Michael Steele – The New Fail

Republicans have chosen another winner to head their party, Michael Steele made abundantly clear in a weekly address:

In the weekly Republican address, Steele said of Congressional Democrats:

“For the last two weeks, they’ve been trying to force a massive spending bill through Congress under the guise of economic relief.”

Steele said Republicans are ready to work with “reasonable Democrats to do what is right for America,” but he charged the Republican ideas have not been included.

“Good ideas — lots of them — all left out of this plan by the Democrats in Congress,” he said.

He’s referring to one single “good idea”.  Tax cuts.  Which worked so well for this country the past 8 years.  The Republicans are out of ideas and the Democrats are ready to sit down and solve problems.  It looks like their loss of power has left Republicans spinning in rhetorical circles repeating the phrase “tax cuts” like a child clutching a security blanket.

Amy Goodman Arrested: RNC Police State Follow Up

My very politically astute friend Jeff sent me this (it isn’t hard to see why):

That’s Amy Goodman of Democracy Now being arrested on obviously bullshit charges.  I think Jeff’s reaction captures my own in better words:

On Democracy Now today (Monday morning), Amy Goodman reported that 2 Democracy Now producers (along with a slew of other independent news people) were arrested in St. Paul in advance of the RNC convention.  Pretty shocking news, but almost not expected ….

But now I just got an email/video of AMY GOODMAN ARRESTED TODAY (Monday) at 5 PM – it’s REALLY fucked up.

I somewhat dismissed it as just going a little over the line when the cops at the DNC arrested the ABC news guy, and a bunch of protestors – but this is crazy.  This is a level of suppression (although not punishment, as I’m sure she’ll be released in a day) that could be compared to China.  What the fuck is going on!?

In light of police in riot gear armed with semi-automatic weapons raiding houses of RNC political enemies, this is looking even more sinister than it would out of context.

The Police at the Republican National Convention are straight up suppressing the political opposition.

This was an unlawful arrest.  As was the needlessly violent arrest of two Democracy Now producers:

Goodman, who was released after being charged with a misdemeanor, said that Salazar had been hurt in the face, while Kouddous had been thrown up against a wall and hurt his elbow.

“Nicole told me that as they moved in on three sides, she asked them ‘How do I get away from this?’ and they jumped on her.”

Inaction and silence says more than a thousand speeches.

“One of the police kept shouting at me ‘Shut up, shut up,” she said. “It was extremely threatening.”

It says “shut the fuck up and keep in your place, or you are next.”

If we do not respond to this sharply it will be repeated and it will encourage even further abuses.  When the police violently arrest members of the press at will, and invade our homes armed to the teeth to arrest and confiscate at will, we are not in any sense of the word free.  We are citizens on probation in a police state.

The Republican Police State is Here

The Police, in riot gear and carrying semi automatic weapons, raided houses on a purely political basis.  This was done at the behest of the federal government.

They blamed “anarchists”.  No, seriously.  These raids were carried out for thought crime.

Ian Welsh is right in observing that the bleeding silence from the media and political class is enough to convict (emphasis mine):

It’s notable that as of this writing, at midnight, I see nothing on the NY Times front page or on their US page about the RNC harassment, arrests and snatch squads. I see nothing on the Washington Post’s front page, or its Politics page. As best I am aware no major Democratic politician has made a statement that warrants should be required before busting down doors, or that protesters have a right to protest, or that people even have a right to see a warrant.

Why is that? Is it that there’s a bipartisan consensus that civil liberties are just for talk, but when the handcuffs get slapped on people who have done nothing, when people are punished for crimes they haven’t commited, that it’s no big deal as long as they aren’t anyone important? Is it that Democrats stirring words about civil liberties were as sincere as many of their promises to vote against warrantless wiretapping?

I can only assume it is. But I’d certainly love to be proved wrong. So, perhaps a major newspaper might act interested in mass violations of basic constitutional rights like the right to free speech, the right to assembly and the right to be secure in ones own home and possessions and for the government to not be able to search and seize without a warrant. They covered the exact same sort of harassment by the Chinese government in Beijing against activists and journalists, but they don’t cover it when it’s the US government. Wonder why?

Because they have the same boss.  Complacency is complicity.  This is why members of the Accountability Now PAC are going against politicians from any party that tramble on our fundamental rights.

Further reading on slashdot, crooks and liars, and the huffington post.

To be fair, the media has some coverage.  The AP has some tepid coverage here.  The San Francisco Chronicle has more:

Activists planning protests around the Republican National Convention say they are being targeted in a heavy-handed attempt to chill dissent after police arrested five people, detained dozens of others, and seized computers and protest guides in raids Friday night and Saturday on private homes and the major meeting center.

Google News probably would have been a better place to check.  It isn’t that these events were not covered.  Direct censorship is easily noticed and countered.  Soft censorship, that is to say covering an event a little but not promoting it, is a far more effective way to keep most people (the kind who would not think to search for “RNC Protest” on a news site) in the dark.

I hate to be brutal, but the 2008 election is about making a choice.  The constitution is in tatters on the ground.  We’ve got to choose between the man with the bloody knife and the man with a single band-aid.  Perhaps I am being unfair, but Obama really needs to make a big stink about this.  Its about as close to an easy win opening as the campaign is going to get.  He needs to be the man between the constitution and the guy with the knife.  And if I were him, I’d be armed too.  Because the guy with the knife is just getting started.  At least the Democrats didn’t have anything like this at their convention.  Can’t wait to see what the Republicans do next.

Good Reads and Curiosities

Richard Dawkins reading his hate mail:

Check out The Daily Show’s RNC Convention Billboard.

This looks fascinating (race as a theological problem).

One rich Republican is behind most of the negative campaigning in 2004 (“Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”) and to come in 2008.

Nancy Pelosi waxes wicked awesome.

Drop in and have a read: Nezua is both auctioning a bit of weirdness to raise money for his RNC trip.  Check the grace of his form vis-a-vis the Republican establishment:

HERE IS ONE OF THE FEW TANGIBLE ICONS of the time I was arrested in NYC for protesting the RNC convention and part of a much bigger picture wherein police duties take on a new aspect, where mass arrests are common place, where COINTELPRO tactics bleed back into use, where corrupt government must set up extensive and grim cage areas for all the bodies they will have to keep behind barbed wire before their elitist shindigs are celebrated.

“Democracy Behind Barbed Wire” sounds like a Republican Party Platform.

Via SPLC: Jerome Corsi, the Republican who wrote “Obama Nation”, apparently appeared on a white supremacist radio show.  Corsi has backpedeled half-heartedly into a brick wall.

Things you aren’t allowed to see on google maps.

If you are interested in the media (or in the media business), Newscat’s post on the media is worth chewing over.

Privacy Rights and Candidates

One year ago today, we found this out (Boing Boing via this Slashdot thread):

More information has come to light about the arrest of Josh Kinberg, the hacker who made a “dot-matrix bike-printer” to ride through the streets of New York during the RNC in 2004. The oversize bike had a laptop-powered array of chalk-sprayers that could print text messages as it was piloted through the streets around the RNC, as a means of breaking the free-speech embargo that New York cops and the Republican party created through the use of “free speech zones.” One of the bike’s messages was, “America is a Free Speech Zone.”

It turns out that Kinberg’s arrest wasn’t random. Secret NYPD dossiers on RNC protestors have fallen into the hands of reporters, revealing that the NYPD were spending tax-dollars spying on people who opposed the ruling party. Kinberg’s bike, laptop and printer were seized by police. The laptop and printer were held for a year. The police “lost” his bicycle.

The New York Civil Liberties Union is in court, trying to get all the secret dossiers compiled in connection with the RNC.

Something to keep in mind when looking at the candidates.  Who supported the Patriot Act?  Who has helped the Bush administration break the law to spy on American citizens?

Who will take things further if elected?

Bush/RNC Email Scandal

For an administration so eager to spy on Americans, they sure do love their guilty-looking secrecy (emphasis mine):

Spamicles alerts us to a report just issued (PDF) by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. At least 88 White House officials used Republican National Committee email accounts for government business. The RNC has destroyed at least some of the emails from 51 of those officials. Law requires emails sent by officials to be stored or recorded. There is evidence that White House lawyers and the (current) Attorney General knew of this but did not act to stop it. From the article: “These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies… Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails, the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive.”

Republicans like to try to distance themselves from Bush, but in every scandal, they play a role. Whether it is evidence nanny or scheming mastermind, we’ve had more than just a Bush administration, we’ve had a quintessential Republican administration.

The Lost RNC Emails

The White House and the Republican Party believe in transparency and open government.