This site has several interesting maps based on contributions to Democrats and Republicans. I found this at blogsforbush.com, which I got to through a long, strange series of clicks from sportsmenagainstkerry.com to armedliberal.com and on and on. The armedliberal was almost as odd as the pro-choice republican. mjh
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Future Docile Citizens of America
Secret Service questions student about anti-war drawings By Associated Press
U.S. Secret Service agents questioned a high school student here about anti-war drawings he turned in to his art teacher, one of which depicted President Bush’s head on a stick.
Another pencil-and-ink drawing depicted Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading ”End the war — on terrorism.”
The 15-year-old boy’s art teacher turned the drawings over to school administrators, who notified a police officer assigned to work with the Prosser High School campus.
”We involve the police anytime we have a concern,” Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher told the Tri-City Herald newspaper. ”From our perspective it was an incident that needed to be reported to the police on campus.”
Secret Service agents interviewed the boy last Friday. The student, who was not arrested, has not been identified.
The school district disciplined him, but district officials refused to say what the punishment was. Tolcacher said the boy was not suspended.
Tolcacher insisted it was not a freedom of speech issue, but a concern over the depiction of violence. …
”If this 15-year-old kid in Prosser is perceived as a threat to the president, then we are living in ‘1984’,” Cravens said.
I think the important fact of this story is that a teacher betrayed a student and turned that student over to the government. So much for fostering independent thought and reasoning.
High school students should know they have no rights and no freedom. In this zero tolerance age, all search and seizure is ‘reasonable.’ No doubt this will make for very pliant, docile citizens in the future. mjh
Tight Race in NM
Bush and Kerry Tied Among Likely Voters in New Mexico
George W. Bush and John Kerry are tied among likely voters in New Mexico according to a survey by the American Research Group. A total of 46% of likely voters say they would vote for Bush if the presidential election were being held today and 45% say they would vote for Kerry. A total of 3% of likely voters say they would vote for Ralph Nader and 6% of likely voters are undecided.
In a race between just Bush and Kerry, Bush and Kerry are tied at 47% each, with 6% undecided. …
A total of 45% of likely voters say they have a favorable opinion of Bush and 45% say they have an unfavorable opinion of Bush.
A total of 42% of likely voters say they have a favorable opinion of Kerry and 19% say they have an unfavorable opinion of Kerry.
[Also polled:]
Iowa
Wisconsin
West Virginia
New Hampshire
Florida
Flag-draped Coffins, I
This is one of two stories involving photos of flag-draped coffins. In this one, Russ Kick used the Freedom of Information Act (created after Watergate and which Bush does everything he can to shut down) to obtain photos taken by the Department of Defense.mjh
Air Force adds to controversy with its own coffin photos By Hal Bernton and Ray Rivera, Seattle Times
The week before Kuwait cargo worker Tami Silicio lost her job for releasing a photograph of soldiers’ coffins, the Air Force made its own release of several hundred photographs of flag-draped coffins to the operator of an Internet site.
The Air Force photos were shot by personnel at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and released — reluctantly — in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by a 34-year-old First Amendment activist [Russ Kick].
Release of the more than 360 photographs further erodes a 13-year-old ban on the media taking photos of the transport of coffins from overseas battle zones to Dover, site of the military’s largest mortuary. …
In coming days, there could be more coffin images circulating as Kick’s Web site offers “high-resolution” Dover photos.
Some of the Dover pictures, already posted online, depict rows of flag-draped coffins of American soldiers killed in Iraq being unloaded from Air Force cargo planes. Some show soldiers kneeling to adjust flags on coffins.
In an interview, Kick said he believes the public has a right to see the pictures, and that they are respectful to grieving families.
“I would make the argument that trying to hide the photos of these people who gave everything for their country is actually dishonoring them,” Kick said. “They went over there in all of our names and died, and then when they come back home, they’re hidden behind a curtain. I think that’s wrong.”
Kick, of Tucson, Ariz., initially filed his Freedom of Information Act request in March 2003. The Air Force denied that request. But after he filed an appeal, “to my amazement” the ruling was reversed, he wrote on his Internet site [mjh: www.thememoryhole.org — off-line as I write this].
And on April 14, he received a CD with the 361 images.
Bush: Military should respect family privacy on photos of flag-draped coffins by RANDALL CHASE, CBC News
Democratic Representative Jim McDermott of Washington, who served in the navy during the Vietnam War, said photos of caskets coming home from Vietnam had a tremendous impact on the way Americans came to view that war.
”As people began to see the reality of it and see the 55,000 people who were killed coming back in body bags, they became more and more upset by the war,” he said. ”This is not about privacy. This is about trying to keep the country from facing the reality of war.”
An unrelated story in Wired about other Russ Kick activities. mjh
Wired News: Traveling Down the Memory Hole
As the Sept. 11 commission conducts hearings in Washington to investigate the government’s response to the terrorist attacks, a controversial video of President Bush is making the rounds on the Internet.
The video, which shows Bush sitting in a Florida classroom watching children read for more than five minutes after being told the United States was under siege, has become a popular Internet download. It’s posted on The Memory Hole [owned by Russ Kick], a website dedicated to publishing official data that is hard to find, censored or in danger of being lost.
Flag-draped Coffins, II
This is the second of two stories involving photos of flag-draped coffins. In this one, Tami Silicio took some photos in Kuwait and sent at least one home to Seattle. Someone there asked the Seattle Times to publish the photo(s), which it did along with a story. mjh
U.S. contractor fired for military coffin photo By Sue Pleming, Reuters
A U.S. contractor and her husband have been fired after her photograph of 20 flag-draped coffins of American troops going home from Iraq was published in violation of military rules.
”I lost my job and they let my husband go as well,” Tami Silicio, who loaded U.S. military cargo at Kuwait International Airport for a U.S. company, told Reuters in an e-mail response to questions.
The Pentagon tightly restricts publication of photographs of coffins with the remains of U.S. troops and has forbidden journalists from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first stop for the bodies of troops being sent home. …
Since the start of the war in March 2003, more than 700 U.S. troops have died in Iraq, with more than 100 killed this month, the Pentagon said.
The Seattle Times: Local News: What readers are saying
We asked readers to share their thoughts on this photograph that was published in The Seattle Times and the issues surrounding its publication.
Here’s a representative sample of the more than 175 comments submitted. [read them]
A rightwing news blog cites the intrepid research of a talk-radio journalist. mjh
GI Casket Photog Sued Cheney in 2000 NewsMax.com
[I]t turns out that four years ago the duo, Tami Silicio and Amy Katz, sued Halliburton, then run by Vice President Dick Cheney, naming Cheney in the suit. …
[KTTH Seattle radio host Mike] Siegel said on Friday that the Katz-Silicio lawsuit against Cheney raises questions about the politics behind the casket photo story, saying the two women likely had an axe to grind against the Bush administration.
He also chastised the press for not noting the Katz-Silicio lawsuit, saying, ”What does that say about the Seattle Times, which printed the photo without doing any investigation.”
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The Patriot Act
Bush Draws Terrorism Law Into Campaign By ADAM NAGOURNEY, NYTimes
”Those who criticize the Patriot Act must listen to those folks on the front line of defending America,” Mr. Bush said with a glance at the police chief from the nearby town of Amherst, sitting crisply in his uniform two stools away. ”The Patriot Act defends our liberty, is what it does, under the Constitution of the United States.” [mjh: Lies Are Truth, War Is Peace!]
This was the third time in just four days that Mr. Bush had publicly invoked the USA Patriot Act. And it reflected what aides said would be systematic references to it in his speeches and television advertisements through Election Day, as this signature statute of his administration becomes a crucial part of his campaign strategy. …
There are even reservations within Mr. Bush’s own party about some provisions, which, conservatives maintain, invite government abuse. …
Not coincidentally, Mr. Bush has wrapped himself in the Patriot Act at the very time that his own credentials as a terrorism-fighter have been under challenge….
Politics and the Patriot Act, NYTimes Editorial
President Bush campaigned in Buffalo yesterday, wrapping himself in the Patriot Act and urging Congress to extend parts of the law that do not expire until the end of next year. The Patriot Act has always been a tempting bit of election-year politics, an easy way to seem tough on terrorism. But it also is bad law, and the president should be heeding calls from conservatives and liberals to remove provisions that trample on civil liberties.
The Patriot Act sailed through Congress just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, in a climate, and bearing a name, that made it difficult to raise questions. Instead of conducting a serious investigation of the law enforcement flaws that made the nation vulnerable, its drafters came up with a rushed checklist of increased police powers, many of dubious value in fighting terrorism.
Among the most troubling provisions is Section 215, which allows the F.B.I. to order libraries, hospitals and others with personal records to hand over such information about individuals. People like librarians can be jailed if they refuse, or if they notify the targets. Another authorizes ”sneak and peek” searches, in which the government can secretly search people’s homes and delay telling them about the intrusions. As troubling as specific provisions like these is the ”mission creep” that has inevitably occurred. Mr. Bush’s own Justice Department told Congress last fall that the act’s loosened restrictions on government surveillance were regularly being used in nonterrorism cases, like drug trafficking and white-collar crime. …
It is not hard to see the attraction of making a political issue out of the Patriot Act, with an independent commission raising questions about the administration’s vigilance before 9/11. But Mr. Bush’s sweeping praise for the act sidesteps the real debate. Members of Congress from both parties, including conservatives like Senator Larry Craig, the Idaho Republican, and Congressman Don Young, the Alaska Republican, have expressed concern about features of the act, like the expanded search powers, that could harm civil liberties.
With more than a year and a half before central provisions of the act are due to expire, even its supporters do not need to rush to reauthorize it. It would be more productive for Mr. Bush and Congress to spend the time finding ways to fight terrorism that do not take away important liberties.
The Patriot Act was thrown together in a rush without any congressional review. It is very suspicious how quickly it was put together and passed, as if large pieces had been sitting on the shelf for months or years before. Now, long before parts of the act expire (a provision used to persuade a few doubters to pass it), Bush is making it a campaign issue and doing everything to discourage discussion or consideration. mjh
There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison
[Thanks, NewMexiKen!]