Miami Herald
by Molly Ivins

11/15/05

I can't get over this feeling of unreality, that I am actually sitting here writing about our country having a gulag of secret prisons in which it tortures people. I have loved America all my life, even though I have often disagreed with the government. But this seems to me so preposterous, so monstrous. ... Who are we? What have we become? The shining city on a hill, the beacon and bastion of refuge and freedom, a country born amid the most magnificent ideals of freedom and justice, the greatest political heritage ever given to any people anywhere. ... If you are dead to all sense of morality, let us still reason together on the famous American common ground of practicality. Torture does not work. It is not productive. It does not yield important, timely information. That is in the movies. This is reality. Why did we bother to beat the Soviet Union if we were just going to become it? Shame. Shame. Shame...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/13169165.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Sarasota Herald Tribune
by staff

11/15/05

Personal privacy, a bedrock principle of conservative political philosophy, is being invaded through a Patriot Act provision that allows the FBI to delve into the lives of ordinary Americans. The provision grants the FBI almost unfettered use of 'national security letters,' which were conceived as a tool for tracking foreign agents but now are freely employed against everyday citizens, The Washington Post reported recently. Republicans in Congress, many of whom champion conservative values, have been reluctant to challenge the Bush administration on its exercise of the Patriot Act. But that, fortunately, is starting to change...

http://tinyurl.com/a9fup


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Human Events/Evans-Novak Political Report
by Robert Novak

11/15/05

For the first time, we hear the 'I' word -- impeachment -- bandied about Washington by Democrats who can be taken seriously. We have even been told by some astute Republicans that it smells mighty like 1973 in the capital, but that is premature at best. Any talk of impeachment now would cost the Democrats as perceived excessive partisanship, and astute Democrats know that. ... Meanwhile, the disarray of the Republican majority in Congress cannot be overestimated...

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/enpr/current_enpr.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Self-Sovereign Individual Project
by Kitty Antonik Wakfer

11/05

If those who lead and are members of 'Iraq Veterans Against the War' really want the death and destruction to stop, they would best make it clear that the US participants need to stop their actions NOW. All IVAW members would need to become former enforcers -- no longer active in the military. Some might then call for a strike or sick-out, or they might urge mass resignations, registration as conscientious objectors, rejection of enlistment/re-enlistment incentives and other methods to opt out. Whatever the actual mechanism, the purpose would be to STOP the initiation of force. These actions would bring the real issues to the forefront, instead of them being masked by the political excuses given these past 3 years...

http://selfsip.org/focus/improvedeffectivity.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Free Liberal
by Robert Capozzi

11/16/05

In your heart, you know something has gone wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong. With the world. With America. And even with your life. This is a thoroughly negative perspective, and yet, try as one might, it's a conclusion that is difficult not to, in those quiet moments in which we really reflect on the state of affairs, quietly nod in agreement. Surely there are blessings. Much seemed to have gone very right. Americans, at least, are by and large healthy (if overfed) and wealthy, if not wise. Except for the hardest cases, even those among us who are considered 'poor' have more materially than most on Earth, and far more than perhaps 99% of those who've ever lived. The answer to what's gone wrong perhaps is found in, of all places, a quartet of films with the word 'America' or 'American' in it...

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001639.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Strike the Root
by Per Bylund

11/15/05

It is not possible to make the world libertarian. One cannot force freedom on others; it would not be freedom but force. One cannot strengthen or empower others through forcing them to make choices; it would be to subject them to your will (that they must choose) rather than someone else’s. One cannot abolish or lessen power through claiming it for oneself; politics is not a means to achieve freedom from politics...

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/bylund/bylund6.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

11/16/05

The recent Senate vote to require regular reports from the White House detailing all the wonderful 'progress' we're making over there was more reflective of a desire to cover their a... as election time approaches than it was of growing antiwar sentiment in the U.S. Congress. This, after all, is substantially the same group of fools who voted overwhelmingly to authorize the invasion of Iraq in the first place, and pretty much stood by and did nothing even as the majority of Americans turned against the war. What makes this a surprise, however, is that the competition between the two parties was limited, during the debate over the resolution, to who came up with the idea first. Remember when almost no one dared oppose the war, at least in public, and news anchors were wearing American flags on their lapels as they breathlessly 'reported' our glorious 'victory?' The times, they sure are a' changin'!

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8046


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Slate
by Fred Kaplan

11/14/05

President George W. Bush has suddenly shifted rhetoric on the war in Iraq. Until recently, the administration's line was basically, 'Everything we are saying and doing is right.' It was a line that held him in good stead, especially with his base, which admired his constancy above all else. Now, though, as his policies are failing and even his base has begun to abandon him, a new line is being trotted out: 'Yes, we were wrong about some things, but everybody else was wrong, too, so get over it.' Quite apart from the political motives behind the move, does Bush have a point? Did everybody believe, in the run-up to the war, that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? And are Bush's Democratic critics, therefore, hypocritically rewriting history when they now protest that the president misled them -- and the rest of us -- into war by manipulating intelligence data?

http://www.slate.com/id/2130295/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Los Angeles Times

11/15/05

The former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting repeatedly violated the organization's contracting rules and code of ethics in his efforts to promote conservatives in the system, according to an internal investigation released today. The 42-page report -- the culmination of a six-month investigation by Kenneth A. Konz, the corporation's inspector general -- described former Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson as a rogue politico who overstepped the boundaries of his position to right what he viewed as a liberal tilt in public broadcasting. Tomlinson, who resigned his board position this month in advance of the report, denied any wrongdoing in a statement included in the report, calling the charges 'malicious and irresponsible.' The investigation was requested in the spring by Reps. David Obey (D-WI) and John Dingell (D-MI)...

http://tinyurl.com/7k8d9


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

USA Today

11/15/05

There are enormous differences between the war in Iraq and the one in Vietnam that defined a generation. The current conflict hasn't lasted as long, taken nearly as many American lives or sparked the sort of anti-war movement that marked the '60s and '70s. But when it comes to public opinion, Americans' attitudes toward Iraq and the course ahead are strikingly similar to public attitudes toward Vietnam in the summer of 1970, a pivotal year in that conflict and a time of enormous domestic unrest...

http://tinyurl.com/dqoag


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp