500-Pound Bear (and Lives to Share the Video)
// NYT > Education
What does the Orphaned Wildlife Center do, and where is it?
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Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
APNewsBreak: Ringling circus elephants to retire in May
coming to
Birmingham, AL
January 27, 2016 - January 31, 2016
Fwd: THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: 611 ROLLS IN 2016
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In addition to opportunities to ride and watch 611 roll by on excursions, the public is invited to take advantage of a number of special opportunities to get up close to 611 under steam, take photos, and meet the crew.
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Saturday, January 9, 2016
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Chinese Soldiers Have Laser Guns! [feedly]
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Chinese Soldiers Have Laser Guns!
// Popular Science
China Daily
PY132A
The PY132, seen at a December 2015 police expo, uses its powerful laser to blind enemy sensors and cameras. It even has a telescopic sight to aim directly at say, the thermal/night imaging sight of a tank (but never the eyes of enemy infantry!).
The official PLA Daily December 9th 2015 edition announced that Chinese soldiers are now in possession of laser guns. This was not a counter to the success of Star Wars: Force Awakens, but rather the revelation of new responses to the spread of new technology like unmanned systems.
CNTV
Low Altitude Guard II
The LAG II is now being evaluated by the PLA for anti-drone missions. This laser is powerful enough so that when linked to a fire control radar, it could potentially also shoot down enemy artillery shells, rockets and missiles.
International conventions like the 1998 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons ban the use of lasers and blinding weapons used against people; however the optical and thermal sensors on vehicles, aircraft and robots are still fair game. For example, the PY132A laser is one of the systems displayed at a domestic Chinese police expo, presumably for usage against rogue and terrorist drones. Chinese defense contractors are also marketing the Low Altitude Guard laser turret for shooting down small UAVs, as a police and law enforcement tool (though it also has a more powerful military counterpart). This framing of laser weapons and armed robots in law enforcement situations suggests that in addition to traditional arms transfers, Chinese influence in these realms could also come in the form of paramilitary high tech weapons.
China Daily
WJG-2002
Chinese special forces are likely to be the current users of Chinese blinding lasers. This WJG-2002, seen here at an arms expo, is an older model that may have not been fielded.
In combat, laser rifles would be useful for a wide variety of situations; soldiers in urban combat could use the PY132A, WJG-202 and BBQ-905 laser rifles to destroy the sensitive thermal imagers of enemy tanks or blind slow flying UAVs. Special forces could use them to knock out enemy security cameras and sabotage sensors. Such uses meet the international protocols in definition, but there are still concerns. When used against the sensors of manned aircraft such as attack helicopters, the beam scattering effect of all lasers, blinding ones included, means that pilots' eyeballs could become "collateral" damage.
China Daily
BBQ-905
The BBQ-905 is another Chinese laser rifle that could eventually be offered for export, perhaps to foreign police forces (China is looking to sell other direct energy weapons for 'law enforcement and counter-terrorist missions'.
While we probably won't see PLA troops carrying blasters or phasers on the battlefield any time soon, such advances in Chinese military technology point to another area where science fiction will become battlefield reality in the 21st century. Combined with an evident willingness to envision the use of use of laser weapons in tactical situations, the availability of such new weaponry makes it probable that Chinese soldiers, systems and vehicles could carry lasers for a wide range of missions in the future.
You may also be interested in:
China's New Trio of Urban Combat Robots
New Chinese Laser Weapon Stars on TV
An Electromagnetic Arms Race has Begun: China is Making Railguns Too
China Joins the Laser Arms Race
Chinese Laser Zaps Space, for World Peace
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Wednesday, January 6, 2016
This octocopter wants to fly you at 60 mph - Deal people riding.
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This octocopter wants to fly you at 60 mph - CNET
// Green Tech
The EHang 184 uses drone technology to let commuters or adventurers fly for 23 minutes -- at least if regulators approve.
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Male, military-age Middle Easterners exploiting border weakness [feedly]
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Male, military-age Middle Easterners exploiting border weakness
// Personal Liberty Digest™
As President Barack Obama busies himself creating gun control executive orders to "protect" Americans from violence, his immigration policies are allowing military-aged men from terror strongholds in the Middle East to stroll across the nation's southern border.
According to reports, the final months of 2015 brought a surge of Afghan and Pakistani nationals attempting to enter the U.S. illegally via the southern border. The San Diego sector of the Border Patrol has been a particularly hot area for the Middle Eastern illegal immigrants, with records showing that Border Protection agents detained 22 Pakistanis and two Afghans between October and November.
"We have detained more Pakistanis and Afghans in the first month of this fiscal year than we did all last year," Border Patrol agent Richard Smith told the San Diego Reader late last year.
Since November, records show that three more Afghans and six more Pakistanis have entered the country illegally.
Among the Middle Eastern illegal immigrants coming to the country were Muhammad Azeem and Muktar Ahmad, both men in their twenties who surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents in September. Records searchers showed that both young men have possible ties to terror organizations.
But border security experts say the number of Middle Easterners who are caught or turn themselves in at the border are less concerning than those who may be successfully eluding authorities. According to Border Patrol officials, they're noticing a trend of Middle Eastern illegal immigrants increasingly traveling alone to draw less attention and avoiding turning themselves in to authorities — a move that, if able to pass a security screening, would get them an immigration hearing date and allow them to be released into the U.S.
The trend suggests that there could be a flood of people like Azeem and Ahmad, both of whom are still in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making it into the country unnoticed.
"It's very concerning," National Border Patrol Council president Terence Shigg said. "We have no idea what their actual intentions are because we have no effective way of backtracking. Just the males are coming and there's no way for us to know for certain who they are and why."
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) recently sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson asking for answers about what the federal government is doing to address the threat.
Here's the letter in full:
According to Hunter's office, DHS has yet to respond to the request for information.
The post Male, military-age Middle Easterners exploiting border weakness appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
National grocery chain: We follow the law, not anti-gun hysteria [feedly]
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National grocery chain: We follow the law, not anti-gun hysteria
// Personal Liberty Digest™
Several national retailers have made the decision to violate Americans' 2nd Amendment rights by implementing anti-firearm policies that appease gun grabbers and make patrons less safe. That's why you should be sure to support this grocery store that has vowed to protect your right to self-defense.
With a new open-carry law making headlines in Texas, the state's largest grocery retailer, H.E.B., along with Safeway and lefty supermarket du jor Whole Foods have all announced that they won't allow customers to exercise their open carry rights while shopping.
But Kroger CEO Michael Schlotman says gun-toting Texans, whether they opt for concealed or open carry, are welcome to exercise their constitutional right to self-defense in his company's stores.
While its major competitors in the state have all posted gun-free zone notices, Kroger issued the following statement in August:
The safety of our customers and associates is one of our most important company values. Millions of customers are present in our busy grocery stores every day and we don't want to put our associates in a position of having to confront a customer who is legally carrying a gun. That is why our long-standing policy on this issue is to follow state and local laws and to ask customers to be respectful of others while shopping. We know that our customers are passionate on both sides of this issue and we trust them to be responsible in our stores.
Unlike his competitors, Schlotman says following the law is more important to his company than appeasing patrons who don't understand the virtue of the 2nd Amendment.
"If the local gun laws are to allow open carry, we'll certainly allow customers to do that based on what the local laws are. We don't believe it's up to us to legislate what the local gun control laws should be. It's up to the local legislators to decide to do that," he told Forbes.
"So we follow local laws (and) we ask our customers to be respectful to the other people they are shopping with. And we really haven't had any issues inside of our stores as a result of that," he added.
Unfortunately, the company's level-headed respect for American gun rights and the rule of law has made it the target of Michael Bloomberg's well-funded anti-gun sycophants at Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety.
So far, the groups have successfully bullied Target, Chipotle, Sonic, Chili's Grill & Bar, Jack in the Box and Starbucks into prohibiting firearms.
During the summer, Everytown launched a petition calling on Kroger to backtrack on its decision by claiming that its policy of following the law has gotten people killed in its stores.
From the petition:
Numerous shootings and gun rallies have taken place at Kroger brand stores in recent years. The company policies that have enabled this to happen are not in line with its core values, which include creating a "safe and secure workplace and shopping environment."
Most states have weak gun laws that let people openly carry guns even if they haven't had a background check or training. Private businesses like Kroger have the responsibility to protect their customers when the law won't.
As the nation's largest grocery chain, Kroger's move to follow the law rather than give in to shrieking fearmongering is a big deal. And you can be sure that nanny Bloomberg's army of mommies is going to continue attacking the company.
Don't let them win. At a time when even shooting sport retailers are being pressured to adopt anti-2nd Amendment attitudes, it's more important than ever to show support for businesses that respect your rights as a responsible gun owner.
Pass this information along and encourage all of your 2nd Amendment-supporting friends to pick up their next load of groceries at one of Kroger's more than 2,400 U.S. stores.
The post National grocery chain: We follow the law, not anti-gun hysteria appeared first on Personal Liberty®.
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Sunday, January 3, 2016
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Friday, January 1, 2016
The Harbinger - Jonathan Cahn
I think you might want to read this book. Soon.
I have been researching it on Google images and such. It appears to be accurate so far.
How to Gain Access to Thousands of Free eBooks for Kids
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How to Gain Access to Thousands of Free eBooks for Kids
// Free Technology for Teachers
As I do every year, I am taking this week to relax, recharge, and ski with friends. While I'm away I will be re-running the most popular posts of the year. This was one of the most popular posts in October, 2015.
Zing is a service offering thousands of free fiction and non-fiction ebooks to teachers and students. On Zing you can browse for books by topic, language, or reading level. You can read the books in your web browser on a laptop or tablet. Zing is more than just a repository of free ebooks. In the Zing reader students will find a built-in dictionary and tools for taking notes while they read. In the video embedded below I demonstrate some of the features of Zing.
Earn three graduate credits while learning how to use Google Apps for Education .
This post originally appeared on Free Technology for Teachers if you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission.
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