2015 marks the beginning of the fifth year of the existence of the community known as The Houston Free Thinkers. From humble beginnings we have grown to a force in Houston activism. The original intent with this idea was to meet other like minds with concerns about the world and the city of Houston. We…
Blogs
National
Supreme Court agrees to rule on gay marriage
USA Today The Supreme Court agreed Friday to resolve the national debate over same-sex marriage once and for all. The justices will consider four cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, consolidated and heard together. They will hear 2 1/2 hours of oral arguments in April and issue a ruling before the current term ends…
International
Michoacan, Mexico, Breaks Bad — Again — After Shootout Between Rival Militias Kills 11
What lessons can be learned from the situation in Mexico? Is the current paradigm of community defense the best model? VICE Hipólito Mora, founder of the first autodefensa civilian militia in Michoacán, Mexico, stood in the scorching sun on Wednesday at the site where his son was killed in a shootout the previous day, the latest sign…
Solutions
Today’s activists should heed the story of Assata Shakur
State surveillance is justified by saying ‘the innocent have nothing to fear’, but renewed attempts to capture Shakur show we cannot be complacent Guardian When the FBI announced last year that Assata Shakur had been placed on the most-wanted terrorist list at the age of 65, it felt like a new generation of activists was being given…
Police State
Guantanamo guard: ‘CIA killed prisoners and made it look like suicide’
A FORMER Guantanamo Bay guard has spoken for the first time about what he claims was a CIA murder of detainees, covered up as a triple suicide. Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman was on guard at the Cuban prison camp on the night they died, and calls the official version of events “impossible”. “They would…
9/11
Drone operators had Bin Laden in crosshairs a year before 9/11
RT The first American to ever launch a drone strike from an armed unmanned aerial vehicle now says he had Osama Bin Laden in his crosshairs in 2000, a full year before the terrorist attacks of September 11. According to an essay published this week by former Predator pilot Scott Swanson, a United States Air…
TSA
Report: TSA Routinely Targets Transgender Passengers For Extra Pat-Downs, Strip Searches
Emerson Rensink | The Anti-Media In an extensive report conducted by Al-Jazeera America last month, it was revealed that U.S. Transportation Security Agency (TSA) policies routinely single out transgender passengers for extra security screenings, including pat-downs and strip searches. Al-Jazeera’s findings are based on information gathered from public records requests from the Department of Homeland…
Economy
‘Professor bitcoin’ and the rise of crypto-currencies
USA Today SAN FRANCISCO —Gregory Maxwell, a co-founder of the digital currency startup Blockstream, sat in front of a crowded room of Bitcoin experts and investors in a conference room of San Francisco’s Kabuki Hotel this week and answered a question that many came to hear: Should development of “blockchains”—the globally-distributed encryption technology at the…
Technology
ACLU Forces NSA to Release Records on Spying
The Verge If you want to release something no one will pay attention to, what time’s better than Christmas Eve? At least, that appeared to be the National Security Agency’s thinking. Last night, the NSA released reports detailing all the times they’ve illegally spied on American citizens. Ho ho ho! The heavily redacted documents were…
GMO's
Kyrgyzstan Bans Cultivation of Genetically Modified Crops
24 Genetically modified products to be prohibited cultivated in Kyrgyzstan. Today the deputies approved in the third reading the bill “On the prohibition of cultivation, production, import and sale in KR products containing GMOs”. Earlier it was reported that the adoption of the law till 2015, it is planed to build a laboratory, where not…
Drug War
Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward
HP With the public in the U.S. and Latin America becoming increasingly skeptical of the war on drugs, key figures in a scandal that once rocked the Central Intelligence Agency are coming forward to tell their stories in a new documentary and in a series of interviews with The Huffington Post. More than 18 years…
Environment
Should We Look At Plants The Same Way That Many Of Us Look At & Cherish Animals?
Collective Evolution One particular question has been on my mind for quite some time. We see a lot of activism over the treatment of animals in Factory Farms. A systematic, controlled, breeding of animals for the sole purpose of being used either as food or for producing food products. This definition gives me the shivers. In…
Globalization
HOW QATAR IS FUNDING THE RISE OF ISLAMIST EXTREMISTS
Infowars The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists Few outsiders have noticed, but radical Islamists now control Libya’s capital. These militias stormed Tripoli last month, forcing the official government to…