Pentagon “Accidentally” Spying on Protestors…Again?

The Department of Defense admitted in a letter obtained by NBC News on Thursday that it had wrongly added peaceful demonstrators to a database of possible domestic terrorist threats. The letter followed an NBC report focusing on the Defense Department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, report.

Acting Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Roger W. Rogalski’s letter came in reply to a memo from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who had demanded answers about the process of identifying domestic protesters as suspicious and removing their names when they are wrongly listed.

“The recent review of the TALON Reporting System … identified a small number of reports that did not meet the TALON reporting criteria. Those reports dealt with domestic anti-military protests or demonstrations potentially impacting DoD facilities or personnel,” Rogalski wrote on Wednesday.

[…]

Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the Internet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.” [“Pentagon admits errors in spying on protestors” (MSNBC)]

Are we really expected to believe that these are just mistakes with the system? I mean, come on! The U.S. Military has a history of spying on American dissenters. During Vietnam, the military used American soldiers to inflitrate the anti-war movement to spy on Americans exercising their Constitutional freedom of speech. I just find it hard to believe that given the current atmosphere of terror and bullying from the current administration that this wouldn’t be overlooked or even encouraged behavior again. After all, if the President can do it…

Tags: politics, Conspiracy Theories, Pentagon, spying on Americans, protestors, TALON, NBC News, Defense Department

Bush Evades Protestors

It suddenly hit me today that Bush was conviently overseeing Hurricane Rita operations (when he diddled about on vaction prior to and during and even after Hurricane Katrina) while protestors where marching past the White House yesterday. The conspiracy theorist in me that thinks that Bush’s advisors who prefer to keep him in rose-colored glasses would rather him see a natural disaster up close than be present for massive numbers of Americans who think he’s doing a terrible job.

Or maybe I’m just being sarcastic…

Maybe.

Tags: George W. Bush, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, protestors, Conspiracy Theories

Anti-Anti-War Protestor Violence

Has anyone else noticed that all of the violence in Crawford by protestors has been from people protesting the anti-war protestors?

A few weeks ago Larry Northern used his pickup truck to run over the mini-memorial of crosses to represent fallen soldiers in Iraq. Then Larry Mattlage grew annoyed with the crowds and fired shots into the air on his nearby property.

Now that Crawford is full of protestors protesting the anti-war protestors as well, there’s bound to be even more trouble like yesterday’s incident:

In one heated moment, members of the pro-Bush crowd turned on what they mistakenly thought were a group of anti-war protesters, cursing them, threatening them and tearing down their signs. A police officer rushed the group to safety. [“Bush warns of more sacrifice in Iraq, protesters rally” (Reuters)]

Meanwhile, all you hear from the Camp Casey is news interviews and requests to meet with the protestors protesting them to head off these sorts of incidents. Pretty funny when you consider that the bleeding heart liberals are always accused of violent protests.

I really feel as though if the right-wing would just ignore Sheehan, she’d fade away. Well, perhaps if they’d ignored her in the beginning, she would have. Now with every protest against Sheehan, they are giving her more publicity and more sympathy from the dissatisfied public. As long as she’s seen as a victim, they give her power and continuously attacking her only feeds that.

Tags: pro-war, protestors, anti-war, pro-Bush, Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan: No More Taxes

So, here’s the deal. This has been bothering me for a couple of days.

There have been rumors circling the web about Cindy Sheehan announcing that she wouldn’t pay taxes to a government that sent her son to die. I haven’t seen this reported on CNN.com, Yahoo!News, ABC News, etc. O’Reilly mentioned it in passing last night and I’ve seen it mentioned on World Net Daily, which appears to be some sort of conservative tabloid-like propoganda e-zine. I even checked out her blog on Michael Moore’s website. The most “credible” is a transcript of her speech for Veterans For Peace’s 2005 convention earlier this month.

Another thing that I’m doing is - - my son was killed in 2004, so I’m not paying my taxes for 2004. If I get a letter from the IRS, I’m gonna say, you know what, this war is illegal; this is why this war is illegal. This war is immoral; this is why this war is immoral. You killed my son for this. I don’t owe you anything. And if I live to be a million, I won’t owe you a penny.

And I want them to come after me, because unlike what you’ve been doing with the war resistance, I want to put this frickin’ war on trial. And I want to say, “You give me my son, and I’ll pay your taxes.:”Veterans For Peace(Cindy Sheehan’s speach at the 2005 convention)”: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/convention05/sheehan_transcript.htm

As much as I respect what she’s doing in Crawford, as much as I respect what she’s become a symbol of, this is wrong.

Seriously, that’s just wrong.

I mean, that tax money goes to lots of things, not just the war.

Granted, I wish the IRS would let me select where I want my money to go like United Way does. I mean, if I had my way, my tax money like my United Way money would be going to Community Services, specifically to Food Banks and the like. Really, I think if the government let people specify the people in charge might be suprised what the people thought was worthy of spending money on.

Then again, it might be like college all over again. Alumni, you know, are more likely to donate to the athletic program of most colleges than new buildings for educational purposes. Maybe if people got to pick where their money went when they did their taxes, I’d be surprised.

Anyway, the point is that not paying taxes isn’t like withholding your rent because your landlord won’t fix the radiator — though I think you can still go to jail or get fined for that too. That money is necessary for the government to run and you may think that your piddly amount won’t be missed but schools, social services, etc. are seriously underfunded. Even the war apparently is underfunded…at least the part where our troops are well-outfitted and their vehicles are properly armored. Every cent counts.

Granted, I still have some admiration for her, but she’s a little more tinged today than yesterday in my eyes.

Tags: Cindy Sheehan, stupidity, protestors

Winning Friends & Influencing People

The American Spectator certainly knows how to win friends and influence people.

Crocodile Tears
By Christopher Orlet
Published 8/12/2005 12:06:48 AM

Cindy Sheehan has now been squatting in a roadside ditch near President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch since August 6. And every day more aging hippies, professional grievance-mongers, and underemployed liberal arts majors show up with their backpacks and banjos to join her. Squatting in ditches, sleeping in pup tents, and sitting around a campfire at night yodeling “This Land Is Your Land” is after all the anti-war protesters idea of nirvana.

I just don’t understand why anyone in either party feels the need to resort to regularly insulting anyone who doesn’t agree with their political views. Politics is the new racism, isn’t it? Just remember the old cliche: You get more flies with honey. Maybe if people on both sides of the fence started treating each other with respect and common courtesy, we might find some middle ground to meet on…but then I suspect there are a number of loud mouth rebel-rousers that don’t want anyone meeting in the middle. What then would they have to rally about? Who would be listening?

Tags: Cindy Sheehan, George W. Bush, politics, protestors, mud-slinging

A Conservative Wrote My Feelings

To be honest, I haven’t said anything about Cindy Sheehan here simply because it seemed like everyone else was talking about her and so many liberals had already voiced how I felt and expressed it in much better words that I think I could have.

Just in case you didn’t know, I deeply respect Cindy, her courage and her dedication. I wish that I could believe that if I were in her position, I would be sitting there in her chair. I’m not even sure I’m brave enough to be one of those who’ve joined her — I keep thinking of practical things like paying my bills and keeping my job and quite frankly I think what Cindy is doing is far more important. It’s about time someone started trying to get the President’s attention to let him know that maybe things aren’t going as well as his minions are telling him. Quite frankly, I think she’s amazing, a heroine, a role model, and apparently I’m not alone — just look at all the people who have been brave enough to join her. Those people are my heroes too. Without people like them, nothing would ever change.

CNN.com - Bush motorcade passes anti-war mom’s protest - Aug 12, 2005
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — President Bush’s motorcade, en route to a political fund-raiser near his ranch, passed Friday by the site of Cindy Sheehan’s Iraq war protest where more than 100 people had gathered to support her.

Sheehan — whose son, Casey, was killed five days after he arrived in Iraq last year at age 24 — held a sign that read: “Why do you make time for donors and not for me?”

I bring this up because I found this post at Brilliant at Breakfast written by a conservative and it so eloquently expressed my feelings about Cindy and those who want to discredit her. I’m so tired of seeing conservative right-wingers who just regurgitate rhetoric and propoganda who can’t do anything more than quote Rush and O’Reilly as their arguments for why they are right and anyone who doesn’t agree is wrong. I’m tired of seeing people on both sides of the party line who refuse to look at the big picture and realize that when you select your party on your voter registration, you aren’t signing your mind over to political brainwashing. No one is going to take your voters’ rights away if you say something bad about your party, it’s current platform, or even it’s head honcho. You are not betraying your party if you read or hear some fact that doesn’t agree with what you’ve been told. I’m tired of people ignoring facts that don’t fit with what they want to believe.

Anyway, here’s the post that made me think there is hope…a liberal and a conservative agreeing on something — we might be o.k. afterall…

-THE CUNNING REALIST-: Decency Is Not In Them

Even when something really outrages me, usually that outrage gives way to a bit of calm, measured thinking. With the Cindy Sheehan story, that’s not the case.

If one needed any further proof that this incarnation of “Republicans” and alleged conservatives includes a faction that has gone completely and tragically over the edge, the smear campaign against Cindy Sheehan is it. For those who might not be familiar with the details of this and are looking for an accurate, factual account, a good summary appears here.

The essence of the right-wing smear machine’s “outing” of Cindy Sheehan is her supposed flip-flop from supporting President Bush in 2004 to disapproving of him in 2005. As details of this have become clearer, it’s obvious the flip-flop is nothing more than a canard. But setting aside the Sheehan story for a moment, have any of the shameless smearsters seen the public opinion polls recently? Here’s some breaking news for them: a whole lot of Americans who supported Bush a year ago—including an increasingly large part of his “base”—have turned against him. And that includes many millions of people who haven’t lost a parent, child, or sibling in Iraq.

There are so many side issues of shamelessness and crass opportunism in this story it makes my head spin. Think about the gall of a political and media machine “accusing” a private citizen of changing her mind (imagine that!) about an elected and supposedly accountable public official. When did a private citizen supposedly changing her opinion about something rise to the same level as a flip-flop about firing anyone involved in the leaking a CIA agent’s name? At what point did the ability to change one’s mind about a politician become something to be ridiculed and accused of instead of cherished as a basic right? And it’s not as if in the past year we haven’t learned anything about the pre-war manipulation of intelligence, as well as the incompetent planning, that resulted in the death of Cindy Sheehan’s son and thousands of others like him.

Something else about this story that infuriates me is the vision of feckless, smarmy smearsters and cowards hiding behind keyboards in cities like Washington and New York (and yes, Miami), punching out electronic missives in a pathetic and desperate attempt to impugn the integrity of a woman sitting in the dust and August heat of Texas—a woman who, along with her dead son, embodies everything that’s right about this country. The growing division between the professional class of spinning punditry and the vast expanse of Middle America that actually does the working, the fighting and the dying so the pundits can spend their time chattering has never been more clear than with this story.

If I had lost a parent, child or sibling in Iraq, I’d be right next to Cindy Sheehan sitting in that dust and heat. And I wouldn’t budge until the president—ensconced within that reassuring bubble of faith, brush-clearing and mountain bike-riding—found a few moments to come listen to me. I hope as many people as possible join her protest and offer her food, water, and whatever legal or media assistance she may need.

In the meantime, it behooves the rest of us to do our part and engage in some “outing” of our own. That includes identifying and relentlessly shaming those who have become so unmoored from morality that not only have they abandoned the uniquely American ideals of accountability and sacrifice, they openly ridicule them.

Amen.

Tags: Cindy Sheehan, anti-war, protestors, politics, George W. Bush, Iraq, mud-slinging