Republican Senator Rick Santorum’s Supporters have Police Intimidate and Threaten Women for Questions they Might Ask him in the Future

Frequently when President Bush appears at American Tax Payers’ expense Americans who do not agree with him are forcibly removed or prevented from attending even if they do not do anything or say anything against the President’s views. The White House defended this practice by saying that they “know” that those who disagree with the President will disrupt any public appearance in the future and so having them arrested or detained or forcibly removed for “crimes” they may (or that the White House “knows” they will) commit in the future is perfectly okay. George Orwell called these “thought crimes” in his novel 1984: a world where Big Brother ran everything and thinking anything contrary to Big Brother was punishable. The Minority Report was a movie about a world where people were arrested and imprisoned or executed for crimes they would commit in the future based on what psychics saw. The Bush Administration similarly excludes those who disagree with Bush’s policies based on “knowledge” of what they might do in the future. Life imitating art. This practice was expanded to other members of the Bush Administration early in his first term and has continued into his second. No one who disagrees with Bush Administration Policy is allowed to attend speaking engagements that they pay for with their tax dollars if any senior member of the administration is featured. Only supporters allowed, though everyone pays for it.

Republican Senator Rick Santorum is selling his new book (and making a lot of money at it) and was at a book signing at Barnes and Noble in his home state on August 10. A few of his constituents who disagree with him went to the book signing. They were planning on asking him some questions during the question and answer period. Prior to that one joked that she might ask Santorum to sign a different book: one by a gay author. A supporter of Santorum’s got a State Trooper named Sgt. DiJiacomo to threaten and intimidate all of Santorum’s constituents who were in that group that included the woman who made the joke. He repeatedly threatened them and forced them to leave the store or he'd send them to jail. He even later threatened them in the parking lot just for good measure.

“Drew Fennell sees the incident in a larger context. ‘This is trickle down from Bush: Politicians are now keeping away, out of sight, anybody who disagrees with them,’ she says. ‘If the Senator’s staff was so put off by the idea he might be asked a difficult question that they brought in the police, that’s a sad commentary on the state of political discourse.’”

A sad commentary indeed. We have entered the world of 1984 and the Minority Report.

Read about it here: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0820-20.htm

While you are at it read the rest of the articles at http://www.commondreams.org/

Joe

"The supporters of this war have run out of convincing lies and effective emotional appeals. Now they are reduced to attacking the grieving mothers of dead soldiers. Samuel Johnson suggested that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. But, with their attacks on Cindy Sheehan, the apologists for Bush's infamy have found a new and darker refuge."

- John Nichols writing in the Capitol Times of Madison Wisconsin

Must Read Bob Herbert Column: "If Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is worth dying for, then the children of the privileged should be doing some of the dying."

- Bob Herbert

Are ANY children or grandchildren of ANY senior White House Officials serving in Iraq? The answer to that is NO! Why aren’t the children and grandchildren of Bush Administration Officials serving in Iraq? Why are we, the regular Americans who have no political clout, asked to die for their decisions? My cousin just got back from serving in Iraq. Thank God she lived, but thousands of other active service members in Iraq are DEAD! None of these dead are children or grandchildren of Bush Administration Officials. Why? If they think our being in Iraq is a good idea why won’t they send their own kids to die? Why do we if they won’t?

- Joe

Bush Supporter Kills Friend Who Disagreed with President

On Thursday a Kentucky man, Douglas Moore, shot and killed his “good friend,” Harold Smith, because Smith did not agree with President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and start the Iraq War. Moore, a gun dealer, supported Bush’s decision to invade Iraq so he killed his good friend who didn’t. Apparently, in Red State America that is how political debates are settled. A recent Poll showed that only 38% of Americans support the President’s handling of the war. Using Mr. Moore’s method those 38% will need a lot of bullets to eliminate the 62% who do not approve.

Intelligent Design NOT Very Intelligent—President Bush Wants it Taught in School

President Bush said Monday, August 1, that he believes schools should teach "intelligent design" alongside evolution when teaching students about the origin of life. Intelligent Design is the “school” of thought that man and the rest of living things did not evolve but were designed by an intelligence greater than our own. That intelligence need not be God according to the teachings of Intelligent Design. There is a problem with this, though. Let us call that intelligence which designed us “intelligence A.” Who designed intelligence A? If the answer is no one—intelligence A just evolved—you have argued for evolution. If the answer is intelligence B—a still greater intelligence than intelligence A—it begs the question of who designed intelligence B. At some point you must say that the intelligence just evolved, or the intelligence is God and therefore was not designed, or you have an infinite number of intelligences each greater than the preceding one. So Intelligent Design boils down to one of the following: another argument in favor of evolution, creationism, or a silly idea with an infinite number of designers each more inteligent than the prior one. Since the infinite designers answer would require a universe filled with such inteligent creative individuals (not something seen anywhere around Washington DC or in Red State America) you either have to conclude that President Bush wants just evolution or evolution plus creationism taught in our schools. There is no other conclusion if you are inteligent.