Doin' the Lynndie

- Michael 1:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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It's not too late

for the Republican Convention! Ships immediately. Get yours now! Click on the Store.

- Michael 1:42 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Three Happy Things

to think about if you worship deliberately engineered economic hardship, if you're a member of the Bush oil cartel, and if you can't wait to see a nuclear war in the Middle East.

Wall Street's biggest fear is that rising energy prices will further increase the costs of shipping goods to market, thus driving up prices for consumers who are themselves hard hit by high gasoline prices. With fewer consumers shopping and higher costs for corporations, earnings for the current quarter, which ends next month, could falter.

Oil prices are now up 57 percent in the past 12 months, although when adjusted for inflation, oil is still roughly $8 less per barrel than it was leading up to the first Gulf War.

Market watchers said some investors had started to whisper about the possibility of a $60 barrel, even as the head of producers' cartel OPEC made soothing-but-vague comments about ``a significant outcome'' from its next members' meeting in September.

Iran's defense minister, Vice Adm. Ali Shamkhani, has warned that Iran may resort to pre-emptive strikes to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.

"We will not sit to wait for what others will do to us," he said. "Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly. Any nation, if it feels threatened, can resort to that."

A commander of Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guards warned this week that Iran would strike Israel's reactor at Dimona if Israel attacked Iran's nuclear sites.

Admiral Shamkhani said Iran was certain that Israel would not carry out such an attack without a green light from the United States. "So you cannot separate the two," he said.

Thank you George Bush, for your doctrine of preemption. You've given a present to the world.

- Michael 10:36 AM - [PermaLink] -

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America the Watch List

Why doesn't the government just build an electrified wall around America and turn it into one big Alcatraz? Your name could show up anywhere, and when it does, watch out, even if you're Senator Edward Kennedy. You know how many people in this country have my name? Do you know how easy it is for someone to steal it? Don't you think this is exactly what real terrorists are doing? The government sure thinks so. So what are they doing about it? Compiling great big lists of everyone with that name and targeting you. What's to stop the Justice Dept. from getting ahold of every name on every petition opposing the administration's views and putting them on an Enemies List of potential "terrorists"? Nixon used to do this: he'd sic the IRS on anyone who signed such petitions and have their income taxes audited, going all the way back to the statute of limitations, which in those days was seven years. But this crowd has already gone much much further than Nixon ever even dreamed about. If Ted Kennedy can't fly, what's next I wonder? What about you and me? Are you going to keep your mouth shut and pretend to be invisible for the rest of your life, out of fear of your own government, hoping they don't show up at your door one day and cart you off?

Instead of acknowledging the craggy-faced, silver-haired septuagenarian as the Congressional leader whose face has flashed across the nation's television sets for decades, the airline agents acted as if they had stumbled across a fanatic who might blow up an American airplane. Mr. Kennedy said they refused to give him his ticket.

Mr. Kennedy said his situation highlighted the odyssey encountered by people whose names had mistakenly appeared on terrorist watch lists or resembled the names of suspected terrorists on such lists. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government on behalf of seven airline passengers who said they had wrongly been placed on no-fly lists or associated with names on the lists and could not find a way to clarify their identities.

Just days after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called Mr. Kennedy in early April to apologize and to promise that the problems would be resolved, another airline agent tried to stop Mr. Kennedy from boarding a plane yet again. The alias used by the suspected terrorist on the watch list was Edward Kennedy, said David Smith, a spokesman for the senator.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union said they did not know how many people had been mistakenly placed on watch lists. But they said the sluggish responses from the airline and the government to Mr. Kennedy's efforts to clear his name demonstrated the absurdity of the no-fly system.

"It demonstrates all those things that we found problems with in the first place, " said Reginald Shulford of the A.C.L.U. "If you're Ted Kennedy, you can call a friend," Mr. Shulford said. "If you're an average citizen you cannot. You can complain to the Department of Homeland Security, but to no avail."

Doesn't that make you feel warm and fuzzy all over? It's like the 1919 Red Scare Palmer raids, McCarthyism, and Nixon rolled into one big crushing ball.

I knew it was only a matter of time before Democrats became "terrorists" -- or maybe we were targeted for termination from day one.

- Michael 9:15 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Build a Bush

That's right, come one, come all, build your own Bush. I suggest Bald, Evil eyes, Missing teeth. Also, for anyone who likes to take a drink, I like to call it "Bush on a bender this November": Thinning hair, Drunk, Needs a shave.

Balding, Asleep, and Close-lipped is way scary. A little too real.

Comb-over, Wall-eyed, and Mustached is good. They all look like him, no matter what you do.

- Michael 4:32 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Do the Lynndie

America has it down pat. Now it's time for everyone to fall into line and do the Lynndie.

Thanks to phunkster JB for the link.

- Michael 3:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"Isn't this a democracy?"

Well no, it isn't.

TRAVERSE CITY - Kathryn Mead wanted to see her first sitting president when George W. Bush visited the city.

Instead, Bush campaign staffers tore up the 55-year-old social studies teacher's ticket and refused her admission because she sported a small sticker on her blouse that touted the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards.

"I have never found this kind of screening anywhere in my travels around the world. I can't imagine being denied access to hearing the president of the United States speak."

But Ralph Soffredine, a Traverse City commissioner, school board member and former police chief who worked security at the front gate, said it is part of the Bush campaign policy.

Lynn Larson, chair of the Grand Traverse Democratic Party, said the move is typical of other Bush rallies that only allow Republican supporters to see the president.

"The very reason that we are here protesting is to protect our First Amendment rights," she said. "When the Secret Service rips somebody's sticker off and takes their ticket away, it makes me even more determined to march to protect our rights."

"I really, truly wanted to have the experience of having seen the president and hear him speak, which is very important to me as a social studies teacher," [Mead] said. "How can anyone in the United States deny someone entry? Isn't this a democracy?"

Nope.

- Michael 9:48 AM - [PermaLink] -

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America the Failed

If you think the last few posts are too harsh and too full of despair, think again. Now it's a crime to be a witness. How's that for upside-down reality?

LAS VEGAS - Abdullah al Kidd was on his way to Saudi Arabia to work on his doctorate in Islamic studies in March 2003 when he was arrested as a material witness in a terrorism investigation. An F.B.I. agent marched him across Dulles Airport in Washington in handcuffs.

"It was the most horrible, disgraceful, degrading moment in my life," said Mr. Kidd, an American citizen who was known as Lavoni T. Kidd when he led his college football team, the Vandals of the University of Idaho, in rushing in 1995.

"I was made to sit in a small cell for hours and hours and hours buck naked," he said. "I was treated worse than murderers."

Mr. Kidd, who described himself as "anti-bin Laden, anti-Taliban, anti-suicide bombing, anti-terrorism," was never charged with a crime and never asked to testify as a witness. In June, 16 months after his arrest, the court said he was free to resume his life.

He lost his scholarship, he now moves furniture for a living, and his marriage has fallen apart. About 60 other men have been held in terrorism investigations under the federal material witness law since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a coming report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. Such laws, meant to ensure that people with important information do not disappear before testifying, have been used to hold people briefly since the early days of the republic.

But scholars and critics say the government has radically reinterpreted what it means to be a material witness in recent years. These days, people held as material witnesses in terrorism investigations are often not called to testify against others; instead, frequently they are charged with crimes themselves. They lack constitutional protections like the requirement that criminal suspects in custody be informed of their Miranda rights. Moreover, they are often held for long periods in the same harsh conditions as those suspected of very serious crimes.

So there you go. Don't take my word for it, tell it to the jailer. This post really ought to be called "America the Gulag" but we're not quite at that point yet. Close though. Give 'em another four years. Speaking of which, here's what your fellow Americans think about that prospect, from today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

Dick Wirthlin (Op-Ed, Aug. 18) says President Bush should be prepared for "The Quadrennial Question": "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Let's see. My country is engaged in a futile military exercise in Iraq. My city is under a perpetual orange alert. I am not sure that my vote will be counted.

My bags are being pilfered at the airport. Gas prices are up, and rising. My rent just increased another 4 percent. My salary has not increased in two years. Hmmm?

But why worry? In a month, I'll be able to buy my very own assault rifle. Now there's some cheery news that will make the next four years just a little more bearable.

Neil Friedman
Brooklyn, Aug. 18, 2004

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To the Editor:

Dick Wirthlin is correct that John Kerry may not be able to persuade some voters that they are worse off now than they were four years ago.

If so, that failure would result in part from the Democratic Party's failure to drive home the facts - to repeat a few simple truths as often and as effectively as Mr. Bush repeats his few outrageous lies.

As for the debates, perhaps Mr. Kerry should avoid questions altogether and instead try making suggestions. Here's one: "Be a man, Mr. President."

He could then ask the president whether he is prepared to take responsibility for the appalling failures of the No Child Left Behind Act, or the disgraceful behavior of a few soldiers in Iraq, or the alarming unwillingness of the federal government to enact and enforce proper standards for the oversight of elections.

Clifford Ando
Los Angeles, Aug. 18, 2004

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To the Editor:

Dick Wirthlin says that President Bush "should convince Americans that the question is not so much whether we are better off than we were four years ago, but how, under his leadership, we will be even better off four years from now."

Given the president's record of the last four years, no wonder his stump speeches already stress the future. Who wants to remember the past four years?

Whit Weihe
Boca Raton, Fla., Aug. 18, 2004

Meanwhile, the alarming unwillingness of the federal government to enact and enforce proper standards for the oversight of elections continues unabated.

The nation's voting rolls are notoriously inaccurate. One study found that as many as six million votes were lost in the 2000 presidential election because of registration problems and that the use of provisional ballots nationwide could have cut the loss significantly. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 mandated that such ballots be given to every voter in a federal election who shows up at the polls but doesn't seem to be listed on the voting rolls. Unfortunately, Congress left local officials too much discretion in carrying out the law. In Chicago this March, 93 percent of the provisional ballots were thrown out, often for dubious reasons.

This week, several unions filed a similar suit in Florida, which also disqualifies provisional ballots cast at the wrong polling places. The wrong-precinct rule serves no legitimate purpose, and it denies eligible voters the right to vote. States should not wait for a court to tell them that rule is unacceptable. At the very least, election officials who intend to throw away ballots cast in the wrong locations must have a foolproof way of directing voters on Election Day to their correct polling places.

Let's call it the No Paper Trail Left Behind Act and rename November "National Florida Month" -- and while we're at it,

I can't finish that sentence.

Fear more years.

- Michael 8:55 AM - [PermaLink] -

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America the Unconstitutional

Here's one way to get rid of political dissent: take away freedom of speech, then give the CIA the power to arrest you, on the say so of the president! See, we're all "terrorists" now if we don't go along. Here's what your fellow Americans think, from today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

Re "Interrogating the Protesters" (editorial, Aug. 17):

Absent probable cause or reasonable suspicion that a person is engaging in or will engage in criminal activity, the F.B.I.'s targeting and questioning of political protesters is antithetical to America's commitment to the First Amendment right to engage in peaceful, nonviolent protest activity. The reported F.B.I. activity interferes with and chills longstanding First Amendment freedoms.

The F.B.I. should explain what it is doing and the basis for its actions. Also, local law enforcement officials, including the New York City Police Department, should state whether they are engaging in similar tactics.

The right to protest is a fundamental right, and it should not be undermined.

Norman Siegel
New York, Aug. 17, 2004
The writer is a civil rights lawyer.

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To the Editor:

Re "F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers" (front page, Aug. 16): At what point did political protest - sometimes known as political expression, sometimes known as free speech - become terrorism?

Lawrence H. Pelofsky
Cooperstown, N.Y., Aug. 16, 2004

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To the Editor:

Re "Interrogating the Protesters" (editorial, Aug. 17): You do not know if the activities of the protesters will be or may be used as a cover for terrorist activity.

Warren Andrews
Orlando, Fla., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

What a shame that the F.B.I. considers those who plan to exercise their First Amendment rights during the Republican convention to be troublemakers.

Joe Parris, a bureau spokesman, was right when he said that "criminal behavior isn't covered by the First Amendment." But F.B.I. agents are knocking on people's doors because they think that people might behave criminally at an event that has not yet taken place.

This is a grave violation of our basic civil liberties. And the F.B.I.'s emphasis on naming names smacks of McCarthyism.

Patricia Grossman
Brooklyn, Aug. 16, 2004

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To the Editor:

I was going back and forth about whether to come to New York to protest at the Republican convention. But since I've learned that the F.B.I. has been deployed to intimidate protesters, I no longer have any doubt about what to do.

It is no longer just a matter of political protest. It is a matter of defending our constitutional rights. I'm coming to New York.

Peter Scotto
South Hadley, Mass., Aug. 17, 2004

The liberty-hating neocons driving the Confederate Bush machine must be good readers of history: they're excellent Maoists. Hey, it worked for Stalin and Hitler too.

- Michael 11:09 AM - [PermaLink] -

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America the Stolen

Some people question how it came to be a Republican executive branch, a Republican legislative branch, a Republican judicial branch, and a Republican-owned media; the answer to that is easy: Republican elections! All you have to do is vote, and immediately the Republican gets elected. How much you wanna bet absentee ballots in Florida go missing? Here's some letters on the subject from your fellow Americans from today's NY Times:

To the Editor:

Paul Krugman ("Saving the Vote," column, Aug. 17) and Bob Herbert ("Suppress the Vote?," column, Aug. 16) write about the dangers to our democracy from unverifiable paperless electronic voting machines and the recent intimidation of African-American volunteers in Florida who get out the vote.

Jimmy Carter has served as an independent election observer in many countries, including the recall referendum in Venezuela last Sunday. In January 2001, when asked about Florida's system, he said, "If we were invited to go into a foreign country to monitor the election, and they had similar election standards and procedures, we would refuse to participate at all."

We have the will and the money to wage a questionable war, but do we have the will and the money to ensure an honest election in November?

Evelyn Chorush
Houston, Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

The possibility that my vote may be counted toward an unintended candidate is the issue. The voting machines are just the vehicle.

Dysfunctional or rigged machines enable a form of theft and should be viewed as a crime rather than just a technological boo-boo.

That any government would shrug at this potential tells me that it has no regard for the individual vote or, chillingly, that the fix is in.

Harold House
Westhampton, N.Y., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

It is ridiculous that federal elections can be hijacked by states with uncheckable voting machines.

I understand that each state is allowed to create its own election procedures, but there is nothing wrong with requiring that certain standards be met by every state in order to participate in federal elections.

Congress should enact mandatory minimum federal guidelines for elections and voting machines. If those guidelines aren't met, the votes don't count. This may disenfranchise Floridians, but that would be fairer than punishing the nation for the failure of a state.

Gretchen S. Adamek
East Hartford, Conn., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

There is nothing more important right now to the American people than the integrity of the fall election. As a Florida voter, I am doubly concerned. I believe that the 2000 election was stolen in this state, and I do not, as Paul Krugman put it, fear "sounding conspiracy-minded" (column, Aug. 17).

I live in Sarasota County, which will offer voters only two options: to vote using the unreliable and vulnerable electronic machines that leave no paper trail or to use an absentee ballot. I encourage voters everywhere faced with the same choice to vote absentee.

Jonathan Winer
Sarasota, Fla., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

Paul Krugman says the coming election may be "suspect" if paperless voting machines are used.

What's to be done? State Democratic parties must sue in court to stop the use of these machines on the basis of the mounting, widespread evidence of their unreliability, and they must do so now. Any further delay will surely result in a lost election.

Ron Cohen
Waltham, Mass., Aug. 17, 2004

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To the Editor:

One should question the motivation of state authorities' interrogating elderly African-American voters in Florida, as described by Bob Herbert (column, Aug. 16).

Why is it that Gov. Jeb Bush and his administration are so intensely scrutinizing would-be supporters of John Kerry this year but showed so little heart four years ago for investigating potential voter fraud and coercion that may have allowed his brother to be declared the victor?

When the recurring stories of electronic voting machine irregularities in Florida are added to this, it paints an even uglier picture of that state than the aftermath images of the hurricane.

James Quigley
East Orange, N.J., Aug. 16, 2004

In the words of Jesse Jackson, this doesn't pass the smell test. The Carter quote is scary.

- Michael 10:33 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Flo'dah

Or make that Fraudida.

Much of Florida's vote will be counted by electronic voting machines with no paper trails. Independent computer scientists who have examined some of these machines' programming code are appalled at the security flaws. So there will be reasonable doubts about whether Florida's votes were properly counted, and no paper ballots to recount. The public will have to take the result on faith.

Yet the behavior of Gov. Jeb Bush's officials with regard to other election-related matters offers no justification for such faith. First there was the affair of the felon list. Florida law denies the vote to convicted felons. But in 2000 many innocent people, a great number of them black, couldn't vote because they were erroneously put on a list of felons; these wrongful exclusions may have put Governor Bush's brother in the White House.

This year, Florida again drew up a felon list, and tried to keep it secret. When a judge forced the list's release, it turned out that it once again wrongly disenfranchised many people - again, largely African-American - while including almost no Hispanics.

Yesterday, my colleague Bob Herbert reported on another highly suspicious Florida initiative: state police officers have gone into the homes of elderly African-American voters - including participants in get-out-the-vote operations - and interrogated them as part of what the state says is a fraud investigation. But the state has provided little information about the investigation, and, as Mr. Herbert says, this looks remarkably like an attempt to intimidate voters.

Given this pattern, there will be skepticism if Florida's paperless voting machines give President Bush an upset, uncheckable victory.

In Bob Herbert's own words, Florida's relentless effort to quash and stifle anything that could be seen as a paper trail to actually count a vote goes straight to Jeb Bush, who gives the Dept. of Law Enforcement its marching orders. "The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. ... The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State."

Speaking of which, here are two sunshining examples from this week's Top Ten Conservative Idiots:

7. Katherine Harris
Here's another story that slipped through the net last week. It seems that our favorite ex-Secretary of State/election thief Katherine Harris is now an expert on national security. Or is she? Harris said recently that she "regrets" claiming there was a plot to blow up a power grid in Indiana after it was revealed she was making it up. At a rally for George W. Bush, Harris told the audience that the mayor of Carmel, Indiana, had informed her that "a man of Middle Eastern heritage had been arrested and hundreds of pounds of explosives were found in his home," according to the Associated Press. "He had plans to blow up the area's entire power grid," said Harris. Um, wrong. City officials, after seeing the story in the newspaper, said, "We're not aware of any plans to blow up Carmel's power grid." Oh, and, "The mayor never talked to Katherine Harris. They never had that conversation." So where did Harris get the idea that terrorists were planning to attack Carmel, Indiana? Probably from the same place she got the idea that Bush won Florida fair and square - out of her butt.


8. Johnnie Byrd
Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd is determined to run government "like a business." And, in the wake of Enron, Halliburton, Tyco, et al, that should probably sound some alarm bells. In true conservative style, Byrd has spent the last two years fighting to cut services for Florida's poor - and has now rewarded 500 state employees by giving them each a $1000 bonus. Yes, that's half a million dollars of taxpayer money. Said Doug Gallagher - one of Byrd's Republican Senate opponents - "If he's got a private sector company and he wants to do something like that, that's fine. But I think it really sends the wrong message to use tax dollars in that fashion." But I think Byrd has this all wrong. If he really wants to run Florida's government like a Bush-style business he should have laid off a bunch of people, outsourced their work to India, given the half-million dollars to himself, cooked the books, gone bankrupt, and then been arrested for fraud. Looks like Johnnie Byrd has got a lot of learning left to do.

You know what they say, a Byrd in the hand is worth two in George Bush.

- Michael 10:49 AM - [PermaLink] -

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What's sauce for the Goss

is jail to the gander. Take a looksee.

Aug. 11 - Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush’s nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States—including arresting American citizens.

“This language on its face would have allowed President Nixon to authorize the CIA to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters,” Jeffrey H. Smith, who served as general counsel of the CIA between 1995 and 1996, told NEWSWEEK. “I can’t imagine what Porter had in mind.”

The Goss bill tracks current law by stating that the DCI shall “collect, coordinate and direct” the collection of intelligence by the U.S. government—except that the CIA “may not exercise police, subpoena, or law enforcement powers within the United States.”

The bill then adds new language after that clause, however, saying that the ban on domestic law-enforcement operations applies “except as otherwise permitted by law or as directed by the president.”

What a great idea! "Reform" intelligence so that the CIA doesn't have to answer to any law but the president's when it comes to arresting American citizens, for whatever reason they feel like! I thought I didn't have Nixon to kick around anymore -- but here he is, like three or four Nixons, all kicking me, hard and up the ass!

- Michael 2:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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About those Bush pauses when he "speaks" ...

Those weird, inappropriate gaps between words that always leave us puzzled, sentences left unfinished or mangled, that confused expression and halting manner of speech about world-altering events, the strange syntax and bizarre inflection? A little stage trick you may or may not know: For actors and movie stars who are too brain-dead dumb or lazy to actually remember their lines, Hollywood has invented an invisible earpiece transmitter by which the lines are spoonfed into the idiot's ear, during the scene. That's all important. If you watch and listen closely, you can observe Bush getting fed the answer. There's always a pause, sometimes two or three, as he stumbles through the spoonfed answer to whatever he's asked. It happens in speeches too. He gets it wrong, he pauses for more, the guy can't remember three words strung together without fucking up the syntax and word order, never mind the sense. Professional actors are aware of these devices and can spot the amateur ten times out of ten. You can tell by the eyes when someone is listening to something being transmitted into their ears, they tend to look down their noses in an unfocused manner and pause before they speak. This is what Bush does every time he opens his mouth. My friends, your president -- the guy with his finger on Armegeddon -- has an invisible piece of plastic in his ear with a voice on the other end telling us all what he thinks we ought to hear. That deer in the headlights look actually is a deer in the headlights.

And Bush is a shitty actor too.

- Michael 1:24 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Lemme write this quick--

-- before the F.B.I. comes a knockin' and locks my ass up and throws away the key and denies me a lawyer or even charges me with a crime, because dissent is now illegal and makes you a domestic terrorist in the eyes of John Ashcroft.

The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the F.B.I in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads. The F.B.I. bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators - everything from violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment.

In an internal complaint, an F.B.I. employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity. But the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in a five-page internal analysis obtained by The New York Times, disagreed.

The office, which also made headlines in June in an opinion - since disavowed - that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances, said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.'s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional.

Notice how the words "torture" "terrorism" "political protests" and "constitutional" fit neatly in the same sentence. Not Stalin enough for you? Take a gander:

"We vetted down a list and went out and knocked on doors and had a laundry list of questions to ask about possible criminal behavior," [Joe Parris, a bureau spokesman] added. "No one was dragged from their homes and put under bright lights. The interviewees were free to talk to us or close the door in our faces."

How's that for reassuring? No one was dragged from their homes and tortured for no reason at all! Don't you feel safer after hearing him say that's what the F.B.I. isn't doing?

"This kind of pressure has a real chilling effect on perfectly legitimate political activity," said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, where two groups of political activists in Denver and a third in Fort Collins were visited by the F.B.I. "People are going to be afraid to go to a demonstration or even sign a petition if they justifiably believe that will result in your having an F.B.I. file opened on you."

I wonder how many people logged off this website after reading that just now? I hear the sound of laptops clicking shut from sea to shining sea. Remember "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon"? Now it's not so quaint and funny ... now we have "Six Degrees of Investigation" and I'm officially at No. 2 after talking to my neighbor at the Saturday pig roast -- who was investigated by the feds. So I better wrap this up:

Prosecutors have now informed the [three young men subpoenaed in Missouri] that they are targets of a domestic terrorism investigation, Ms. Lieberman said, but have not disclosed the basis for their suspicions. "They won't tell me," she said.

Federal officials in St. Louis and Washington declined to comment on the case. Ms. Lieberman insisted that the men "didn't have any plans to participate in the violence, but what's so disturbing about all this is the pre-emptive nature - stopping them from participating in a protest before anything even happened."

The three men "were really shaken and frightened by all this," she said, "and they got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the F.B.I."

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better think twice, I'm telling you why.

- Michael 11:03 AM - [PermaLink] -

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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



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"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.