Patriot Act II by John Tiffany
Patriot Act II would create 15 new death penalties, one of which could be applied to acts of protest. Under the Hastert measure’s definitions, anti-war protesters could be deemed terrorists. In fact, any dissident could be spied on, harassed, and imprisoned indefinitely for exercising their legal and constitutionally protected rights.


- posted by SARTRE @ 8:06 PM (0) comments

 
Why Are the Major Political Parties Afraid of Competition? by Tonie Nathan
If all views were represented in the dialogues preceding the national election, there would be more voters participating and a better indication of what voters really wanted.
- posted by SARTRE @ 6:44 PM (0) comments

 
House May Revive Parts of Patriot Act II by JESSE J. HOLLAND
In a draft of the House GOP legislation obtained by The Associated Press, many of the provisions were similar to the draft copy of the ``Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003'' that a nonprofit group said had leaked out of the Justice Department in January 2003.


- posted by SARTRE @ 7:11 AM (0) comments

 
If America Were Iraq by Juan Cole
What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Mont., Flint, Mich., Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, D.C., and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs," but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?


- posted by SARTRE @ 6:32 AM (0) comments

 
Who Will Watch the Watchers? by Christopher S. Bentley
Mexico’s emerging surveillance state offers a sobering look into the future if the Power Elite’s proposal for a "continental security" perimeter becomes reality.

"It should be simple for any law enforcement officer, anywhere in the world, if they encounter someone suspicious to run one biometric check that would link them to all this information so that they would know if this person is a suspected terrorist or a criminal."


- posted by SARTRE @ 7:16 AM (0) comments

 
Bob Barr vs. the FBI by Nat Hentoff
"The FBI, seemingly, takes an absurdly narrow view of what kind of tactics would, in fact, chill speech. . . . For instance, Joe Parris, an FBI spokesman, told The New York Times that, because 'no one was dragged from their homes and put under bright lights,' interviews of potential demonstrators are not chilling.

"So," says Barr, "now we know the administration's new First Amendment standard: So long as the government agents don't 'drag you from your home' and interrogate you 'under bright lights,' you have nothing to complain or worry about . . . such tactics usher in an era of intolerance and fear that has no place in American politics."

- posted by SARTRE @ 2:37 PM (0) comments

 
I loathe democracy by ANDY NOWICKI
It may serve to remind people that in spite of maudlin post-9/11 rhetoric, we do not "stand together" as a nation. Unity is simply not an option. Secession, a willful breaking away from the Union of the culture of death, is the only answer.

- posted by SARTRE @ 8:02 AM (0) comments

 
The Real Meaning of Security by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Submission and compliance: that is what is meant by the term security in the state's lexicon . . . Who is this security trying to secure? We are told it is for our own benefit. It is government that makes us secure from terrible threats. And yet, if we look closely, we can see that the main beneficiary of security is the state itself. We all understand this intuitively.
- posted by SARTRE @ 5:43 AM (0) comments

 
Kahl, Peltier May Finally Get Fair Shake by Pat Shannan
According to lawyers for Kahl and Peltier, the Parole Commission, lacking in any statutory authority, illegally extended the terms of imprisonment of both men. The failure of the Parole Commission to give release dates to Peltier and Kahl violated the ex post facto, bill of attainder and due process clauses of the Constitution.


- posted by SARTRE @ 9:20 PM (0) comments

 
The Ultimate Personality and Ideological Test by Mark Dankof
Take the test Lutheran pastor and paleo-con journalist Mark Dankof did recently. The test is a Personality and Ideological profile concocted by a Philadelphia-based clinical psychologist with a past in counterinsurgency warfare and tragedy in Vietnam two generations ago. His speciality is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His theory: that musical, artistic, literary, political, and sporting tastes are the window to the psyche and the soul.

- posted by Blackie @ 2:58 AM (0) comments

 
Citizen Hamdi by Howard Sutherland
Mass immigration is transforming America, and Americans have very little say in it. We must regain control over who shares the privileges and duties of American citizenship. Yaser Esam Hamdi’s only chosen involvement with this nation has been fighting with the Taliban against our troops. An America that accepts him as a fellow-citizen has no respect for its own citizenship—and an America that gives citizenship away to illegal alien and birth-tourist babies drains its greatest privilege, U.S. citizenship, of value.
- posted by SARTRE @ 8:15 PM (0) comments

 
Voltaire’s Bastards by Jeremy Lott
Assuming this republic continues on for some time, political historians will look back to 2004 as the year censorship came to America. The groundwork was laid earlier and it didn't take quite as well as it might have with a more servile population -- not at first, at least. But when our elected representatives and most of the press locked arms against "negative campaigning" by nefarious "outside groups," we knew the jig was up and really didn't know how to fight it.

- posted by SARTRE @ 9:18 AM (0) comments

 
A Conservative Hails FDR’s Concentration Camps by Anthony Gregory
If it’s "politically correct" to stand by the Bill of Rights and against the hysterically draconian policies of FDR and Bush II, I’m glad that, for once, the politically correct crowd is on the side of reason and liberty. It’s all for the good that FDR’s concentration camps are still taboo. Jefferson’s America was never meant to have Gulags, or anything close.


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

 
The Diebold GEMS central tabulator contains a stunning security hole
By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.

This program is not "stupidity" or sloppiness. It was designed and tested over a series of a dozen version adjustments.


- posted by SARTRE @ 8:47 PM (0) comments

 
The Myth of the 'Old Republic' by James Leroy Wilson
Not only is the Old Republic gone, it, realistically, never really existed in the first place. It is, more or less, an idea of Constitutional restraint. Maybe, at one time, it worked better than it does now. But since its inception, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights have been slipping more and more from our grasp.
- posted by SARTRE @ 7:08 AM (0) comments

 
The War on Civil Liberties by NOAH LEAVITT
In her new book, The War Against Civil Liberties, Elaine Cassel reminds us how much the legal landscape has changed in this short period.

Cassel also describes how the USA PATRIOT Act has been used for obviously non-terrorist crimes.

Cassel predicts that not only law enforcement, but surveillance as well, will expand as the definition of terrorism bloats to encompass more and more.
- posted by SARTRE @ 4:38 PM (0) comments

 
US police spy for Israel
Richard Hirschaut of the ADL denied the organisation kept files on Arab Americans, but admitted in an article in the Northern California Jewish Bulletin that it did keep files “pertaining to anti-Semitism and racist and extremist activities” as well as “Arab American groups or individuals who espouse anti-Jewish views or take credit for anti-Jewish acts”.

In a frightening admission, Hirschaut claimed that the ADL's relationship with Gerard “was the same as with thousands of police officers around the country”.

- posted by SARTRE @ 7:35 AM (0) comments

 
The Crisis of Public Dissent by FRAN SHOR
Beyond the kind of hyper patriotic attacks which label any and all opposition during wartime as "treasonous," the thrust of Bush Administration repression is to criminalize dissent. After Attorney General Ashcroft eliminated restrictions on FBI surveillance of US citizens in May of 2002, FBI agents have more zealously investigated anti-war activists. According to a US Senate report on the impact of Ashcroft's ruling, the FBI has adopted the "belief that dissident speech and associations should be prevented because they were incipient steps towards the possible ultimate commission of an act which might be criminal."
- posted by SARTRE @ 1:54 PM (0) comments

 
Happy Birthday Senator Taft
Senator Robert A. Taft was born on this day in 1889. He was the last great champion of the old right and, in many ways, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is his successor. While Taft was not always consistent in his views, he generally favored a policy of free markets at home and skepticism toward foreign crusades and entanglements.

Taft would probably be dismissed as a starry-eyed peacenik, and as a member of the "hate America crowd," by many conservatives today for statements such as this one made in October 1946:

"Our whole attitude in the world, for a year after V.E. Day, including the use of the Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, seems to me a departure from the principles of fair and equal treatment which has made America respected throught the world before this second World War. Today, we are cordially hated in many countries." (quoted in Ronald Radosh, Prophets on the Right: Profiles of Conservative Critics of American Globalism).


- posted by SARTRE @ 6:51 AM (0) comments

 
Goebbels Rallies the People by Harry Browne
Political parties are a dangerous phenomenon. They remove the power to think for oneself. Individuals who become Republicans or Democrats no longer evaluate issues according to fixed principles. They care only about parties. Their worst fear is that the opposition party will win the next election.


- posted by SARTRE @ 7:36 AM (0) comments

 
Ballot Box Smear by William F. Jasper
Leftist political activists in California have adopted a new attack vehicle to smear patriots under the banner of protected political "free speech."


- posted by SARTRE @ 8:25 PM (0) comments

 
New Era of Big Government by Bob Barr
The importance of The Bush Betrayal lies in the author’s impeccably researched exposition of what may very well be the central theme underlying modern politics in America: despite promises, regardless of rhetoric, and irrespective of party label, once a politician is in power, what We the People get—and which we’ve got in the current administration—is, in Bovard’s words, “Washington business as usual.”

- posted by SARTRE @ 1:40 PM (0) comments

 
'Hate Crime' Law Passes Senate - On To House by Ted Twietmeyer
Recently, within a defense bill on Capitol Hill another bill was hidden. This hidden attachment pertains to so-called "hate crimes." The bill is Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (S. 933), a pro-homosexual hate crimes bill.
- posted by SARTRE @ 9:52 PM (0) comments

 
FOLLOWING JOE SOBRAN: In Support of Michael Peroutka by Bob Strodtbeck
In his endorsement of Peroutka, Sobran wrote, "But no real rule of law can emerge from subjectivist interpretation, by either legislators or judges. So in a sense, Peroutka isn't just running for office; he's fighting for an honest political language that has become almost extinct among us. The Constitution presupposes that words do have objective meaning, and that a shared and reliable political language is one of the deepest preconditions of a free society. If you doubt that fuzzy language can lead to tyranny, look around you."


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

 
Amnesty Betrayals Past And Present - A Handy Reference Guide by Juan Mann
But the threat of “amnesty” is not something that can be blocked just by defeating one heinous bill in Congress. The President doesn’t really need something as public as an executive order to give illegal alien amnesty either—because amnesty is already underway in many forms.
- posted by SARTRE @ 7:58 AM (0) comments

 
Jeffersonian Principles by Laurence M. Vance
The modern Democratic and Republican parties may like to think that they are the ideological successors of the Jeffersonians who made up the old Democratic-Republican Party, but they are as far removed from the principles of Thomas Jefferson as the east is from the west. Instead of peace, they crusade for continual wars. Instead of commerce, they give us massive government intervention in the economy that stifles commerce. Instead of honest friendship with all nations, they display a belligerent attitude toward any country that refuses to recognize American hegemony. Instead of entangling alliances with no one, they promote American intervention into the affairs of almost every country on the face of the globe.
- posted by SARTRE @ 8:54 AM (0) comments