Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Writers Are Terrorists

Talk about misdirection. I know some of the love scenes get pretty steamy, but I didn’t think even John Ashcroft would conclude that a romance novelist doing research on the internet was a potential terrorist. (Via Talk Left.)

This is some scary stuff for people like bloggers who spend a lot of time poking their noses into issues that might be considered sensitive:

If you think that as women’s fiction writers, we’re immune from scrutiny under the Patriot Act, think again. Last fall, the home of a multi-published author for an RWA-recognized publisher was raided and her writing in materials confiscated. The writer, an RWA and PAN member who asked to be referred to as Dilyn, agreed to he interviewed for this column to alert RWA members of potential risks when conducting research.

SB: What type of story were you researching?

Dilyn: Mainstream women’s fiction adventure. It was set in Cambodia, all about the theft of antiquities. In my research I learned, about the atrocities that still go on there even today, much of it coming from one of the Al Qaeda-linked groups. I actually went back though my book and deleted those specific terrorist references after 9/11 and changed the ter­rorists to a rogue band of thieves because of 9/11 and terrorist sensitivity.

SB: What types of books did you buy/check out of the library?

Dilyn: I bought and checked out books on Cambodia– its history, its present struggles, its antiquities and anything I could get my hands on concerning the terrorism going on there…landmines, in particular. And those were the kinds of Web sites I surfed too.

SB: Did you share your reasons for checking out the books with your librarian?

Dilyn: No. My library is huge and highly impersonal. I did the library book search on-line and simply went there to check them out. I also kept those books checked out for well over a year during the writing of my book. Plus, I purchased all my research books online–about six. As far as my Web surfing, I went dozens of places.

Many were for non-terrorist aspects of my book, but a few were for gathering specific terrorist information. To be honest, I was surprised to find the Al Qaeda linked to Cambodia. I was only going after the landmine atrocities because they played a huge part in my story.

SB: Did you have any reason to suspect you were being targeted for a raid, any advance notice?

Dilyn: No. Not a clue. Although, for a while prior to the raid, I thought I was being stalked. Mail was missing from my box, I caught someone searching my trash, I saw a prowler in nit yard and actually called the police. One of my neighbors saw someone watching from across the street–she wasn’t sure if it was my house or hers. She called the police, too–turns out they taking surveillance photos.

SB: When did the raid take place, how long did it last, and what items were con­fiscated? What agency conducted the raid?

Dilyn: The raid took place last fall, pre-dawn, and it lasted three hours. They banged at my front door first, damaged it coming in, displayed weapons and threat­ened to kill my dogs. After that, imagine everything you’ve seen on TV, only worse. There were six male agents. One was in the “bad cop” mode the entire time, trying to intimidate me, yelling at me, threatening me. When I had to go to the restroom, he sent an agent along to the bathroom with me. It was a multi-agency raid: Postal Inspectors (for the Web site/email end of it), FBI, and three officers who would only identify themselves as Federal Police. They took so much–com­puters, photocopier, files, books, discs, computer programs, CDs of the music by which I write, contracts, absolutely everything I had connected to the writing world. They took pictures off my walls, my office television, pens, a case of paper, postage stamps — even now, after all these months, 1 still so to get something only to discover it missing.

SB: Have you had any success in retrieving items that were taken?

Dilvn: They brought my computers back within a couple of months–bugged. I have this great computer guy who couldn’t wait to get inside to take a look, sure enough, they had a program in there to monitor me. I got my discs back, too, all ruined. They still have everything else.

Does anyone else get the sneaking suspicion that the Justice department under John Ashcroft is completely nuts? This is a Hollywood script, notlaw enforcement. In fact, I think they got this idea from a movie called “Romancing The Stone” in which a Romance writer unwittingly gets involved in Latin American smuggling and drug running. It was a comedy.

I can understand why they might have had a conversation with the woman based upon her web surfing. A little investigation was probably warranted to find out that she was a FICTION WRITER who often researches unusual practices. But a raid of her house and seizure of her property is the mark of an out of control incipient police state.

It is the lack of common sense that has me so scared for this country — this underreaction to real threats and the overreaction to non-threats. We can’t seem to strike any balance anywhere and it’s getting us further and further into trouble.

I am very curiuus as to who President Kerry will appoint as AG. It’s going to be a hell of a job trying to straighten out the unholy mess that Ashcroft has made of the place.

Useless Eggheads

My favorite new Republican talking point is the appalled outrage that a member of Kerry’s staff referred to the War on Terror as a…gasp…metaphor. Can you believe these sissified Democrats living in their pre 9/11 dreamworlds? A metaphor?

Obviously, this is just another example of the reality based community clinging to outmoded notions of the literal meaning of words. And America is weaker for it.

We will defeat terror. It shall not stand. Terror will be vanquished from the earth. Anyone who doesn’t agree is a loser. Let freedom rain. And I mean that literally.

He Takes My Breath Away

He’s strutting, he’s swaggering, he’s building up to a full-on Village People extravaganza during these last few days:

President Bush turned his Marine One chopper into a campaign prop Saturday and used it to drop in on huge crowds at three stadiums around Florida, at a time of concern in his campaign about his failure to gain a decisive lead in the most crucial battlegrounds.

[…]

The commander in chief landed at the ballparks to the strains of the “Top Gun” theme, his most dramatic use of a military asset since he rode a fighter jet onto an aircraft carrier 17 months ago to declare the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

[…]

During Bush’s chopper swing, a huge banner in the outfield of City of Palms Park, in Fort Myers, showed an image of the military helicopter with the slogan “Soaring to Victory.” His departing chopper flew over the crowd of 11,000, so close that the president and Laura Bush could be seen waving.

[…]

The other chopper rallies were in Lakeland and Melbourne. Bush’s finale was a rally for 25,000 or more at Alltel Stadium, home of the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars and site of next February’s Super Bowl. Bush spoke from a lectern on the 50-yard line. He arrived amid rock-concert-style smoke and departed to fireworks.

Here’s why they seem to have called in Bruckheimer to stage the campaign stops (in an apparent homage to Coppolla’s seminal Playboy bunny scene in Apocalypse Now):

GOP officials who talked to Bush-Cheney campaign leaders said the leaders have grown more worried about Ohio, Florida and other key states where Bush lacks a lead with just 10 days until the election. A poll by Ohio University’s Scripps Survey Research Center, completed Thursday night, found Kerry leading 49 percent to 43 percent among registered voters, with a margin of error of five percentage points.

[…]

The Republican official said polling for Bush showed him in a weaker position than some published polls have indicated, both nationally and in battlegrounds. In many of the key states, the official said, Bush is below 50 percent, and he is ahead or behind within the margin of sampling error — a statistical tie.

“There’s just no place where they’re polling outside the margin of error so they can say, ‘We have this state,’ ” the official said. “And they know that an incumbent needs to be outside the margin of error.”

Look for leather chaps, tight sailor bells, maybe even a great big tool belt these next two days. He’s in the Danger Zone, allright.

Update: Check out The Talent Show for Bush’s Halloween Surprise.

They Can Dish It Out

I’ve never seen Lawrence O’Donnell get even slightly overwrought, but that lying, piece of shit scumbag John O’Neill with his preturnaturally calm psychopath act pushed him over the edge.

I can’t tell you how many times I have stood in front of my television saying exactly those words, ineffectually waving my fist and kicking my poor oft-bruised foot into the wall. It’s a real pleasure to watch someone express my personal frustration right in that lying asshole’s face.

The freepers are writing nasty letters. O’Donnell could probably use some support.

viewerservices@msnbc.com

joe@msnbc.com

MSNBC TV

One MSNBC Plaza

Secaucus, N.J. 07094

Apparently he unloaded on Jabba The Blankley on Mclaughlin, too. He’s just righteously pissed at the endless lying. I know the feeling. They aren’t even trying to hide it anymore. It’s like these people are spitting in your face and daring you to do something about it.

Political Platforms

I hear Gene Simmons is a Republican. Maybe he whispered a little something about height-enhancing footwear in Junior’s ear:

The Youth Vote

When I was in the third grade my mother dressed me up in a bunch of Goldwater gear and sent me off to school on election day. I was the only kid in my class who wasn’t dressed up for Johnson. Maybe that’s the real reason I became a Democrat when my parents are hard core Republicans — the early childhood trauma of being a political minority. (Little did I know…)

But, it does illustrate the fact that little kids “vote” like their parents when they are polled. And that has been shown to be true for years. Matt Stoller on MYDD sez that the Nickelodeon poll has some good news for us:

Kids Choose Wisely

A strong majority of American children support Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry over President George W. Bush in the election less than two weeks away, according to an online poll released Wednesday by Nickelodeon cable channel.

Children have always picked the winner since the popular channel aimed at kids began conducted the poll in 1988. In 2000, they backed Bush with 55 percent.

Some 400,000 children responded to the poll, and 57 percent backed Kerry against 43 percent for Bush.

“The `Kids’ Vote’ seems to work as a good barometer of the actual presidential vote because, deve­lopmentally, kids between the ages of 2 and 11 share the same opinions and outlooks as their parents,” said Cyma Zarghami, president of the television channel, part of Viacom International.

I don’t see any reason why children would choose Bush over Gore in 2000 and then Kerry over Bush in 2004 except that their parents’ preferences have changed. It’s not like Nickelodeon has gone on an anti-Bush tear.

I don’t know about that, Matt. SpongeBob Squarepants is a total freak for Michael Moore.

The Lost Years

Does the man just reflexively lie about everything or does he have so much to hide that it’s just smarter to lie first and ask questions later?

“I was working full time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project P.U.L.L.,” Bush said in his 1999 autobiography, “A Charge to Keep.” “My friend John White … asked me to come help him run the program. … I was intrigued by John’s offer. … Now I had a chance to help people.”

But White’s administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard. Instead, the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to Bush’s father, who was honorary co-chairman of the program at the time, and Bush was unpaid. They say White told them Bush had gotten into some kind of trouble but White never gave them specifics.

“We didn’t know what kind of trouble he’d been in, only that he’d done something that required him to put in the time,” said Althia Turner, White’s administrative assistant.

“John said he was doing a favor for George’s father because an arrangement had to be made for the son to be there,” said Willie Frazier, also a former player for the Houston Oilers and a P.U.L.L. summer volunteer in 1973.

Fred Maura, a close friend of White, refers to Bush as “43,” for 43rd president, and his father as “41,” for the 41st president.

“John didn’t say what kind of trouble 43 was in – just that he had done something and he (John) made a deal to take him in as a favor to 41 to get some funding,” Maura said.

“He didn’t help run the program. I was in charge of him and I wouldn’t say I helped run the program, either,” said David Anderson, a recreational director at P.U.L.L.

It’s long been strongly suspected that he did his “volunteer” work at Operation Pull as some kind of alternative punishment, whether for criminal or familial reasons. Working with inner city kids during that irrational time in his life is so out of character it never passed the *sniff* test.

We know that his family was fit to be tied with him during that time, and for good reason:

Leaving the election-night “celebration,” Allison remembers encountering George W. Bush in the parking lot, urinating on a car, and hearing later about how he’d yelled obscenities at police officers that night. Bush left a house he’d rented in Montgomery trashed — the furniture broken, walls damaged and a chandelier destroyed, the Birmingham News reported in February. “He was just a rich kid who had no respect for other people’s possessions,” Mary Smith, a member of the family who rented the house, told the newspaper, adding that a bill sent to Bush for repairs was never paid. And a month later, in December, during a visit to his parents’ home in Washington, Bush drunkenly challenged his father to go “mano a mano,” as has often been reported.

Around the same time, for the 1972 Christmas holiday, the Allisons met up with the Bushes on vacation in Hobe Sound, Fla. Tension was still evident between Bush and his parents. Linda was a passenger in a car driven by Barbara Bush as they headed to lunch at the local beach club. Bush, who was 26 years old, got on a bicycle and rode in front of the car in a slow, serpentine manner, forcing his mother to crawl along. “He rode so slowly that he kept having to put his foot down to get his balance, and he kept in a weaving pattern so we couldn’t get past,” Allison recalled. “He was obviously furious with his mother about something, and she was furious at him, too.”

It’s certainly possible that Dad pulled strings because he wanted to teach his miscreant son a lesson. But, it doesn’t seem as if he had much control over Junior’s behavior during that time, so it’s a bit of a stretch to believe that he could have forced him to do this thing. After all, this was the same period that Junior was refusing to fulfill his commitment to the US government. It is much more likely that Bush had been arrested for drugs or drunk driving and that Poppy intervened — as he continued to do for more than a decade of decadence and hedonism.

It was in 1985, around the time of his 39th birthday, George W. Bush says, that his life took a sharp turn toward salvation. At that point he was drinking, his marriage was on the rocks, his career was listless. Several accounts have emerged from those close to Bush about a faith ”intervention” of sorts at the Kennebunkport family compound that year. Details vary, but here’s the gist of what I understand took place. George W., drunk at a party, crudely insulted a friend of his mother’s. George senior and Barbara blew up. Words were exchanged along the lines of something having to be done. George senior, then the vice president, dialed up his friend, Billy Graham, who came to the compound and spent several days with George W. in probing exchanges and walks on the beach.

For all of his hectoring and lecturing about “the responsibility era” and ending the ethos of “if it feels good, do it,” he has never taken even the tiniest bit of responsibility for what he did. He even lied about his “born again” experience — not mentioning that it was the result of yet another intervention by his frustrated parents

Lying in the most craven way about this Operation PULL episode, by claiming that he “helped run the program” when it’s obvious to any sentient being that he was forced to be there, is the kind of thing that continues to stoke interest in the 40 odd lost years of George W. Bush. Nobody would care if he didn’t constantly behave like a man with something to hide.

Below The Belt

I knew the Bush campaign was ruthless and I knew they were cruel. I expected them to play dirty.

But, I never dreamed they would sink this low.

If Karl Rove is willing to play the cute puppy card, we are truly doomed…

They’ll Believe Anything

I thought you might enjoy this wingnut e-mail that’s been going around:

Almost half of the nation’s flu vaccine will not be delivered this year. Chiron, a major manufacturer of flu vaccine, will not be distributing any influenza vaccine this flu season. Chiron was to make 46-48 million doses vaccine for the United States. Chiron is a British company. Recently British health officials stopped Chiron from distributing and making the vaccine when inspectors found unsanitary conditions in the labs. Some lots of the vaccine were recalled and destroyed.Why is our vaccine made in the UK and not the US? The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the nations flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor.

In the late 80’s a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years Vaccine made by a US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US.

By the way…the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot lawsuit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards.

Mighty decent of the Bush campaign not to use this bombshell in the last two weeks of the campaign, don’t you think? John Edwards is personally responsible for the flu vaccine crisis and they refrain from using that information in ads and speeches. Wow. To think that some people say they are tough guys who will pull out all the stops to win when they are really just a bunch of softies who don’t want to embarrass their rivals.

On second thought, this can’t be yet another completely unbelievable lie to fool Republican morons, can it? My gawd. I hope these people aren’t allowed to operate heavy machinery or drive without supervision. People that dumb are a public health hazard in and of themselves.

Under Pressure

One of the hallmarks of the modern Republican party has been the efficacy of its communication infrastructure and its commitment to the long term. Over time it has become a sophisticated national political machine. Now, Sinclair Advertiser Boycott has shown that our side truly has the beginnings of a strong and vital counter force if we devote ourselves to long term thinking. The battle is just beginning whether we win or lose this election.

The immediate necessity, however, is to not let up on Sinclair. They have not capitulated. They merely changed their strategy. They are committed to the extreme right wing and will continue to evangelize in various ways for the cause with no sense of fairness or journalistic ethics. This little gambit has personally cost the family more than 40 million dollars and yet they continue. It seems that they have not yet learned their lesson and perhaps they never will. But, there is an object lesson for others out there who might try something like this, so whatever happens we must take this all the way to the end.

We must not let up on the pressure until the propagandists understands that there will be a serious price to pay economically for ignoring their responsibilities to the nation as a guardian of democracy. They are allowed to use the airwaves as a public trust. If they continue to abuse that trust they should be relieved of it.

Via the Sinclair Boycott blog, I see that an unnamed Sinclair employee (and stockholder) is exhorting us to keep the pressure on the company to try to stop them from broadcasting the comedy and keep them from repeating it throughout the week-end. They have not learned their lesson:

You have today and tomorrow to prevent A POW Story from airing. Now is not the time to stop. If SBG is prevented from airing A POW Story, they will be forced to air regularly scheduled programming, and generate regularly scheduled ad revenue. This will have the effect of forcing SBG to accept money against their apparent will.

What you and others are doing here is very much like having an intervention with a drug addict. You don’t give him the benefit of the doubt. You don’t let him dictate terms. You don’t allow yourself to be dazzled by his arguments. And you don’t leave him alone so he can “go to the bathroom.” You are trying to save this company from itself. The Smith brothers took actions that caused their company stock to rapidly lose $90 million in value, of which $40 million came right out of their hides, and they still didn’t want to stop. There is no reason to beleive that they have come to their senses. They said what everyone wanted to hear, and now they are going to do what they wanted to do in the first place. They will do what Fox News does, and pay lip service to offering “both sides”. There will be some liberal lightweight phoning in a perfomance that will make Alan Colmes seem like Kenneth Galbraith by comparison.

…. SBG may use this weekend to get this program on the air more than once. The SBG press release mentions only what affiliates will be airing on Friday night. SBG may chose to air the program any number of times on any number of their affiliates after Friday. Should they do this, the company will likely bleed money like a stuck pig. If Glickenhaus and Media Matters don’t like what they see at 9 pm, what are they going to do? Wait til Monday morning to take legal action?

We are running promotional announcements for A POW Story as of today. So, my company believes this is a done deal. Prove them wrong.

Read the whole letter, it’s quite interesting. Keep sending all those calls and letters folks.

According to Atrios, there is also a mass protest scheduled for 8pm on Friday night at all the Sinclair affiliates. He’s got all the info.

If anyone you know lives in one of those towns, send them an e-mail and tell them to head down there at 8pm. Local news is important and if we make enough noise, Sinclair’s competitors will be more than happy to report these actions. The decline of the company, the protests and the boycott, unlike “A POW Story”, actually are news.