Homeland Security censoring news online about Japan's nuclear disaster?

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Wednesday March 16, 2011 · 10:02 AM PDT

2011/03/16 · 10:02

On this morning's Diane Rehm show on NPR / WAMU a man called in to report that a friend of his, who runs a news aggregating website, japan.org , had had it taken offline by the Department of Homeland Security. He claimed that his friend had to move the website to a server in Hong Kong. The weird thing is that this is a news aggregating website, whose webmaster does not publish any original material.

Diane and her guests were very skeptical and dismissive, and refused to consider that Homeland Security might do this. I wonder if there are particular stories in the aggregation that Homeland Security is trying to censor within the US. Presumably this would be completely illegal under the 1st amendment, but do they have some kind of statutory exception?

I tried to access www.japan.org, but it would not load for me. Can anyone else get through to it?

Thanks for your assistance in following up on this mysterious story!

Purpose of NOM's Deceptive Poll Revealed

Ruthtopia

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Saturday March 20, 2010 · 9:36 AM PDT

2010/03/20 · 09:36

Last weekend I diaried about a bizarre poll question from a robocall which identified itself as sponsored by the so-called National Organization for Marriage.

Now the traffic on my neighborhood listserve has revealed NOM's purpose in creating bogus poll numbers with misleading questions...

Ruthtopia

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Saturday March 13, 2010 · 12:41 PM PST

2010/03/13 · 12:41

I just received a poll robocall, which kindly identified itself as paid for and sponsored by the so-called "National Organization for Marriage."

They describe their mission as "to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it", but if you read their website it becomes apparent that their sole action agenda is to prevent or repeal the legal recognition of same-sex marriages. If you're not familiar with NOM, check it out at http://www.nationformarriage.org/

The poll consisted of just two questions. The first asked if I am a registered DC voter. The second was a question which I can only assume is intentionally worded weirdly in order to generate a huge number of false positive responses.

Ruthtopia

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Thursday September 10, 2009 · 11:35 AM PDT

2009/09/10 · 11:35

So, I was just listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR and became so completely enraged both at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan and at the mealy-mouthed host and guests, that I had to turn it off. Diane herself was not hosting the show, it was Frank Sesno. It was their usual type of follow-up program to the president's speech last night.

A lady called Deborah called in. She said that she is a small business owner and buys health insurance for her family (there are three of them, I think she said) on the individual market. She pays $1,000 per month in premiums, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan just let her know that her premium will soon go up by about 30%. Nothing so strange about that, right? Everybody is used to insurance companies putting up their premiums by colossal amounts every year. (For example, see nickm11's diary today.) The difference is that a representative of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan told Deborah that this year healthcare reform was to blame for the increase!

Ruthtopia

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Thursday June 18, 2009 · 9:33 AM PDT

2009/06/18 · 09:33

Dialogue from the HELP markup in the Senate committee, copied from Ezra Klein at the Washington Post via Alas a Blog:

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) says that he's not sure who wrote the Affordable Health Choices Act but that if you put "Rube Goldberg, Karl Marx, and Ira Magaziner in a room," you'd have ended up with something pretty close. A classy, gracious line from the man who was nearly Obama's secretary of commerce.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) shoots back, "Our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader, and the Bodysnatchers. So I like our plan better!"

I wish she were still my senator!

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Homeland Security censoring news online about Japan's nuclear disaster?

Purpose of NOM's Deceptive Poll Revealed

Deceptive Anti-Gay Polling in DC Today

A new low: BC/BS lying to customers about healthcare reform

Barbara Mikulski has the guts/ovaries/etc. to tell it like it is: