Palin panders to the 'violent hater' vote

Palin at a recent rally in Florida:

"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day," she said.

"Booooo!" replied the crowd.

"I knew you guys would react that way, okay," she continued. "So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago."

It was time to revive the allegation, made over the weekend, that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, in this case Bill Ayers, late of the Weather Underground. Many independent observers say Palin's allegations are a stretch; Obama served on a Chicago charitable board with Ayers, now an education professor, and has condemned his past activities.

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said.

"Boooo!" said the crowd.

"And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Inciting violence towards an opposing political candidate? My, Sarah -- why don't you just burn a cross on the stage while you're at it?

Hate-talk TV and radio hosts seem to get away with this all the time, even when it leads to murder. Now we have it from political candidates.

When I was a child, in a state that has decades of experience with Klan activities, the KKK and fellow hate organizations were tracked and pursued by the FBI for exactly this kind of hate-inciting speech. Today our government openly tolerates it -- but only from the extreme right.

We live in strange times indeed when peaceful demonstrators are attacked by black-armored police and arrested without charge; and a vice presidential candidate can openly incite violence towards the democratic candidate for president in front of the police, the media, the FBI and the Secret Service. No consequences whatsoever.

What the hell? Aren't we supposed to be a nation of laws?

So Sarah, let me get this straight (if I can dumb myself down to your reptilian level and perhaps communicate.) You're sliding in the polls. You're getting desperate. The charm and the winking didn't work, and both you and your running mate McCain have each lost your debates. Obviously the people aren't buying what you guys are selling.

So you accuse Obama of hanging around with terrorists, deliberately inciting violence towards a political opponent.

You obviously heard the man in the crowd shout 'kill him!' and you just let it slide, didn't you? Is that the reaction you were looking for? I see you didn't miss a beat, but kept right on stirring that poisonous pot. I've seen your kind before, but seldom without the sheets and burning crosses.

This is your answer for America? If you can't win any other way, incite some wacko into killing your opponent? What -- the nasty smear commercials are no longer enough for you people?

This is what comes from removing all consequences for hate-mongering in this country.

UPDATE: The Secret Service is investigating the man who shouted 'kill him!' Hopefully they will also gently suggest to both McCain and Palin that inciting this behavior is not to be allowed.

Here we go again

Edward Luce and Andrew Ward, for The Financial Times:

"John McCain's right-hand man hit a raw nerve on Monday when he said another terrorist attack on US soil would prove a 'big advantage' to the Republican nominee's general election chances."

Ah yes... the 'be afraid' party. Whatever happened to 'land of the free, home of the brave?' I'm sure its much harder to herd brave people into an economic prison.

Don't underestimate us. Our fear threshold has risen significantly in the last 8 years.

Also... don't make the mistake of thinking that we haven't noticed - even during the ravaging hurricanes and the Midwestern floods, skyrocketing oil and food prices, failing infrastructure, failing economy, failing dollar - that the man who actually took credit for the attacks in 2001, Osama Bin Laden, is still at large.

Why is that? (George Carlin would ask us to think about that for a moment.)

This time we'd like to elect someone who will actually try to catch Bin Laden; not just use his name as a scary distraction from our ongoing national nightmare.

What is terrorism... really?

ter·ror·ism [ter-uh-riz-uhm] - noun

1.	the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

2.	the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.

3.	a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

Overseas, representatives of our government are torturing and imprisoning people in secret camps without representation or even charges. Violence. Our grandfathers' generation must be horrified: their 'greatest generation' liberated the concentration camps from this very evil. I'll bet they never imagined that one day we would be building these camps ourselves.

Bush and Cheney continually tell us to BE AFRAID; and are currently using fear tactics to intimidate Congress into giving them even more domestic spying power before the recess, in spite of the fact that they are under suspicion of breaking the law and the Constitution in previous domestic spying without court order.

We are currently in a constitutional crisis involving the political firing of 11 attorneys, and the investigation is being obstructed at every turn, with even the Attorney General lying under oath to protect the president and vice president.

Americans, and apparently our Congress, are afraid, subdued, intimidated, and our executive branch is lawless. They refuse to obey the law or answer subpoenas. Our military, at their command, has killed or displaced millions in Iraq. New Orleans is still in ruins, its 'infrastructure' still broken from a storm, and it's levees still neglected. Now Minnesota's bridges are falling down from neocon neglect and GOP 'cooked books,' its Department of Transportation: broke.

Our president slashed domestic spending for 6 years straight to give tax breaks to the wealthy, then spent the rest of our nation's capital on an illegal war (millions also 'vanished' in the desert... how many schools could have been built with the boxes of cash that were simply 'lost' in Iraq? How many houses in New Orleans could have been rebuilt?) War profiteering corporations with direct ties to the White House have made billions in Iraq.

Why aren't we asking why our government doesn't care about it's own citizenry? If this is truly a nation 'of the people,' then something has gone terribly wrong.

What is terrorism?

Violence? check
Threats to intimidate? check
Political purposes? check
State of fear? check
Terroristic method of governing? check

Time to say no to fear. Time to demand some answers. Time to ask these Democrats why they aren't impeaching...

Feingold willing to stay; protect civil liberties

This is why I revere the man. This is why I wish, desperately at times, that he was my Senator. Senator Feingold is a man of true ethics, and he's representing us... at a time when so many others are either looting, spinning or caving.

While congressional Democrats are caving to the White House right before the break, so as to appear 'tough on terrorism' (and weak on defending the rights of American citizens,) Russ is standing tall. Again. Probably also alone. Again.

Commenting that congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving “awfully quickly” on a White House proposal that will make it easier for (whoever is doing it these days, no doubt outsourced to a corporation) to eavesdrop on, well everyone, Feingold said he is in “no hurry” to leave town for the August recess:

“I don’t feel the need to get out of here. I would much rather stay here than have us make a terrible mistake,” said Feingold, who has made a name for himself as a champion on civil liberties in the Senate. “This is not the kind of thing that should be done on the fly, and I am prepared to stay here as long as it takes to fix it. Or, if they need force this through, I’m not going to make it easy, if they don’t make it better.”

Thank you Russ! I don't use the word often... but you're one of my few heroes in Washington. Somewhere out there, Lincoln is smiling. Somewhere out there, our nation's founders are cheering.

(And someday when you no longer need worry about 'accepting' anything from anyone -- I'm betting Benjamin Franklin is holding a pint of beer for you!)

Homeland insecurity

This is from a diary posted today on Daily Kos. It is just one more dangerous warning, and so I want to repost sections of it here, and direct you to read the rest of it.

It is time to watch and pay attention.

In Friday's Portland Oregonian, there was an item about Representative Peter DeFazio (D,OR) being denied access to White House plans concerning the continuity of the U.S Government after a terrorist attack contained in The National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive (National Security Presidential Directive NSPD-51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20). Why is this of interest? Why would Representative DeFazio want to see these plans?

Because Representative DeFazio is a member of U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security.

The diary goes on to mention that even Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar from the American Enterprise Institute (Bruce Fein is also a member) cannot understand why a member of the Homeland Security Commitee - with clearance - would be denied his right to view these documents.

Norm Ornstein, a legal scholar who studies government continuity at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he "cannot think of one good reason" to deny access to a member of Congress who serves on the Homeland Security Committee.

"I find it inexplicable and probably reflective of the usual, knee-jerk overextension of executive power that we see from this White House," Ornstein said.

As for DeFazio, even he is now becoming suspicious (perhaps he will become one of the three necessary co-signers to move impeachment forward?)

This is the first time DeFazio has been denied access to documents. DeFazio has asked Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., to help him access the documents.

"Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," DeFazio said.

I thought we were fighting them over there because... because...

This morning's newsflash from CNN:

BE AFRAID! (OK, that's not quite it... although close.)

"Al Qaeda is the strongest it has been since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new U.S. government analysis concludes, according to a senior government official who has seen it."

Well gee, that's just ducky. (And nice use of government propaganda, CNN! You really are competing with Fox for top propaganda honors, aren't you? A 'senior government official who has seen it?' Please.)

So apparently all of this 'war in Iraq' business has done nothing at all to make us safer; but has in fact looted our coffers and destroyed our military for... nothing at all?

They're going to fight us over here anywhere? Terrific.

It seems Al Qaeda is thriving! And with GOPers like Rick Santorum blabbing on about how a little domestic terrorism will somehow wake us all up (and make us appreciate our war,) I have to ask the good gentleman Santorum... wake us up from what, exactly? We're not exactly asleep out here. We're waiting for you guys to do something about Bin Laden. We're wondering if and when you ever plan to actually go after that growing safe-nest of Al Qaeda operatives and apparently training camps headquartered in Pakistan.

So? Well? What -- no oil interests in Pakistan?

Santorum, on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, implied that terror attacks will occur inside America some time this summer, and that they will somehow 'alter the body politic' and lead to a reversal of the anti-war sentiment now dominating the country.

“Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view,” said the former senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr Santorum: WRONG. If anything, we will demand that our military be withdrawn from an obviously UNSUCCESSFUL WAR, since it isn't doing what you told us it would do... keep them from swimming across the ocean and attacking us here at home. You can't have it both ways. Either we're safer because of your war... of we're outta there.

You have to love our Homeland Security guru, Michael Chertoff's 'gut feeling' that we will be attacked by Al Qaeda soon, in spite of the White House's insistance that they have no information about this (like that would make anyone feel safe -- they had all sorts of information about 9/11 before it happened but chose to ignore it.)

"I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk," Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America's terror threat level.

"Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said of al-Qaeda. "We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities."

Still, Chertoff said there are not enough indications of an imminent plot to raise the current threat levels nationwide. And he indicated that his remarks were based on "a gut feeling" formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements, and intelligence he did not disclose.

There is an assessment "not of a specific threat, but of increased vulnerability," he added.

There have been reports already that suggest intelligence warnings at a similar level to the summer before Sept. 11, 2001 and that al-Qaeda may be mobilizing.

A gut feeling, sir? I'm sorry, but that's all you've got to offer us?

I thought you were supposed to have facts; tangible information? If I want to trust my life to someone's 'gut feeling' I'll stick with Alison on NBC's 'Medium;' she seems a little more adept at this 'feeling' thing.

UPDATE: It's now night, and once again, another 'CNN Breaking News' BE AFRAID! email. Surely the terrorists are at the door if I've received two of these in one day:

Al Qaeda is stepping up efforts to sneak terrorists into the U.S. and has rebuilt most of its capability to strike here, an intelligence estimate states, according to The Associated Press.

Funny, nothing much from CNN about the constitutional standoff in the Senate. Interesting, eh?

And I still don't get how telling us Al Qaeda is stepping up its activities is supposed to make me more supportive of this war 'over there' that was supposed to have kept Al Qaeda from ever stepping up their activities over here. In fact - if anything, this is making me want my military back over here where it can protect us.

This is simple logic. I'm sorry illogical Neocon guys... I was a computer programmer for 20 years. You're gonna have to make some sense.

More hype? Sigh.

Ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson joined Keith Olbermann to discuss (rationally) the truth behind the explosive devices that set off the terrorist panic in Britain.

By the way, if this isn't real... at some point the 'cry wolf' factor will set in, for both the USA and Britain. I'd hate to think that we might end up unprepared in the event of a real terrorist emergency, simply because the 'be afraid' tactic had already been overplayed.

There really are people who want to kill us. More now than ever before.

Terror attacks up nearly 30%

Apparently the "fight them there so we won't have to fight them here" agenda backfired just a little. Now, "everyone gets to fight them everywhere."

I'm sure the world is very grateful to us.

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.

Oops.