Md. Police Listed Green Group As Terrorist : NPR

Md. Police Listed Green Group As Terrorist : NPR: "Nation
Md. Police Listed Green Group As Terrorist
by Libby Lewis
Audio for this story will be available at approx. 7:00 p.m. ET
All Things Considered, October 24, 2008 · Three staff members of a Chesapeake environmental group were surprised to learn they were spied on by Maryland State Police and named as suspected terrorists on a state list. The state police has acknowledged it spied on anti-death penalty and anti-war activists."


Gee you just never know do you. So many terrorists and so little time.
We went through this kind of shit during the Nixon years. It gets old.

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border - washingtonpost.com

Planning to travel abroad? When you re-enter the U.S. the Department of Homeland Security has disclosed that Federal agents may take your laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing. These officials may share copies of the lap top's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.

The policies cover any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form:

• including hard drives
• flash drives
• cellphones
• pagers
• ipods
• video and audio tapes
  

They also cover:

• all papers and other written documentation
• including books
• pamphlets
• pocket trash
• pocket litter

Yes that would miscellaneous paper scraps in your pocket.

With all the talk about abuses in the civil liberties of people by the Chinese government, I'd say that under the Bush administration we are well down that slippery slide. More information on protecting privacy issues can be found here

IMMUNITY FIGHT A VICTORY FOR GOVERNMENT LAWLESSNESS

When the Bush Administration tapped private phone lines with the aid of phone companies but without any court order authorizing the wiretaps, it set into motion a series of challenges for violating the privacy rights of millions of Americans. That battle ended today when the Senate voted in favor of the new FISA bill today by a 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican by voting in favor of it. Sadly my own Democratic Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill also sold out to Bush and the phone companies voting for the final bill with immunity for phone companies that have already provided private information from American citizens to the Bush administration without court order. Sen. Hillary Clinton had the courage to voted against it.

Earlier amendment to pass the bill without immunity failed - Obama supporting that effort while McCaskill again voted the Bush & phone company line.

Rachael Ray - "jihadi chic"

Oh my God! The spastic idiocy of some people!

So Dunkin' Donuts runs an ad on its Web site featuring Rachael Ray holding a cup of the company’s iced coffee while wearing a black-and-white fringed scarf. Along comes conservative bloggers Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin et al. and suddenly Rachael's the scarf became a keffiyeh presto, Dunkin' Donuts has at “jihadi chic.”

Of course this spreads all over the Internet faster than a computer virus and the next thing you know, Dunkin' Donuts ran for cover from the legion of lunatics who put Joseph McCarthy to shame. The company issues the following statement, “In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design, It was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended.” It added that the decision to remove the ad was made, “because the possibility of misconception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee.”

Michelle Malkin eventually praised D.D. for killing the advertisement and took the opportunity to fill us all in. “The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.”

OK, I'm pretty certain that's exactly what Rachael Ray had in mind. A cleaver clandestine operation to use coffee... but not just any coffee, Dunkin' Donuts Iced coffee to spread terror throughout the land.

Before you think that I take the threat of terror lightly, I believe there are people who wish Americans harm. I believe they generally are paranoid about the prospects of an open society with individual rights and liberties. It's not so much that they hate you and I individually, they don't even know us. It is what we represent that they fear and hate. So when I see this kind of knee-jerk craziness I am saddened that there are Americans who feed right into the cause they think they are fighting.

This is the kind of paranoia that leads to suppression of the very rights and liberties that the terrorists despise. This is one of the greatest dangers of terrorism. A bombing that kills innocent people is a tragic loss, but when it happens we see it for what it is.When terrorists create the kind of fear and paranoia that leads a President and telecommunications companies to suspend our rights and liberties without due process, it takes us one step closer to the loss of the very liberty countless men and women have fought and died for. And each act, each tiny chip away at our rights take us a step closer to the same oppressive controls that these individuals exert over others.

Dunkin' Donuts, Charles Johnson and Michelle Malkin, along with a host of other ultra-conservative bloggers who fanned the flames of this stupid notion, deserve nothing more than our scorn and disapproval for the disservice they do to a free nation, not to mention the ill will their ignorance heaps on many honest, good, peaceful people whom they lump into the label of terrorists.

Hastert Blames Americans' Impatience For '06 GOP Losses

I read with amazement this article about the retirement of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. After all this time he blames the GOP losses in the midterm election on American impatience.

I won't even bother to discuss the numerous scandals among GOP House members which he denied lead to the Republican electoral demise. But I will take issue with the insistence that the American people are impatient where the war is concerned.

Patience, or lack thereof is only a small part of the electoral revolt where the war in Iraq is concerned. It is far more than impatience. He ignores the fact that the vast majority of America realizes that they were mislead in the first place. There was no compelling reason for the US to make an unprovoked strike on Iraq. Information about possible nuclear concerns were grossly exaggerated and information at the time suggested so. We had UN inspectors in the country again surveying the situation.

It is true that the existing government in Iraq was wrought with human rights abuses, but so is the Sudan, so is China, Sri Lanka, Labia, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Côte d’Ivoire, El Salvador, Colombia, Turkey and the list of places with major human rights abuses goes on. Where is the U.S. response in these places? The fact is that our government and in particular the Bush administration found it politically expedient to go to war with Iraq, and they believed it would be a short campaign and there would be minimal causalities. They shifted resources from Afghanistan (a real stronghold for anti-American extremists) to Iraq.

For all the bad you could say about the Saddam Hussein, he did after all rise in power with behind the scenes help from the United States government. Further there existed a stable government environment that was not susceptible to outside interference in the region.

What Representative Hastert ignores of fails to understand is that we know the truth about Iraq and it is an ugly scar in the history of the U.S.

At last count, we've lost at least 3,699 U.S. servicemen and women in the ear in Iraq. At least 25,000 Americans have been wounded. This Mr. Hastert is a pretty heavy price to pay for what amounts to a lie. Your President was bound and determined to go to war in Iraq to the extent that he would present less than honest assessments of facts. That is a polite way of saying he lied.

On the other side, the price has been worse. By other side I am speaking of Iraqi citizens. Bush's war has created a vacuum in leadership in country where there is no consensus among the Iraqi people themselves. There are deep divisions between neighboring people. To the point of bloody civil strife on a daily basis. The death toll in one day alone in a northern Kurdish province that was previously one of the quieter spots is now at least 400.

We've destroyed so much of the countries infrastructure, in the capital alone they are lucky to have an hour or two electricity a day. One seriously has to ask the question, are they better off today than under Saddam?

Efforts to create a democratic government in Iraq have had only partial success. While the structure of a legislative body now exists, the divisions between the Iraqi people themselves are so deep that this brave body of men and women that rick their own lives daily are in worse gridlock than anything we've ever witnessed here in America.

Given this, and the fact that this whole mess has in fact lead to greater disdain for America Islamic people worldwide, how exactly has this made us safer?

In all this it is amazing how prophetic Dick Cheney was in 1994. The question is what lead to his mental lapse?

Congressman Hastert needs to understand that the American people are not simply an impatient bunch. No, we realize that George Bush pulled a Gulf of Tonkin on us (see here, here, and especially here) and are angered and the loss of lives on both sides, the loss of American prestige, the monetary cost of over $450 billion of non-budgeted tax money and counting , and creating a cause celeb for recruiting anti-American terrorists. If THIS is not a crime against the American people and humanity as a whole, I don't know what is.

Another Moronic Shill for Cheney

According to news reports [here] and [here] and [here] Under Secretary of Defense Eric S. Edelman offered a stinging rebuke of Senator Hillary Clinton following her questions to Pentagon officials about how the U.S. would withdraw from Iraq. Edelman was attributed to the following, “Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq..."

The sharp attack on Clinton is interesting for two reasons. First, numerous Senators including Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee have asked the same questions. Has he blasted Luger or any Republicans who's asked these same questions? Second, Edelman's background is interesting to say the least because Edelman is Vice President Cheney's former deputy national security adviser. Funny how these things always lead back to Cheney.

Since he has mentioned propaganda, I'd be interested in Mr. Edelman's thoughts on the propaganda fed to the American people leading up to President Bush's commitment of U.S. forces to Invade Iraq. I'm tired of the Cheney henchmen in government and in the military.

Read this....

A MUST READ for everyone.... What is Al-Qaeda?

There was a similar story on NPR today - If I can find the link I'll post it later.