Politics

Be careful what you read in public:

“The FBI is here,”Mom tells me over the phone. Immediately I can see my mom with her back to a couple of Matrix-like figures in black suits and opaque sunglasses, her hand covering the mouthpiece like Grace Kelly in Dial M for Murder. This must be a joke, I think. But it’s not, because Mom isn’t that funny.

“The who?” I say.

“Two FBI agents. They say you’re not in trouble, they just want to talk. They want to come to the store.”

[…]

Trippi’s partner speaks up: “Any reading material? Papers?” I don’t think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: “I’ll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that’s why we’re here, just checking it out. Like I said, there’s no problem. We’d just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can’t, then you may have a problem. And you don’t want that.”

You don’t want that? Have I just been threatened by the FBI? Confusion and a light dusting of panic conspire to keep me speechless. Was I reading something that morning? Something that would constitute a problem?

[…]

Special Agent Trippi didn’t return calls from CL. But Special Agent Joe Paris, Atlanta field office spokesman, stressed that specific FBI investigations are confidential. He wouldn’t confirm or deny the Schultz interview.

“In this post-911 era, it is the absolute responsibility of the FBI to follow through on any tips of potential terrorist activity,” Paris says. “Are people going to take exception and be inconvenienced by this at times? Oh, yeah. … A certain amount of convenience is going to be offset by an increase in security.”

Welcome to America, ~~2003~~ 1984.

(via Tom Tomorrow and Len)

Doc Searls has started keeping an eye on Dean’s campaign lately, and he takes a good look today at some of the tech issues the campaign might face as they continue to gain momentum.

Take the matter of comments.

That last post has 117 comments. Other comment piles below other posts number 40, 76, 101, 21, 71, 136, 156, 152, 98, 132 and so on. These are near-Slashdot numbers.

They are also unmoderated. In fact, there is no way to moderate them (in a Slashdot sense) on a Moveable Type blog. Or on any type of blog, far as I know. Other than by taking them down.

This apparently happened to a post by Richard Bennett to the comment list at a Dean blog entry on Monday. I was later told by email from a friend close to the Dean Campaign that the deletion was a mistake (by a campaign worker, not Dean) and that the campaign has a no-censorship policy on the blog. (One that also applies, presumably, to Dean’s guest posts on the Lessig blog, where the largest comment pile currently numbers 183.)

Dean and his campaign have been doing an incredible job of embracing the technology available to them, and doing everything they can to use it to their advantage. The comments on their posts not only keep discussions of key topics active long beyond when the initial post goes up, but also provides excellent fodder for campaign tactics and ideas.

It’s fascinating to watch, and seeing others far more of note to the Blogosphere than I take notice of it themselves is wonderful.

President George W. Bush is set to break two records previously set by his father.

Number one: we’re spiralling ever-downward into a projected \$455 billion deficit.

Number two: We’ve now lost 147 soldiers in Iraq — a tie with the 1991 Gulf War. One more casualty — which, if we go by the average, should happen sometime within the next 24 hours — and we’ll be over.

Go Dubya!

(via Atrios)

I know that, despite Bush’s insistence that the war ended weeks ago, we’re still in a combat situation in Iraq (at least, that’s how I’m interpreting our one-soldier-killed-per-day average). I’m sure that in such a situation, not everything is going to be sunshine and roses. But even so — what the hell?

NEVER again did families in Baghdad imagine that they need fear the midnight knock at the door.

But in recent weeks there have been increasing reports of Iraqi men, women and even children being dragged from their homes at night by American patrols, or snatched off the streets and taken, hooded and manacled, to prison camps around the capital.

Children as young as 11 are claimed to be among those locked up for 24 hours a day in rooms with no light, or held in overcrowded tents in temperatures approaching 50C (122F).

[…]

Mr Akhjan, whose 58-year-old father was arrested three weeks ago for driving a truck with no doors or headlights, said: “People are so sickened by what is happening they talk of wanting Saddam to come back. How bad can the Americans be that in three months we want that monster back?”

Things are looking worse and worse over there, and we’re not helping the matter by behaving like this. If this keeps up, we’re just going to keep ticking the Iraqi people off, we’re going to continue ticking the rest of the world off, and the long-term repercussions are not going to be good.

(via Tresy)

Well, it looks like the US is finally starting to wake up to the fact that the Bush administration hasn’t exactly been entirely truthful with the American Public. About damn time.

Rather than post link after link after link, tempting though it may be, I’d advise checking out a few key sites and going through the past few posts. There’s some really good stuff out there right now.

Recommended reading:

• Tom Tomorrow’s This Modern World
• Daily Kos
• Atrios’ Eschaton

Len posted a report on the NOW Presidential Forum in Washington D.C. that he found in the comments somewhere on Blog for America. It’s an excellent summary, and well worth perusing — so I’m shamelessly snagging a copy of it. ;)

Since the NOW forum was mentioned by Kate in this thread, I guess this is the best place to post my thoughts. I was lucky enough to attend the NOW presidential forum Friday evening near my home in Arlington, VA. Joining Governor Dean were Carol Moseley-Braun, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton (who was fashionably late hahaha ). When Rev. Sharpton came in during Gov. Dean’s opening statement, Dean joked, “I hope that doesn’t take away from my time.” ;-) John Kerry sent his apologies for not being able to attend. John Edwards sent his apologies and his wife. No word on the whereabouts of Gephardt, Lieberman or Graham.

My overall impressions from seeing these four candidates “up-close-and-personal” for the very first time:

Ambassador Moseley-Braun: She’s a good woman with good intentions and good positions — and she will make an excellent cabinet member for President Dean. ;-) At the beginning of the NOW forum, she was clearly (and naturally), the crowd favorite. Following a raucous NOW response to Moseley-Braun’s opening statement, Dean said, “I’m living every politician’s nightmare: following Carol Moseley-Braun at a NOW convention.” ;-) The crowd loved it and it served as the perfect ice-breaker, showing he had a sense of humor and a sense of his audience. As the forum progressed, she had a few nice things to say in reference to Governor Dean and as the two of them sat side-by-side in alphabetical order, they seemed VERY chummy. At one point during a particularly long-winded reply by Kucinich, Dean leaned over and watched Braun discreetly scribble something on her note pad, he whispered something in her ear, and then the two of them shared a giggly laugh — I’d give anything to see what she wrote. ;-)

Representative Kucinich: I was surprised how much I disliked the fellow. I’m a bleeding-heart liberal from way back — and hems way too liberal even for me. He also took a few swipes at Governor Dean, so I think he can forget getting any position in the Dean administration. ;-) I was turned off by his attitude more than anything else — he is interested in pushing his agenda and doesn’t really care whether or not he could actually make anything concrete happen. For example, his idea of a Department of Peace is a very laudable goal and one day, I’d love to see it become a reality. But if the man can’t see that in the current environment talking about the Department of Peace is enough to give Karl Rove wet-dreams, then hems completely lost it. After the forum, I overheard some NOW members dissing Kucinich for the flip-flop he did on abortion just before announcing his candidacy — those ladies said Kucinich can’t be trusted to truly defend a womanms right to choose and that “he’s a liar”. (They also said Dr. Dean looked very handsome with his short haircut and tan. haha)

Reverend Al Sharpton: The preacher did what a preacher should — had the audience nodding in agreement, had them clapping and laughing, and even brought them to their feet once. He and Gov. Dean had the most applause and laugh lines of the evening. (I was actually very surprised at how relaxed and easy-going and affable Dr. Dean seemed on the panel. So much for all those critics who say he is “too angry” and “not likeable” enough. I was very relieved to see he has a good — and quick! — sense of humor. I can’t wait to see him debate Dubya. Hahahaha .) One of the most surprising parts of the evening was after Sharpton sharply criticized the DLC for being too far to the right (basically he said we need to tell the DLC to shove it), Dr. Dean actually came to the DLC’s defense (in a way). Paraphrasing, Dean said he disagreed with Sharpton that we could write off the DLC (again, so much for Dean being “volatile” and “combative”. haha ). He said we’re going to need to bring the DLC along, we’re going to need to bring the unions along, we’re going to need to bring the gay and lesbian community along, etc — because we’re all in this together and together we can beat George Bush.

Governor Howard Dean: of course, I am already committed to him for my own reasons, so I was actually more interested in gauging the audience’s response. Although they were (slightly) cool to him at the beginning, he really warmed them up as the evening went on — the substantial contingent of we Dean supporters in the audience certainly helped ;-). I got the feeling a lot of the NOW audience didn’t know much about him — one woman sitting near me let out a pleasantly surprised “Oh really?” when he announced he was a physician. ;-) At several points, he relayed his accomplishments in Vermont and it seemed like much of the audience liked what they heard. The answer which struck me most had to do with domestic violence. Governor Dean gave a very impassioned discussion of this issue. He described how Vermont offers in-home visits to new mothers — regardless of whether they are poor or rich mothers — and if the families need help, Vermont provides them with job training, parenting classes, etc. He concluded that during his decade-plus as governor, these efforts to strengthen families have helped dramatically decrease physical and sexual abuse of children in Vermont. The NOW audience was VERY impressed by Dean’s sincere interest in this issue and gave him a hearty round of applause.

During closing statements, Kucinich cemented my unfavorable opinion of him and Dean made perhaps his biggest brownie points of the evening. Mimicking the line Dean has borrowed from the late Paul Wellstone, Kucinich’s closing statement consisted of him droning, “I’m from the universal health care wing of the Democratic Party. I’m from the universal day care wing of the Democratic Party. I’m from the abortion litmus test for judges wing of the Democratic Party. I’m from the Department of Peace wing of the Democratic Party.” And so on and so on. He listed about ten things and as Dr. Dean sat next to him listening to this, you could see the wheels turning in his head about how he would respond. Then Kucinich (I’m sorry, I know we’re supposed to remain positive but this REALLY ticked me off) had the audacity to steal Dr. Dean’s “Take our country back” line, followed by a round of (in my opinion) polite applause.

Then Dr. Dean got going. He got right on Kucinich’s case (rhetorically of course haha ), standing up and poking his finger in the air: “And I’m from the Beat George Bush wing of the Democratic Party!!” The crowd went wild…and I don’t believe I’m exaggerating. ;-) Then he went into his “you have the power” speech. Even though I’ve heard him give this similar spiel several times by now, I still get goose bumps and (I don’t mind admitting) I actually had to fight back a tear as he talked about how George Bush has divided our country and how WE have the power to take it back — I really felt like he was talking directly to me.

I went to bed last night and for the first time in over two years, I actually had a sense of peacefulness and hopefulness that America could return to the country I remember and the country I was taught to believe in. Thank you, Governor Dean, for giving me a little peace and a reason to hope again.

It was interesting for me to see that both Carol Moseley-Braun and Al Sharpton were there, until this point I’ve heard next to nothing about either of them. Unfortunately, no matter what their platform is, I’m under the direct impression that they’re essentiall non-candidates — even if they weren’t so far down on the political radar, I’m afraid that this country isn’t anywhere near ready to elect a black man or a woman of any color to the Presidential Office.

The bit on Kucinich was very interesting too. I don’t know much about him, yet his name keeps popping up, and he was my top match in the candidate poll I took. Unfortunately, he doesn’t sound at all interesting after this writeup — which, while it was written by a Dean supporter, still feels to me like he gave a fairly accurate rundown of each candidate’s appearance. Suffice to say, at this point unless Kucinich does far better in other reports, he’s not going to be pulling me away from the Dean camp.

In the end — Dean still looks to be a winner to me.