Unless the place that you call home is a cave, mountaintop, fallout shelter, or a little-known burg called Reality, you are undoubtedly aware that city and state police are overwhelmed by the mass lawlessness that has broken out across the nation.
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National Guard troops have been called upon to assist in containing the melee -- hundreds of thousands of children openly practicing their faith on public land.  Even the makeshift internment camp set up in the old Zody's building is packed standing-room-only with detainees.
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Yes, this was See You At The Pole Day, an annual event in which school children and teenagers meet at the school flagpole for an exercise in prayer.
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The story that I have told, of course, is entirely fictitious.  At SYATP events across America, children openly practiced their faith today in complete freedom and without harassment by authorities.
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This peaceful reality is difficult to square with the Religious Right's incessant paranoid whinings about "people not being allowed to practice their faith out in the open."  It sure doesn't reconcile very well with the siege mentality that they paint, of liberal and civil liberties groups descending upon practicing Christians to take their religious freedoms away.
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So, the next time you hear the paranoid rantings of, say, Pat Robertson or James Dobson, just remember today:  See You At The Pole.
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Or, See You At The Siege That Never Was.
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What has come over me?  Another war-related post:
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According to the National Intelligence Council, the U.S.-led war in Iraq is inspiring new converts to terrorist forms of Islam faster than our armed forces can root them out.
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A Washington Post story begins here:
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http://www.washingtonpost.c...
"The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

"A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document."
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I'll leave the meat of the debates to people more knowledgeable about war than I am (which is damned near everybody), but even in my ignorance, I can interpret this to substantiate Democrats' opinions that the Iraq war is accomplishing nothing positive in the war on terror.
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Unfortunately, our foreign policy in general, and the war on terror in particular, is currently held captive by an administration and GOP leadership that has trained half of the American public to chant "cut and run, cut and run" at even the slightest suggestion that they are handing the war on terror incorrectly.
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But then again, these are the people -- not Democrats -- who have already proven their willingness to jeopardize the well-being and safety of America, if that's what it takes to gain or keep political power.  They'd sooner ignore evidence that the Iraq war is worsening the terror threat -- and thus increasing the danger to America -- rather than admit that Democrats are right.  To admit that Democrats are right would be to weaken their political prospects, and as everyone knows, that must not be allowed to happen.
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This is how absolutely, purely, totally partisan that this administration and GOP leadership is.  I have never seen anything like this monster in my life.
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In my ongoing hunt for the "liberal media," I ran across this:
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id...
"Is pump price drop tied to Nov. elections?"
"COMMENTARY

No, a lot of readers have the same question. And there may be an answer out there in the blogosphere somewhere that will confirm these suspicions. But there’s no evidence we can find to suggest that anyone in the White House or Congress is manipulating oil or gasoline prices to make for an easier trip on this fall's campaign trail.

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that they couldn’t if they wanted to. In April, for example, after President Bush announced a four-point plan to rein in the pain at the pump, gasoline prices soared. "
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The "liberal" Chicago Tribune likewise dismisses the theory:
http://newsblogs.chicagotri...
"But if an axis of the White House, Congress and oil industry had so much control over gas prices, why would they have allowed the run up in prices to occur in the first place with all the political risks that would entail? For instance, inflationary pressures from higher oil prices could threaten the very economic growth Republicans are boasting about."
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Not to be outdone, the "liberal" Washington Post likewise toes the oil industry's line:
http://www.washingtonpost.c...
"Today's lower prices are the result, experts say, of ample supply, decreased demand after the heavy summer-driving season, a calmer than expected hurricane season, the lower price of crude oil and the switch by refiners to less-expensive winter blends.'
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Now, I am not taking sides in this conspiracy theory at this point.  It may very well be that the surprise plummet of oil prices has nothing to do with the November elections.
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But if the media were "liberal" and "anti-Bush," don't you think one of their senior guys would find some way to paint such a picture -- whether true or not?  
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Isn't it one of the charges that leftists make -- that oil prices are being manipulated for political gain?  Don't you think the media would harness their leftist agenda and try to fool the millions of Americans who don't follow this stuff?
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You'd think so.  But to find a cogent argument in favor of the conspiracy theory, one needs to leave the boundaries of mainstream corporate media and turn to Consumer Affairs:
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http://www.consumeraffairs....
"Election Looms, Gas Prices Drop"

"A Tiger in GOP's Tank"
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The search for the much-talked-about "liberal media" continues -- a quest that is, to date, fruitless.  I sure can't find the mainstream media boosting the leftist take on the drop in oil prices.
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I have charged, many times now, that this monstrous evil that surrounds the President and dominates today's Republican leadership is the most absolutely, totally, 100%-pure-partisan self-serving monster that has ever disgraced America, basing its every single action on whether it serves to strengthen their hold on power.
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Nothing these people do or plan to do has any other purpose than to entrench their own political power.  I have never seen anything like it.
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Interested in helping rebuild Iraq?  You had better pass the right wing's political litmus test first if you want to significantly improve your chances for consideration, according to this Washington Post story.
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A few snippets from the story:
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"O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade ."
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"Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people"
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"To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists. He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience."
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"There were a few Democrats who wound up getting jobs with the CPA, but almost all of them were active-duty soldiers or State Department Foreign Service officers. Because they were career government employees, not temporary hires, O'Beirne's office could not query them directly about their political leanings."
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Incredible.  Just plain incredible.  Even reconstruction in Iraq takes a back seat to this administration's indefatigable commitment to rewarding their own and strengthening their political power.
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Well, what have we here?  Senator Barbara Boxer comes forth with another damning report about corporate media consolidation that she says the FCC shelved.
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This one is even more damning.
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According to a Washington Post story, the number of commercial radio stations on the air rose 5.9 percent, while the number of station owners plummeted 35 percent during the time period from March 1996 to March 2003.
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And who's deeply involved in a renewed effort to relax or repeal restrictions against monopolistic media ownership?  Right-wing friendly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.
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The Republican majority on the Federal Communications Commission board voted, among other things, to "eliminate its existing system of measuring radio markets and use one favored by Arbitron, a private firm best known for measuring ratings. The commission decided not to force broadcasters to divest stations in markets where the new boundaries would push the broadcast companies over the limit," according to the Washington Post.
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Funny, this is about the time when the last remnants of dissenting opinion started disappearing from the radio airwaves.
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I ask again: why would a Republican-led FCC, and a Republican President Bush, be so determined to give big media even more power, if the media had a "liberal agenda?"
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I intend to shoot down this mindless myth that the media are "liberal" -- proof by irrefutable proof.  This mythical "liberal media" claim was itself popularized by the media -- and right-wing agitators bent on purging the last trace of dissent from the airwaves.
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If you have not already watched the 1946 school film Despotism, produced by Encyclopedia Britannica, I strongly urge doing so.
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http://www.archive.org/deta...
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Toward the end is a foreboding -- and astoundingly prophetic -- warning of the danger that a free and democratic society faces when media control falls into the hands of a privileged few with a narrow political view.
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(Or, why would a Republican FCC leadership want a "liberal" media stranglehold to grow even tighter?)
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In a move that roundly falsifies any claim that the mainstream media are "liberal," a lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission was recently discovered to have ordered the destruction of a finding that locally-run media did a better job of covering local issues than did media run by distant corporate giants.
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Why is this important?
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The finding was important to the argument against FCC rule changes that would allow corporate media giants to own and dominate even larger chunks of a community's broadcast and print media.
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Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting, a liberal group that nevertheless documents its arguments firmly in facts, sums it up, to wit:
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http://www.fair.org/index.p...
"Three years ago, then-FCC chair Michael Powell launched a proceeding on the effects of local ownership on television news as part of his drive to further deregulate media and allow for even greater consolidation. But the report commissioned under Powell turned out to undermine his argument that consolidation has no ill effects on local news, and, according to former FCC lawyer Adam Candeub, senior managers ordered "every last piece" of the study destroyed (AP, 9/14/06). On September 12, Senator Boxer, armed with the leaked report, questioned current FCC Chair Kevin Martin about it at his renomination hearing.

"According to the report, locally owned stations in fact deliver nearly six minutes more of total news and almost five-and-a-half more minutes of local news in a 30-minute newscast than stations with non-local owners. This adds up to 33 more hours of local news a year--a remarkable figure, and a damning one for big media's allies in the FCC, who are required to protect the public interest and to promote localism."
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The interesting fact is that President Bush is hell-bent on seeing media ownership rules loosened up further in this way, allowing corporate media oligopolies to grow even more powerful.  He opposed Congressional efforts to resist these FCC ownership rule changes.
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This solidly and roundly disproves any anti-Bush bias in the news media.  President Bush would be foolish to insist upon giving major media even more dominance unless the media were already sympathetic to him.  Why would he be so determined to give even more controlling power to media giants, if these media giants are so hostile to him?
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Regardless of your political views, this continuing concentration of media power in the hands of a few is dangerous to the future of freedom and democracy in the United States.
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And it must be stopped.

Most anyone who reads my blog posts knows that I spend very little time criticizing the Iraq War, other than opining that we should not have gone into Iraq.  While I think the war is wrong, one would be far stretched to label me an anti-war activist.
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So, for me to initiate a war-related blog topic means that I am really outraged.

I'm outraged because I think I have the final, nail-in-the-coffin proof that I need to prove that President Bush really and truly is a petulant, immature, arrogant, unfit-to-lead twit that has no business being anywhere within reach of the nuclear button.
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Bush is actually threatening to close down what he considers an effective tool in the war on terror if Democrats and conscientious Republicans don't yield to his tantrum over being asked to honor the Geneva Conventions.
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Read it here:
http://www.washingtonpost.c...

GOP Infighting on Detainees Intensifies

Bush Threatens to Halt CIA Program if Congress Passes Rival Proposal
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"President Bush warned defiant Republican senators yesterday that he will close down a CIA interrogation program that he credited with thwarting terrorist attacks if they pass a proposal regulating detention of enemy combatants, escalating a politically charged battle that has exposed divisions within his party.

An irritated Bush, raising his voice and gesturing sharply at a Rose Garden news conference, excoriated legislation passed by a Senate panel Thursday that is intended to conform U.S. detainee practices with the Geneva Conventions."
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Can you believe this???
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Yet I expect that we Bush critics will continue to be bashed for calling attention to his unbelievably self-centered, damn-the-nation behavior rather than admit that Bush is stepping over the line -- willing to actually jeopardize the safety of the United States if Congress doesn't grant his childish wish to weaken the Geneva Conventions
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The far right wing claims "they hate us for our freedoms."  Based on their blind support for Bush even in the face of this unbefitting conduct, they must figure that the terrorists will hate us less if we become more like them.
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Is that it?  The key to making America safer is to become more like the terrorists, so that they hate us a bit less?

A short ten years ago, during the Clinton presidency, distrust of government among the American right wing was reaching fever pitch.  Near the mainstream end of the American right, radio talk hosts like G. Gordon Liddy advised listeners on how best to ward off federal agents.  "Head shots!  Head shots!"
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Toward the more radical end, self-styled Patriot and militia groups learned survival skills and warned of electronic microchips implanted in the flesh -- identifying chips that could be electronically scanned from a distance.  On almost any day, a talk show on "Truth Radio KDNO" would warn listeners of the day when a left-wing, socialist government would invent ways to track your identity and watch your every move.
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These voters wanted to elect the most conservative Republicans that they could find.  We're talking Ray Haynes.  We're talking former State Senator Don Rogers.
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Well, a bit of this Patriot's nightmare threatens to become reality, and our state lawmakers have been called upon to show their true colors.  Judgment Day arrived in the form of Senate Bill 768, the Identity Information Protection Act of 2006.
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The point of contention is whether privacy protections should be required in plans to include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in California Driver Licenses and ID cards.
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A State Senate Committee analysis appears here:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/p...
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The ACLU Action Alert of 9/10/2006 warns, in part:
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