The Forfeiture Documents That the Justice Dept Wanted to Destroy
On 22 July 2004, the Justice Dept—via the Government Printing Office—told libraries to destroy five documents on asset forfeiture, a highly controversial practice in which the authorities take people's property. (Sometimes the people have been convicted of crimes; other times they haven't even been charged with a crime.)
- posted by SARTRE @ 7:38 AM (0) comments

 
The prison built on fear by Madeleine Bunting
The problem, argued the philosopher John Gray, is that the myth of progress which has sustained western liberalism for 200 years - the belief that the condition of human beings, ethically and politically, can be irrevocably improved - is crumbling. Two bogus versions of progress are being offered at the ballot box: in the US, the neocons are hijacking the myth of progress for their imperial project of an American century, while, in the UK, New Labour struggles to package its managerialist politics in the transformational progress rhetoric of the past.
- posted by SARTRE @ 9:15 AM (0) comments

 
The impulse for liberty by Norman Council
The spirit of libertarianism is as old as the country itself. The story of Patrick Henry's exhortation "give me liberty or give me death!" is ingrained in the mythology of our country. We are a country steeped in the mystique of the individual, in the value of "rugged American individualism," and the legend of Horatio Alger and the "self made man."

- posted by SARTRE @ 8:48 AM (0) comments

 
Ashcroft Defends Domestic Spying On Dissidents by John Tiffany
U.S. law enforcement has a history of infiltrating right-wing and left-wing groups that protest the government. The 1960s COINTELPRO program, run by the FBI, is perhaps the most well-known example of this, whereupon federal agents worked with local law enforcement to infiltrate groups for the purpose of disrupting, discrediting and otherwise neutralizing organizations and individuals.


- posted by SARTRE @ 11:52 AM (0) comments

 
Bush's Executive Orders Put US on Permanent War Footing bt Jon Rappoport
In the long run, what is being sought is a coordinated and slick merger of both civilian and military intell bureaucracy.

Which means PERMANENT WAR FOOTING.


- posted by SARTRE @ 9:45 AM (0) comments

 
The FBI's Pre-Emptive Interrogations Of "Possible" Demonstrators by Bob Barr
The FBI, no longer content with working to maintain order at political events, is now preemptively identifying and interrogating ("interviewing") possible demonstrators. It has summarized this strategy in a memo.

The fact of the matter is, tactics such as those contemplated in last year's FBI memo, and approved by the Justice Department this past spring, do chill free speech. They do intimidate.




- posted by SARTRE @ 9:23 AM (0) comments

 
State of the Union, 2004 by Gore Vidal
I say very mildly, we have only one political party in the United States, the Property Party, with two right wings, Republican and Democrat.

Now in the year 2004, when we have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns, Homeland Security appears to be uniting our secret police into a single sort of Gestapo with dossiers on everyone to prevent us, somehow or other, from being terrorized by various implacable Second and Third World enemies.
- posted by SARTRE @ 2:33 PM (0) comments

 
Government Still Salivates Over Big Brother Database Created by a Cocaine Smuggler
For civil libertarians, the MATRIX conjures up memories of another data-mining project—Admiral John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program, which the Senate, out of civil liberties concerns, nixed in January 2003 before it launched. MATRIX, however, has escaped congressional scrutiny since it is considered a state program. And while MATRIX officials say that they are not using the system to create lists of potential terrorists, critics worry that nothing forbids them from doing that in the future.


- posted by SARTRE @ 5:57 AM (0) comments

 
Gag Orders by George Neumayr
It would be difficult to come up with a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than the McCain-Feingold idiocy now accorded the utmost respect in our political culture. Concerned citizenship has become a felony. Pols feel comfortable rebutting "issue ads" -- a phrase which is supposed to convey unspeakable malignity -- not by saying that the ads are wrong but by declaring that they should not air at all. Pols cleave to the Federal Election Commission like Bolsheviks unwilling to abide any criticism outside tightly controlled state channels. They won't enforce obscenity laws but they will ask the FEC to enforce the new laws against the very political speech the Constitution was written to protect.

- posted by SARTRE @ 8:11 AM (0) comments

 
FBI Launches 'Preemptive' Investigations by Marty Logan
Three members of Congress wrote to the Justice Department asking it to probe the FBI visits, calling them "systematic political harassment and intimidation of legitimate antiwar protests".

Yet a poll released Wednesday by the Council on Foreign Relations [pdf] found that almost twice as many U.S. citizens were concerned the government had not done enough to guarantee their safety than were worried about undue restrictions on civil liberties.


- posted by SARTRE @ 9:53 AM (0) comments

 
Outsourcing and Patriotism - inteview Lou Dobbs
The World Trade Organization and NAFTA it now turns out are really outsourcing agreements. They give corporate America an opportunity to move plant, production and yes jobs to Mexico, to any part of the world and ship back into this market.

Both parties are absolutely loathe to offend corporate America. They're loathe to look out and say, "You know, we're a government of the people, by the people and for the people," because I don't think the people, based on the reaction from my viewership, feel like they're being adequately represented.

- posted by SARTRE @ 7:08 AM (0) comments

 
Memo: 'Terror' Election Barring Voters Could Stand by Ritt Goldstein
A recently unearthed government memorandum, "Executive Branch Power to Postpone Elections", prepared for the U.S. Congress addresses the power of the administration to postpone elections. But more notably, it reviews actions the executive branch might take that could preclude large numbers of Americans from casting a ballot in the coming presidential vote. It explicitly states, "the executive branch could make decisions that would make it impossible or impractical" for an election to occur.
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The Revolution Was by Garet Garrett
So it was that a revolution took place within the form. Like the hagfish, the New Deal entered the old form and devoured its meaning from within. The revolutionaries were inside; the defenders were outside. A government that had been supported by the people and so controlled by the people became one that supported the people and so controlled them. Much of it is irreversible. That is true because habits of dependence are much easier to form than to break. Once the government, on ground of public policy, has assumed the responsibility to provide people with buying power when they are in want of it, or when they are unable to provide themselves with enough of it, according to a minimum proclaimed by government, it will never be the same again.


- posted by SARTRE @ 6:59 AM (0) comments

 
The Sins of Clinton vs. Bush by Paul Craig Roberts
In his newly published book, The Meaning of Is, Barr provides his account of the impeachment and failed conviction of President Clinton. Barr's use of language creates the impression that he is writing in the spirit of a very partisan Republican. In truth, Barr's choice of words reflects his disappointment in the integrity of government. As a constitutionalist, he has no home in either party.
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The Wanna-Be State by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
No amount of evil is considered out of bounds for those who hold power. All states everywhere want to be total. Remember that and you won't be fooled by the US government’s attempt to distract you from its power grabs with scary tales of foreign tyrannies. What is to be truly dreaded is homegrown.


- posted by SARTRE @ 6:41 AM (0) comments

 
Are You A Couch Patriot? Part II by Ted Twietmeyer
We can only save America if you stop sitting there doing nothing. It's YOUR country, given to you by God and God-fearing men, not sick, twisted evil people. Its a chosen land and do you really want it to become a slave state ? The NWO people work daily to steal everything you hold dear from you, including dissolving the family unit. That's in UN documents, stating that the "family is the enemy of society."
- posted by SARTRE @ 1:38 PM (0) comments

 
Are You A Couch Patriot? Part I by Ted Twietmeyer
I've spent considerable time educating and motivating people to realize they could lose EVERYTHING they hold precious- like children, their spouses, homes and their Civil Rights. Yet they won't act either because of fear or they think their voices won't matter. There are few out there that steadfastly stand by Bush. But that's because they keep watching the box in the living room for a steady brainwashing to continue. To those that think nothing can be done, I remind them how the protesters were VERY instrumental in getting us out of Vietnam. That war could have gone have gone on forever- just like the phony war on terrorism.

- posted by SARTRE @ 1:32 PM (0) comments

 
The Gestapo and The Central Intelligence Agency might have common grounds very soon
Representative Porter Goss, Bush's favorite for the head of the CIA, has introduced legislation that would allow the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States-including arbitrary arrests of American citizens.

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The Star Chamber Is Back by Paul Craig Roberts
The Bush administration has sacrificed the Bill of Rights to its "war on terror." As Elaine Cassel conclusively demonstrates in her forthcoming book, The War on Civil Liberties (Lawrence Hill Books), the "war on terror" is in truth a war on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments to the Constitution.


- posted by SARTRE @ 6:55 AM (0) comments

 
Why the Constitution Isn’t the Bible by James Leroy Wilson
What I am suggesting is that the Constitution, if the letter of its law was obeyed, would be preferable to the government we have now. But we can’t go back. If the Constitution itself was so good, it would have been obeyed from the very beginning. But near the very beginning, it was violated, and has been violated ever since. Whether from a self-perceived higher ethical law, or expediency, the Constitution will always be violated. It has not been, is not now, nor ever will be, a check on despotism.
- posted by SARTRE @ 8:44 AM (0) comments

 
6000 Florida voters live in Israel
Israel is home to roughly 6,000 former Floridians – expatriates who tend to be more conservative than Jewish voters in New York and many of whom voted for Bush in the last election, Zober said. Additionally, he said in a telephone interview from his office in Tel Aviv, many Israeli-Americans who might have voted for Gore if they were living in the US voted for Bush because they considered him an unflinching supporter of Israel.

- posted by SARTRE @ 8:00 PM (0) comments

 
The Arrogance of America by Joe Goodson
I am hopeful that someday, after Americans have had a chance to cleanse themselves of their stenches of arrogance and folly, the time will come to be “bullish” on America once again -- possibly starting around the year 2020. After U.S. citizens have learned their lesson the hard way, and have rediscovered what freedom really is, and when America is once again the undisputed freest country in the world -- full of prudence, modesty, and peace -- will the U.S. be a great nation again.
- posted by SARTRE @ 8:11 AM (0) comments

 
Beware of State 'Progress' by Gail Jarvis
But how can do-gooders create a problem of such magnitude that only massive government intervention can solve it? First, they look at society and select something that seems to be "inappropriate" and make it an issue. Then they "language" it. They construct words and phrases to portray the problem as being "out-of-control" and then a "crisis." Their clever language is bolstered by questionable facts and statistics. Next, an obliging media reports anecdotal stories to support the manufactured crisis. And, finally, a self-serving member of Congress sees the new crisis as a way to gain headlines and introduces legislation to remedy the odious epidemic.


- posted by SARTRE @ 7:01 AM (0) comments

 
Using The Patriot Act To Target Patriots by Cliff Kincaid
The Patriot Act has been used to obtain search warrants against doctors and scientists who had been warning about the threat of bioterrorism in the U.S. The most prominent such cases are Dr. Steven Hatfill and now Dr. Kenneth Berry. No evidence has been produced against either man, but the highly publicized raids on their homes—and the media feeding frenzy—give the fleeting impression that the Bureau is making progress.


- posted by SARTRE @ 7:12 AM (0) comments

 
The World's Greatest Prison State
At present, the US houses nearly 2.1 Million prisoners - roughly 718 people per 100,000 population. Out nearest competitor is Russia, with 584 per 100,000. Other free nations have considerably lower rates: England is 143, Canada is 116, Germany is 96, and Japan is a very low 54 per 100,000.

- posted by SARTRE @ 6:56 AM (0) comments

 
Police State USA by Rep. Ron Paul
Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.


- posted by SARTRE @ 7:42 AM (0) comments

 
Conspiracy in Philadelphia by Gary North
These men had been authorized by Congress and by several state legislatures only to revise the Articles of Confederation (1781), but not replace them. Knowing full well that they planned to replace the Articles with a new form of government, the leaders of the Convention nevertheless agreed to the terms laid down by the state legislatures, and then went off to Philadelphia to begin the first stage of a political revolution.


- posted by SARTRE @ 6:53 AM (0) comments

 
The Revolution of 1800 and the USA PATRIOT Act by William J. Watkins
In this election year, there are significant parallels between the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Enacted in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, the PATRIOT Act has augmented the power of federal authorities to pry into the affairs of innocent Americans. In the summer of 1798, the United States Congress passed and President John Adams signed similar legislation. At base, the Alien and Sedition Acts prohibited criticism of the federal government and gave President Adams the power to deport any alien he viewed as suspicious. Americans found guilty of sedition faced prison terms of up to five years and hefty fines. In certain circumstances, aliens remaining in the United States could be imprisoned “so long as, in the opinion of the President, the public safety may require.”

- posted by SARTRE @ 6:35 AM (0) comments

 
Another Great Depression? by Gary North
The FED has bailed out the system so often that it has created a sense of abandon among entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs have access to enormous lines of credit through the futures market. This is what the carry trade is all about: borrowing short to lend long, with an inverted pyramid of interconnected debt. No one knows how large this pyramid is. No one knows the limits of the system.


- posted by SARTRE @ 12:32 PM (0) comments

 
My Beef With Big Media by Ted Turner
The role of the government ought to be like the role of a referee in boxing, keeping the big guys from killing the little guys. If the little guy gets knocked down, the referee should send the big guy to his corner, count the little guy out, and then help him back up. But today the government has cast down its duty, and media competition is less like boxing and more like professional wrestling: The wrestler and the referee are both kicking the guy on the canvas.
- posted by SARTRE @ 7:09 PM (0) comments