Trump mocks reporters who were roughed up by police during protests

President Trump on Tuesday mocked journalists who were hit with rubber bullets and assailed by police while covering protests against racial injustice this summer.

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President Trump on Tuesday mocked journalists who were hit with rubber bullets and assailed by police while covering protests against racial injustice this summer.The president, during a rally in Pennsylvania, reco…

Woman Who Lost Her Dad to COVID Responds to Trump Downplaying Virus: ‘My Dad Was Not a Nobody’

Kristin Urquiza, who lost her father to COVID-19, called out President Donald Trump after he said that the deadly pandemic “affects virtually nobody” as nearly 200,000 Americans had at that time died from the virus.

Source: Woman Who Lost Her Dad to COVID Responds to Trump Downplaying Virus: ‘My Dad Was Not a Nobody’

I’m a Republican, I’m worried, and I’m voting for Biden | Lexington Herald Leader

I’m concerned about Covid-19, just like many of you. I’m concerned about this pandemic that has already killed 200,000 Americans. I’m 68 and I’m scared. I have decided this year to vote Democrat for President, as many other lifelong Republicans are doing. Please join me and vote Biden/Harris. They will lead us better than the current administration.

Source: I’m a Republican, I’m worried, and I’m voting for Biden | Lexington Herald Leader

Thanks to Prof. Baker for this post: Happy #NationalVoterRegistrationDay! Register To Vote Now! #VoterRegistrationDay Is Today! Don´t Delay! Get #VoteReady! — Profesorbaker’s Worldwide Bilingual Blog — ShiraDest: Education, Cooperation, and The 4 Freedoms for ALL Human Beings

Today, on #VoterRegistrationDay, let’s honor #RBG by standing up and showing up. Our vote is our power. We must use it. Register right now: http://vote.pa/register. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has raised more than $16 million from individuals and foundations over the past week to pay court fines and fees that are preventing […] […]

Thanks to Prof. Baker for this post: Happy #NationalVoterRegistrationDay! Register To Vote Now! #VoterRegistrationDay Is Today! Don´t Delay! Get #VoteReady! — Profesorbaker’s Worldwide Bilingual Blog — ShiraDest: Education, Cooperation, and The 4 Freedoms for ALL Human Beings

Russian Repression a Persistent Reality in Crimea

Via Aleksey godin – Last week, a Russian military court sentenced seven Crimean Tatars to prison terms ranging from 13 to 19 years. It is part of a pattern of politically motivated prosecutions that has been happening in Russia-occupied Crimea for the past six years.

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Crimean Solidarity activists in the defendant’s box during sentencing, September 16, 2020.
© Private

Last week, a Russian military court sentenced seven Crimean Tatars to prison terms ranging from 13 to 19 years. It is part of a pattern of politically motivated prosecutions that has been happening in Russia-occupied Crimea for the past six years.

The seven men were convicted of organizing or participating in a “terrorist organization.” One man was acquitted.

In a system based on rule of law and justice, none would even have been prosecuted.

The men are activists with Crimean Solidarity which was established in 2016 to support Crimean Tatars arrested or jailed on politically motivated grounds. It helped organize legal support for detainees, financial and social support for their families, and live-streamed court proceedings and police searches. Since 2017, authorities have jailed the group’s members and raided their homes.

The activists were accused of involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamist movement that seeks to establish a worldwide caliphate based on Sharia, but publicly denounces violence as a means to achieve its goal. In 2003, Russia banned Hizb ut-Tahrir as a terrorist organization, but it is not banned in Ukraine or most of Europe. In recent years, Russian authorities have prosecuted dozens of peaceful activists in Crimea for alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir.

None of the charges against the eight were related to planning, carrying out, or being an accessory to any act of violence.

From the beginning, authorities showed disregard for due process. They conducted warrantless searches at the homes of six of the men during their arrest in 2017. Two lawyers representing some of the men told me the security services and police refused to let them enter the homes during the searches. The lawyers were also denied timely access to procedural documents. As is usual in such cases in Crimea, the prosecution relied mostly on recordings of discussions about religion and politics obtained through wire-tapping, and testimony from “secret witnesses.”

Crimean Tatars have been the main voice of peaceful dissent to Russia’s occupation of Crimea. As a result they have also been victims of enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, torture, and ill-treatment in custody. Last week’s verdict, once again, shows just how determined Russian authorities are to make Crimean Tatar activists – and their families – pay the price and how they will subvert the law and courts to do so.

Navalny aide warns against broad sanctions on Russia over poisoning

The West should instead consider sanctions against individuals that would target Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lieutenants and inner circle, Volkov said.

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Sweeping Western sanctions against Russia would be playing into the Kremlin’s hand, a top aide to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has told DW. Navalny was the victim of a near-fatal poisoning in August.

Poll worker firing for not wearing a mask sues Wisconsin governor

There is no plausible medical reason that I know of to not wear a mask – if there is, then the person is unable to work the poll for everyone’s safety. Period!

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A Wisconsin man is suing a LaCrosse city clerk and Gov. Tony Evers (D) after he was dismissed from a paid poll worker position for refusing to wear a mask at a voting precinct, citing a medical condition….

Watch 31 Buster Keaton’s Films Online: “The Greatest of All Comic Actors,” “One of the Greatest Filmmakers of All Time”

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The greatest of the silent clowns is Buster Keaton, not only because of what he did, but because of how he did it. —Roger Ebert

In 1987, Video magazine published a story titled “Where’s Buster?” lamenting the lack of Buster Keaton films available on videotape, “despite renewed interest” in a legend who was “about to regain his rightful place next to Chaplin in silent comedy’s pantheon.” How things have changed for Keaton fans and admirers. Not only are most of the stone-faced comic genius’ films available online, but he has maybe eclipsed Chaplin as the most popularly revered silent film star of the 1920s.

Keaton has always been held in the highest esteem by his fellow artists. He was dubbed “the greatest of all the clowns in the history of the cinema” by Orson Welles, and served as a significant inspiration for Samuel Beckett. (He was the playwright’s first choice to play Waiting for Godot’s Lucky, though he was too perplexed by the script to take the role). In Peter Bogdanovich’s new documentary, The Great Buster: A Celebration, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner discuss his foundational influence on their comedy, and Werner Herzog calls him “the essence of movies.”


For many years, however, the state of Keaton’s filmography made it hard for the general public to fully appraise his work. “The General, with Buster as a train engineer in the Civil War, has always been available,” Roger Ebert wrote in 2002, and has been “hailed as one of the supreme masterpieces of silent filmmaking. But other features and shorts existed in shabby, incomplete prints, if at all, and it was only in the 1960s that film historians began to assemble and restore Keaton’s lifework. Now almost everything has been recovered, restored, and is available on DVDs and tapes that range from watchable to sparkling.”

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Access to Keaton’s films has further expanded as a dozen or so entered the public domain in recent years, including two features, Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator, this year and three more to come in 2021. You can watch thirty-one of Keaton’s restored, recovered films on YouTube, at the links below, shared by MetaFilter user Going to Maine, who writes, “where, oh where, in this modern world, can we find the gems of his golden era? The obvious place.”

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Keaton starred in his first feature-length film, The Saphead, in 1920. For the next decade, until the end of the silent era, he dominated the box office, alongside Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, with his canny blend of daredevil slapstick and everyman pathos. After the twenties, his career floundered, then rebounded. His last picture was a return to silent film in Beckett’s 1966 short, “Film,” made the year of his death. Since then, Keaton appreciation has become almost a form of worship.

In 2018, The General came in at number 34 on Sight & Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time list. But the BFI’s Geoff Andrew argued that it deserved the top spot, and Keaton deserves recognition as “not merely the greatest of the silent comedians,” but “the greatest of all comic actors to have appeared on the silver screen… not only a great American filmmaker of the silent era,” but “one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, anywhere.” Andrew likens him to a god, but “unlike gods… Buster has the advantage of being able to make us laugh. And laugh. And laugh.”

Don’t we all need a steady supply of that medicine these days? See Keaton’s classic silent comedy The General further up, see his short “The Ballonist” above, and watch 29 more Keaton films at the links below. Many will be added to our collection, 1,150 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc..

Short Films

One Week (September 1, 1920)

Convict 13 (October 27, 1920)

Neighbors (December 22, 1920)

The Scarecrow (December 22, 1920)

The Haunted House (February 10, 1921)

Hard Luck (March 14, 1921)

The High Sign (April 12, 1921)

The Goat (May 18, 1921)

The Playhouse (October 6, 1921) (This contains a faux minstrel show segment with blackface.)

The Boat (November 10, 1921)

The Paleface (January, 1922) (Racist depictions of Native Americans)

Cops (March, 1922)

My Wife’s Relations (May, 1922)

The Blacksmith (July 21, 1922)

The Frozen North (August 28, 1922)

The Electric House (October, 1922)

Day Dreams (November, 1922)

The Balloonatic (January 22, 1923)

The Love Nest (March, 1923)

Features

Three Ages (September 24, 1923)

Our Hospitality (November 19, 1923)

Sherlock Jr. (May 11, 1924)

The Navigator (October 13, 1924)

Seven Chances (March 15, 1925)

Go West (November 1, 1925)

Battling Butler (September 19, 1926)

The General (December 31, 1926)

College (November 1927)

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (May 20, 1928)

Bonus! Two of Keaton’s Last Films

The Railrodder, for the National Film Board of Canada (October 2, 1965)

Film, directed by Samuel Beckett (January 8, 1965)

Related Content: 

A Supercut of Buster Keaton’s Most Amazing Stunts

Buster Keaton: The Wonderful Gags of the Founding Father of Visual Comedy

List of Great Public Domain Films 

Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness

Watch 31 Buster Keaton’s Films Online: “The Greatest of All Comic Actors,” “One of the Greatest Filmmakers of All Time” is a post from: Open Culture. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus, or get our Daily Email. And don’t miss our big collections of Free Online Courses, Free Online Movies, Free eBooksFree Audio Books, Free Foreign Language Lessons, and MOOCs.