The day the U.S. finally fell off the cliff

here's the news that's playing out on this day after one of america's darkest days... yes, there's a faint flicker of light here and there, but only enough to remind us of how dark it really is...

flickers first...

Ashcroft Is Denied Immunity in Case

A federal judge in Idaho has ruled that former attorney general John D. Ashcroft can be held personally responsible for the wrongful detention of a U.S. citizen arrested as a "material witness" in a terrorism case.

U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge, in a ruling issued late Wednesday, dismissed claims by the Justice Department that Ashcroft and other officials should be granted immunity from claims by a former star college football player arrested at Dulles International Airport in 2003.

Attorneys for the plaintiff in the civil suit, Abdullah al-Kidd, said the decision raises the possibility that Ashcroft could be forced to testify or turn over records about the government's use of the material witness law, a cornerstone of its controversial legal strategy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Belgium Rules Sifting of Bank Data Illegal

A secret U.S. program to monitor millions of international financial transactions for terrorist links violated Belgian and European law and will have to be changed, the Belgian government said Thursday.

The decision, announced by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, came as the country's Data Privacy Commission released a 20-page report finding that the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, had improperly turned over data from millions of global financial transactions to U.S. anti-terrorism investigators.

"It has to be seen as a gross miscalculation by SWIFT that it has, for years, secretly and systematically transferred massive amounts of personal data for surveillance without effective and clear legal basis and independent controls in line with Belgian and European law," the report says.

now for the gloom, and, believe me, it's not only gloomy, it's positively black...

Bush Attacks 'Party of Cut and Run'

In his sharpest partisan attack of this election campaign, President Bush denounced Democratic critics of his Iraq policy on Thursday and said "the party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."

Seeking to rebut Democrats who say a new intelligence report indicates that Iraq is fueling terrorism rather than helping to counter it, Bush said voters face a choice "between two parties with two different attitudes on this war on terror."

Republicans "understand the nature of the enemy," he said. "We know the enemy wants to attack us again," whereas Democrats "offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing."

Embrace for a Strongman

President Bush once made the authoritarian president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, a focus of his freedom agenda. He urged the ruler of the energy-rich Central Asian nation to allow more freedom for political parties and media and to hold a fair election for president. The effort failed utterly: Mr. Nazarbayev was awarded 91 percent of the vote last December in an election condemned by international observers. Two months later, a leading opponent was brutally murdered by members of the state security forces. In July, Mr. Nazarbayev ignored Western objections and approved a law tightening already-strict controls on the media.

Today Mr. Bush is treating Mr. Nazarbayev to a White House visit, following a special demonstration of family friendship: The Kazakh leader was a guest of the president's father at the Bush compound in Maine. In short, Mr. Nazarbayev has suffered no consequences for his rejection of the democracy agenda. Instead, he is being feted as a valued ally because his government is supportive of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and because Kazakhstan recently agreed to pump some of its rapidly growing supplies of oil through a U.S.-backed pipeline to the West.

ok, so here's the big question... what are we going to do NOW...? man our phone banks, canvass the neighborhoods, and hope november 7 is going to work out all right...? even in the best case scenario, is THAT going to stop our quick descent into totalitarianism...? i, for one, will be commemorating 28 september 2006 as the day my country, after clinging to the edge since the scotus decision of 12 december 2000, finally fell off the cliff...

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