“What the government is doing is illegal and unamerican, and that would still be true if the polls showed 99% support — in fact, it would be even more true.”
Billmon is, of course, absolutely correct. Unamerican, I say too, unamerican . . . . God save the USA.

Posted by: D | May 13 2006 22:48 utc | 4

Don’t forget that Saddam received 99% of the vote in the last election held in Iraq before the invasion and that Lukaschenka got over 80% of the vote in Byelorussia.

Posted by: ralphieboy | May 13 2006 23:03 utc | 6

The Neo Road We’re Taking
Friday March 23 2007
API – Langley
“Today we are announcing a sweeping change
to the library system of the United States, as a
result of our domestic surveillance program
into the reading habits of American citizens”,
Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, former NSA director
who replaced the last NSA director General
Michael Hayden, now chief of the CIA, said today.
The pro tem NSA director, acting at the direction
of the White House, invoked the court decision
USA vs WILHELM REICH 1954-1957, to begin
systematic condemnation and then book burning
of so-called, “radical propaganda, masquerading
as literature within the liberal left gay community”.
“The Freedom Against Scorn and Critical Injunction
Sanction Tariff (FASCIST) is hereby effective today,
March 23rd, 2007, against the works of the avowed
union labor sympathizer Robert Frost,” Alexander
announced. “From this day hence, the Government
and the People of the United States will be forever
freed from demeaning and scornful commentary.”
The NSA director held up a copy of Frost’s poem,
‘The Road Not Taken’ as he spoke to the crowd
of reporters outside the CIA building in Langley.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood!” Alexander
shouted. “How much more disunifying against
red-blooded Patriots can you get?!” The new NSA
director continued, “Yet knowing how way leads
on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back!
You see how Frost twisted the American Dream!?
If he didn’t want to come back, then why didn’t he
move to Communist China?!” Alexander fumed.
The United States first invoked the book burning
sanction against Dr. Wilhelm Reich in the 1950’s,
at a time when the medical theorist was attacking
nuclear power as “anti-orgone” or “anti-life force”.
His views were so at odds with the new military-
industrial complex plan to test atomic weapons,
that he was incarcerated and his books burned.
Reich later died in prison.
Since that time, libraries in certain states have
banned certain popular literature books as, ‘To
Kill a Mockingbird’, and even more recently, the
Department of Homeland Defense has seized
books and removed them from libraries across
the nation. However, this has never been made
a matter of outspoken national policy until now.
March 23rd is the anniversary of Frost’s 1963 death.
‘The Road Not Taken’ and ‘Stopping by Woods on a
Snowy Evening’ are considered some of his most
popular poems, especially the famous last lines,
“I have promises to keep, and miles to go
before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.”
As Frost himself said in commentary, “What appears
to be “simple” is shown to be not really simple, what
appears to be innocent, not really innocent.” The poet
was fascinated and lulled by the empty wastes of white
and black. The repetition of “sleep” in the final two lines
suggested that he may succumb to the influences that
are at work. There is no reason to suppose that these
influences are benign. Today, those forces banned him.
Stephen Colbert, when asked to comment on the
NSA decision, could not be reached for comment.
His hit television show, ‘The Colbert Report’, was
unexpectedly cancelled in January for unexplained
reasons by the Comedy Network, after Republicans
won re-election and then Clear Channel bought out
controlling interest of Comedy Network’s parent
company, Bell Globemedia Inc. of Canada.
The SEC was investigating Clear Channel’s buyout,
questioning where its $12.5B investment came from,
but then suddenly dropped the case last week.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced
that the Canadian library system will respect the NSA’s
declared book ban, as long as the Bush Administration
stops referring to Canada as, ‘Our Great White 51st State’.

Posted by: Lawrence Unwin | May 14 2006 2:52 utc | 8

Billmon : Market Update

My guess is that if the Dems win back the House, they’ll also get the Senate, or at least come very close. I’ve got to confess I have mixed feelings about this prospect …
While many in Left Blogostan are salivating over the prospect of investigations and subpoenas and sworn testimony, the reality is that the House is a relatively weak platform from which to launch such an assault …
The crux of the dilemma is that the legislative branch is deeply unpopular… These are deeply disfunctional, archaic institutions that are… completely out of touch with the modern world.

If the opposition insists on grandstanding investigations… that is on doing the judiciary’s job… yeah, the bad guys’ll give ’em the slip again, a la Ollie North and Elliot Abrams.
But if the House exercises its real, “archaic” power, the power of the purse strings, then the evil empire is instantly out of business. Nobody can fight a war without money. Nobody can continue to bankrupt us without the key to the Treasury.
What do we want to do, stop the imperial slaughter abroad and the destruction of our nation, or watch Professional Wrestling on TV with Malefactors and Saviors alternately smashing each other off the bouncy, bouncy House floor?
Plenty of time for the Anglo-American War Crimes Tribunal after the fire’s been put out. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.
I realize that I’m calling for action from a real Political Class that we presently do not have, but I’m ever optimistic that some real people will get elected to the House and start acting like Representatives. It would only take a few to stand up together, Democrats and Republicans, and channel our fury and despair into creative action. The hacks in the House would fall all over each other jumping onto the coat tails of the prime movers once the train got rolling.
Forget the Woman or Man on the White Horse headed for the White House. That’s the problem, not the solution.
Check out Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance, written by “a life member of the John Birch Society” who “formerly served on the staff of the organization for 13 years”.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | May 14 2006 4:31 utc | 10

YY,
it’s a new definition of “probable cause”: if you call someone on the phone, it constitutes “probable cause” that you are a potential terrorist and/or sympathizer. If you leave your home, it will be considered “probable cause” that you are on your way to meet with a terrorist and/or commit an act of terrorism.

Posted by: ralphieboy | May 14 2006 7:01 utc | 12

@ralphieboy
“it’s a new definition of ‘probable cause'”
There’s nothing new about the way you have defined “probable cause” at all. In the old days, we just called that “guilty until proven otherwise”.
The measures Cheneyco are taking to monitor and control the domestic population are not pathologically paranoid. If they want to break international laws abroad and treat the US population as commodities, then they are absolutely right to fear us. There’s a clear historical precedent for what ultimately happens to tyrants who engage in unrestrained exploitation, but the new tyrants on the block always think that they have found some way around it.
The more Totalitarian a regime becomes, the more it fears its own people… because the more it has to fear from them. An administration’s underlying motives and ethos are made perfectly clear by how passionately they wish to operate without oversight and how much control at home they feel is necessary. The “necessary” amount of control and secrecy here is of an unprecedented scale, and that speaks volumes about what kinds of people we are dealing with.

Posted by: Monolycus | May 14 2006 8:33 utc | 14

No matter how noble the cause (and few are nobler than preventing terrism), any sort of search, seizure or surveillance is subject to errors and even abuse. That is why we established a system of checks & balances.
The problem I have with the NSA surveillance is the part in the constitution (or is it the Delaration of Independence?) about the “right to petition for the redress of grievances”.
How can the aggrieved petition for redress of grievances when they are not even aware of what’s being done to them and if the perpetrators are exempted from controls?

Posted by: ralphieboy | May 14 2006 15:19 utc | 16