Traficant Beamed Up
If cops continue to play at being an army of occupation, they should expect the subjects to play their role in return. Vive la resistance. -- J. D. Tuccille
From brad:
According to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman are their eyes. And women say the first thing they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars.and:
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
wraith at smith2004, titled "Same As It Ever Was":
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear-kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor-with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it ... -- General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
From samizdata:
Political revolutions do not often accomplish anything of genuine value: their one undoubted effect is simply to throw out one gang of thieves and put in another. -- H.L. Mencken
Mike Shelton at The Orange County Register - BUY! - cartoon commentary on recent stock market performance. Hahahahaha.
Freefall at Purrsiam.Com - December 31, 2001 - cartoon commentary on what a bureucrat can do to sleep better at night. Hehe. [smith2004]
I saved yesterday's letter to the Wall Street Journal as Response To Walters in the stories directory.
"The Linkhype system Searches through blogs to find the most popular and interesting links of the day." Not a lot there yet, but it'll likely grow. Added to my links page in the right-hand column of the top row.
Amanda Bowen at Strike the Root - Sulla Marches Into Rome - compares GW's desire to eliminate Posse Comitatus with Sulla's conquest of Rome. [smith2004]
Thousands died in Sulla's reign of terror, which lasted for four long and bloody years. Whole families were wiped out, and Rome was in ruins. A fatal precedent had been set; one that would enable Caesar, only a few years later, to turn Rome from a Republic into an Empire.
What do we have before us now? An ex-National Guardsman, not brilliant by the standards of many, but smart enough to get himself elected President. He wants something too, but his wants are a little harder to pin down than Sulla's. Shrub says he wants security for the American people. Ok, so do I. He says he wants peace, freedom, and what have you else. Ok, so do I.
It makes you wonder why a nice guy from Texas who wants only freedom and peace for his people is considering bringing in the military for domestic law enforcement. I mean, isn't that just a little bit Hitler? Not to complain or anything, of course.
...
So what exactly is Posse Comitatus, and why should you be up in arms if your government overthrows it? Basically, it's a law against martial law. It says that the Federal Government cannot use any branch of the military (save the National Guard, Coast Guard, and troops under the direct control of the governors of individual states) to enforce any domestic law. Period. That means that the Army can't arrest you for theft or speeding or jaywalking, the Navy can't come after you for illegal interstate commerce, and that the Air Force is not going to fly over your house if you should water your lawn during water rationing.
Dave Winer's DaveNet - Our Deal with Salon - Userland has made a deal with Salon. Salon is opening their site to amateur authors, using a Salon-branded version of Radio Userland. A 30-day trial is free. After that, it costs $40/year for software and web hosting. Bravo! I hope both Userland and Salon profit nicely from this arrangment.
We The People - Schulz Traveling Across US To Save The Constitution - Bob Schulz is spreading his gospel that the income tax is illegal as is much of what the government does. Bravo! [trt-ny]
Schulz' trip is designed to accomplish three objectives:
1. Develop the We The People Congress
This organization will become the nationwide force that will institutionalize and organize citizen vigilance. All of our civil rights are under attack. No "single issue" rights group yet has successfully restored any lost right or even stemmed the erosion or practical seizure of a right - including the venerable NRA.
...
2. Generate publicity for the Freedom Drive 2002
The drive is a mass civil demonstration to show government that Americans will not tolerate an unconstitutional government. The action is a warning for the government from the People. This event will not be easily ignored by either our elected officials or the dominant media.
The drive starts Veterans' Day weekend this November from the West Coast. Caravans of trucks, cars and vans will stream from all points north and south, massing toward I-70 and moving east across Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and into Pennsylvania, eventually converging in Washington, DC at Noon on Thursday, November 14th. More details will be released soon.
...
3. Get the Truth-in-Taxation Hearing into as many hands as possible
The Hearing record contains damning evidence and sworn testimony that our income tax system is largest fraud ever perpetrated on a "free" People.
Charles Stampul at anti-state.com - What Jesus Lived And Died For - interesting. [anti-state]
Virginia Haussegger at The Age - The sins of our feminist mothers - one feminist who has discovered, too late, that having children is important. [lew]
Fox Butterfield at The New York Times -
Ashcroft's Words Clash With Staff on Checks 
- Wow. Mr. Ashcroft is
sticking to his guns in not allowing the National Instant Check System
to be used for anything but its intended purpose, to identify, at the
time of purchase, people who are not allowed to purchase guns. I'm
pleasantly surprised. Not that I like NICS or anything, but it's
refreshing to see a government employee resist mission
creep. [firearmnews]
Karen Branch-Brioso at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Justice Dept. forges ahead with TIPS, despite Armey ban - bastards. [kaba]
Greg Winter at the New York Times Service via the Miami Herald - Judge slams terror law; Lindh defense could gain - the judge ruled a Los Angeles district court judge ruled as "unconstitutional on its face" a Clinton-era (1996) anti-terrorist law. Bravo!
'I will not abdicate my responsibilities as a district judge and turn a blind eye to the constitutional infirmities'' of the law, Takasugi wrote.
Because the government made its list of terrorist organizations in secret, without giving foreign groups a chance to defend themselves, the defendants ''are deprived of their liberty based on an unconstitutional designation that they could never challenge,'' he said.
Charley Reese - One Must Be Realistic - why GW's new Department of Homeland Defense will be a failure on day one, and day 10,000. And how some of the things he's asking for are blatantly unconstitutional.
The only defense against terrorism is intelligence, intelligence and intelligence. There are only three major agencies in our government engaged in collecting intelligence. These are the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. All three will remain independent of each other and of the new Homeland Security Department.
What is suddenly going to make these three agencies cooperate with each other and share information with the Homeland Security Department (couldn't they have come up with a less Orwellian name?)? Nothing. The iron rule in bureaucracies is that knowledge is power; you share your knowledge, you share your power. They have always run themselves as separate empires and will continue to do so. Mr. Bush is naive if he thinks Tom Ridge, an outsider and a former governor, will have the clout to make them toe the line.
...
And then he wants to put the military into domestic police work, another no-no that we can only pray Congress will kill deader than six-week-old catfish on a pier. There are already about 60,000 federal law- enforcement officers and more than 600,000 local and state police officers. If that's not enough to deal with a handful of terrorists, then we are indeed in deep trouble.
Juliet Eilperin at The Washington Post -
House Votes 420 to 1 To Expel Traficant - Beam me up, Scotty,
there's no intelligent life on earth. [grabbe]
Known for his spiky gray hair, an outdated polyester wardrobe and floor speeches littered with references to "Star Trek" and his anatomy, the nine-term House member railed against the government and the Washington establishment during the three-hour debate.
Describing himself as the government's "number one target," he accused the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service of trying to frame him. "They have more tapes on me than NBC. I did nothing wrong," he said.
