Ivan Eland writes:

After having begun a series of investigative stories criticizing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in May 2008, CNN reporter Drew Griffin reports being placed with more than a million other names on TSA's swollen terrorism watch list. Although TSA insists Griffin's name is not on the list and pooh-poohs any possibility of retaliation for Griffin's negative reporting, the reporter has been hassled by various airlines on 11 flights since May. The airlines insist that Griffin's name is on the list. Congress has asked TSA to look into the tribulations of this prominent passenger.

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, probably responding to the controversy over Griffin, Leonard Boyle, the director of the Terrorist Screening Center, defended the watch list, claiming that because terrorists have multiple aliases, the names on the list boiled down to only about 400,000 actual people. If there are 400,000 terrorists lying in wait to attack the United States, we are all in trouble. [...]

http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=13162

I read in today's paper that a black congressman who was a leader in the civil rights fight is also on the list. I heard John Stewart claim Nelson Mandela is on the list. I think Ted Kennedy was on the list for a while.

Do we really need to pay for a Transportation Safety Administration or a Department of Homeland Security? Will the Democrats rid us of these civil rights trampling thugs?

By DAVE LINDORFF

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff07192008.html

I was injured thanks to the government’s ridiculous airport security program last week on a US Air flight from Chicago to Philadelphia. I also saw how pointless the whole thing is, if the supposed goal is really to prevent airline hijackings.

First, my injury. Because of a silly fear that I might blow up a plane with explosives tucked into my running shoes, I, along with everyone else in the security checkpoint line at O’Hare, including two-month-old babies wearing little booties, had to doff my footwear. Clad in just socks, I tried to maneuver my way around a metal counter that held those plastic trays carrying my laptop, my shoes, my belt and change and keys, and my carry-on bag, and in the process my unprotected big toe hit a sharp piece of metal protruding from the table.

The metal sliced right under my toenail, making a painful and bloody cut into the soft tissue under the nail. Cursing and bleeding, I made my way through the metal detector, and collected my goods.

Now, inside my bag, unbeknownst to the Transportation Security Administration inspectors, was a bottle of mouthwash. It was larger than the approved 2-oz size, and it was not in an approved sealed plastic bag. But TSA inspectors looking into their video screens at the X-Ray machine didn’t see it, because I made sure that it was vertical as it passed through. All they saw was a little circle of plastic. Likewise, on an earlier flight, I had made my way aboard with a Swiss Army knife. By standing it in my carry-on bag so that it would be vertical for the X-Ray, I was able to slip it through and onto the plane.

[...]

Much more at link. Will no one rid us of these damn federal thugs? Looking at baby booties? My God!

Glenn, that was a very depressing post. All true mind you, but depressing never the less.

No president has been impeached and convicted. We all remember that impeachment is merely being charged, and that a trial is held by the Senate. No President has ever been convicted in almost two and a half centuries!

Have we never had a president commit war crimes? Use federal agencies for his own gain illegally? Think of the good of a foreign country above our own? Nothing? No high crimes? Not even a piddly little misdemeanor?

Anyone really believe that?

"Remember. The Melancholy mood is blues. The inner song will emerge? Let's remain hopeful."

Yes, my friend. But hope is hard when all evidence points toward disappointment.

I will be fine, as my spiritual beliefs tell me it all works out in the end. But when? Dang but the women and children keep getting murdered each day while we are fighting to keep our phones from being bugged. Depressing.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/
1055846,CST-NWS-beat15.article

From the Sun-Times of Chicago comes this story of a cop caught on video repeatedly punching, in a hospital of all places, a man in a wheelchair who was in the hospital because he had been the victim of a stabbing crime. Talk about adding insult to injury.

The police officer pleaded guilty to battery and received a suspension. In an interesting turn of events, it was the Chicago Police Department that wanted to fire him but the civilian disciplinary board appealed this decision and a judge upheld it!

Will no one get what they deserve in Bush's America? No one at all?

Damn.

"I fixed it as soon as I saw Bobby's correction. I'm glad when people bring errors like that to my attention even when they're conveyed in less than delicate or even polite terms." -- GlennGreenwald

You are a class act Glenn Greenwald. Too bad we do not have a thousand more just like you in the press.

Congratulations on being so manly in your handling of this matter.

me: "Congratulations on being so manly in your handling of this matter."

Pedinska:

Good Lord, I've been misled!

All these years a-wasted believing it was whiskey that put hair on those chests! ;-}

Wake up child. Whiskey only makes you think there is hair on the chest. :-)