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They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries.[note 1][2] Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia.[3][4] It catered to an assortment of patrons, but it was known to be popular with the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, hustlers, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear o

Some Americans justify the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well-intended interventions for the good of their people, and the security of our nation and the world. They believe that the President MUST have had evidence of national security risk before taking the last and dire step of invasion. This is a crucial point. If there was credible evidence of imminent threat to US national security, then the wars were justified under the UN Charter for self-defense. However, if the evidence was not credible, or fabricated, then these wars are illegal Wars of Aggression. So which is it? Americans and the world no longer need BELIEVE anything; the specific evidence used to justify invading two countries is now public knowledge. All we have to do is match the government's claims to the exact evidence and you can decide for yourself. This article lays it out. First, as you may recall, there were four basic claims of fact presented by political "leadership" to invade Iraq:

Glenn Greenwald studied law and spent ten years as a litigator in federal and state courts across the country. Now he's a big two-fisted progressive blogger and columnist for Salon.com. And he's out with a blistering critique of what has happened to American law. We've stopped applying it to everyone, says Greenwald. We've carved out an exemption for Americans in the halls of power. We've created what Greenwald calls a "lawless elite" that is running roughshod over our economy and national policy. Over American law. This hour On Point: Glenn Greenwald, and liberty and justice for some.

"The Responses to 'Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama'"

In the first assault, Ortiz was "fondled" by the guard, who then told her "I'll get you tomorrow, watch." In the second, which took place after she had appealed for help, the guard returned while Ortiz was asleep and raped her. The assaults took place back in 1996. Subsequently, Ortiz sued both prison officials in federal court for doing nothing to protect her from the guard and punishing her instead.

My name is Patrick Meighan, and I'm a husband, a father, a writer on the Fox animated sitcom "Family Guy", and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica. I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh's "Being Peace" when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protesters who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted "We Are Peaceful" and "We Are Nonviolent" and "Join Us." As we sat there, encircled, a separate team of LAPD officers used knives to slice open every personal tent in the park. They forcibly removed anyone sleeping inside, and then yanked out and destroyed any personal property inside those tents, scattering the contents across the park. They then did the same with the communal property of the Occupy LA movement. For example, I watched as the LAPD destroyed a pop-up canopy tent that, until that moment, had been serving as Occupy LA's First Aid and Wellness tent, in which volunteer health professionals gave free medical care to absolutely anyone who requested it. As it happens, my family had personally contributed that exact canopy tent to Occupy LA, at a cost of several hundred of my family's dollars. As I watched, the LAPD sliced that canopy tent to shreds, broke the telescoping poles into pieces and scattered the detritus across the park. Note that these were the objects described in subsequent mainstream press reports as "30 tons of garbage" that was "abandoned" by Occupy LA: personal property forcibly stolen from us, destroyed in front of our eyes and then left for maintenance workers to dispose of while we were sent to prison.

WARNING: Graphic and disturbing photos between 38:40 and 40:45. U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow soldiers in Al Doura, Iraq. His charges were supported by atrocity photos which, in the public interest, are now released in this video. John paid a terrible price for his opposition to these acts. His story is tragic.  CBS reported obtaining an Army document from the Criminal Investigation Command suggestive of an investigation into these war crimes allegations. The Army's conclusion was that the "offense of War Crimes did not occur." However, CBS also stated that the report was "redacted and incomplete; 111 pages were withheld."  This video is placed with the context of Vice President, Dick Cheney, insistence that this nation's efforts "must go to the dark side;" which included ignoring the Geneva Conventions.  John's story is told, here, by his father, Michael Needham. It is produced in the spirit of the public interest and towards promoting justice and the rule of law.

Part 1: The definition of "Rule of Law". Glenn Greenwald speaks about America's two-tiered justice system and why he wrote his latest book, "Liberty and Justice for Some". (Available on Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/tAANlP) Recorded at Claremont-McKenna College on 4 November 2011.

What amazes me most whenever I write about this topic is recalling how terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process.  Remember all that?  Yet now, here's Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President - even Barack Obama - vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process. Also, during the Bush years, civil libertarians who tried to convince conservatives to oppose that administration's radical excesses would often ask things like this: would you be comfortable having Hillary Clinton wield the power to spy on your calls or imprison you with no judicial reivew or oversight?  So for you good progressives out there justifying this, I would ask this:  how would the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process look to you in the hands of, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann?

A large majority of the American people consistently support the following agenda: Tax the rich and corporations End the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all End corporate welfare for oil companies and other big business interests Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation Protect worker rights including collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages Get money out of politics

Wall Street Isn't Winning - It's Cheating The two-tiered justice system: an illustration 9/10/2001: Rumsfeld says $2.3 TRILLION Missing from Pentagon  The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality The Quiet Coup "the finance industry has effectively captured our government" What OWS is about + data behind the movement Data privacy is now extinct in the U.S. "The problem that confronts us is that every living system in the biosphere is in decline and the rate of decline is accelerating. There isn't one peer-reviewed scientific article that's been published in the last 20 years that contradicts that statement. Living systems are coral reefs. They're our climatic stability, forest cover, the oceans themselves, aquifers, water, the conditions of the soil, biodiversity. They go on and on as they get more specific. But the fact is, there isn't one living system that is stable or is improving. And those living systems provide the basis for all life." The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich: The inside story of how the Republicans abandoned the poor and the middle class to pursue their relentless agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent

Join University of California at Davis Assistant Professor Nathan Brown in calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi for her failure to protect UC Davis student's First Amendment right to assemble, or even their physical safety. Nathan Brown's Open Letter To The Chancellor is below:

Reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's extraordinary and limpid new work Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (a history informed by a general, if Anglican, sympathy for its subject), I came across the following passage from Cardinal John Henry Newman's cla

"Worldwide, work-related illnesses and injuries kill approximately 1.1 million people per year. In 1992, an estimated 65,000 people in the United States died of occupational injuries or illness. Most estimates indicate that occupational diseases account for far more fatalities than occupational injuries. However, an accurate enumeration of occupational disease fatalities is hampered by a paucity of data, owing to underdiagnosis of occupational diseases and inadequacy of current surveillance systems. In this commentary, the authors review the epidemiology of death due to occupational disease and injury in the United States and discuss vulnerable populations, emerging trends, and prevention strategies for this ongoing public health problem."

Truthout is publishing chapter eight of my new book "War Is A Lie." I should explain where it fits in the overall argument I've made. The book strives to make a comprehensive case against the very idea that there can ever be a good or just war, any more than there can be a good slavery or a just rape. While Americans often turn against particular wars after cheering for them, many people maintain the fantasy that there could be a really good or necessary war next month. This delusion helps to keep around what President Eisenhower 50 years ago this week called the military-industrial complex, which is itself a large source of pressure for more wars.

Slavoj Žižek: There is no room for compromise. Either the entire Mubarak edifice falls, or the uprising is betrayed