Even in a public health emergency, governments still have the duty to protect our rights. Yet since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have witnessed countless attempts by state and local agencies to infringe upon Texans’ civil liberties.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the ACLU of Texas has been monitoring government responses to the health crisis closely, and we have acted quickly to protect civil rights and civil liberties while also upholding evidence-based guidance from public health experts. Specifically, we have aggressively acted on behalf of people whose rights and health are at heightened risk, including protections for voters, people in the criminal legal system, and those seeking access to critical abortion care.

Read more about the actions we are taking during this unprecedented time:

Reducing mass incarceration in Texas jails and prisons

• Victory: On April 10, a state judge granted a Temporary Restraining Order blocking enforcement of Governor Abbott’s unconstitutional executive order that limited who may be released from jails during pandemic emergency.

You can read the rest of the article here.

This rumor that flu shots will generate a Covid-19 test positive response is FALSE! It’s a lie being spread by Buttar, who is an antivaxxer. (Link at end.)

If you are confused about what sources to trust, you’re not alone. I get this question on my radio show all the time.

1- Don’t trust FACEBOOK posts unless you can verify them.
2- Same for Twitter or other social media.
3- Don’t trust media reports that are outliers from the majority of media. Again, verify for yourself when in doubt. It’s not hard. It took me less than five minutes to check the “flu” lie at Snopes.com

As a rule, I like BBC.com, NBCNews.com (you don’t even have to check MSNBC, though I trust their reporting), CBSNews.com, ABCNews.com is okay, even Al-Jazeera America is a good news source overall.

When I catch news sources in lies or disinformation more than once, I stop following them. I can’t waste my time sorting their lies and distortions from facts.

I follow the saying, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.”

Interpretation is personal, facts are objective.

Be picky about where and from whom you get your facts.

Do Flu Vaccines Increase Your Risk of Testing Positive for COVID-19?

Sometimes, we get visible hints about what Earth would be like without people.

“As people stay home, Earth turns wilder and cleaner. These before-and-after images show the change.”

https://tucson.com/news/national/as-people-stay-home-earth-turns-wilder-and-cleaner-these-before-and-after-images-show/article_1492b85a-1cfc-5f8b-82c7-da75464cb804.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

“[T]he CCP spends more on domestic security than on its national defense. If you follow the money, the CCP is demonstrating that the government is more afraid of its own people than of the Pentagon.
— Read on www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/why-china-ill-equipped-great-power-rivalry/609364/

“The answer is simple: Build in resilience as a hedge against future shocks. This foundational idea has profound implications for how we think about security, articulate strategy, and develop policies for securing the future. It inverts the old mantra that says the best defense is a good offense. When the goal is to stabilize the system, the best offense is a good defense. “

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Everything is normal. Then it’s not. The world changes. In some cases, it breaks. What you thought was strong becomes brittle. What you thought was stable
— Read on warontherocks.com/2020/04/when-systems-fail-what-pandemics-and-cyberspace-tell-us-about-the-future-of-national-security/

twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/1246970670661218309

This article has always stuck in my mind because of this quote: “In China, supervision by the media can only proceed within the existing system,” he said. “Freedom means knowing how big your cage is.” ~ Cheng Yizhong, editor of Southern Metropolis Daily (as quoted in “China’s Watchdogs Push the Limits”, By Philip P. Pan | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | August 1, 2004)

I wanted to archive its existence .

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It was past 9:30 p.m. when the reporters finished writing. The presses were scheduled to begin printing the next day’s issue of the Southern Metropolis Daily in a few hours, and space for a large headline had been reserved on the front page.

But when the night editor read their story — an investigative report about a young college graduate who had been detained by local police and beaten to death in custody — he hesitated. Then he picked up a phone and called Cheng Yizhong, the paper’s star editor.

Cheng had built the Daily into this southern city’s most popular and profitable tabloid, practicing a feisty brand of journalism editors across China were trying to imitate. But a few days earlier, in a clampdown ordered by a new Communist Party leader in the province, he had been stripped of his title as editor in chief. He was now running the paper as deputy editor.

Others in the newsroom had briefed him twice about the article, but given the circumstances, the night editor wanted to check with him one last time, colleagues recalled. The story was certain to anger government officials, and there was still time to pull it. Instead, Cheng gave the order to publish.

The article, published April 25, 2003, spread quickly on the Internet, and newspapers across the country reprinted it. Reporters dug deeper, exposing abuses in a nationwide network of detention camps that purchased and sold inmates like slaves. Put on the defensive by rising public outrage, Beijing ordered the camps closed and abolished a decades-old law that gave police sweeping powers to imprison people at will.

It was a landmark victory for the Chinese press; never before had reporters influenced national policy in such a dramatic fashion. But in March, Cheng was arrested and two of his colleagues were sentenced to long prison terms in a corruption probe that party sources said was an act of retaliation by local officials.

What happened to Cheng highlights a momentous and complex struggle between the country’s increasingly independent-minded and profit-driven state media and entrenched interests inside the ruling Communist Party. The outcome could determine the future not only of journalism in China but also of the largest authoritarian political system in the world. …

You can read the whole article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/08/01/chinas-watchdogs-push-the-limits/c556f22b-0d66-4c90-913f-dc8f6bd56814/