Tinfoil hats rendered obsolete

Here's what I've decided today. The Bush administration is spying on all of us. All the time, everywhere we go. Every purchase we make, every phonecall we place or receive, everything we post on the internet...

What? You say I'm being paranoid and that's not really happening? Okay, prove it.

You can't. Bush has said, "Yeah, I've spied on Americans without a warrent, and I'm gonna keep doing it. What are *you* gonna do about it, punk?" All right, those weren't his exact words, but that was certainly the gist of the message. And the Senate Intelligence Committee voted not to investigate the NSA wiretapping issue.

But many Democrats don't think that censuring Bush is a "winning issue". People are acting all irked and inconvenienced. This is taking us "off message". How dare Russ Feingold do such a thing? Right now we need to be as bland as possible, so that everybody will vote for us when the Republicans implode. That's the strategery, right?

I asked an Ohio candidate last week what he thought of the censure motion. He wasn't running for Senate, but since he was talking about the Bush administration's egregious power-grabbing, I thought I'd check out his thoughts on the matter. What I got was pretty much a nonanswer. He basically indicated that he was sympathetic to the point Feingold was trying to make, but that he "deals in reality", and realistically we are not going to be able to make this happen. The solution to all the problems we face right now are "new management".

That seems to be the stance of a lot of Democrats. Shhh. Don't say anything "controversial. Let us get back in control and we'll make everything better.

Why should I believe that? What evidence do I have that Democrats *can* actually get back in power? After all, anyone who opposes the goals of this administration could easily be seen as a "threat" and therefore subject to wiretapping. You think that's a "tinfoil hat" speculation? Fine, prove it. Prove that the opposition party is not being wiretapped. Oh, and let's talk about those voting machines that are still used in many elections--you know, the ones where everything is super secret and it's *illegal* to open them up and check to make sure they are working properly. How can we possibly know if these machines are properly recording which candidate gets the most votes. There was an *awful* lot of funny business in the 2004 election in Ohio, and who knows how much more happened and was never discovered. And the people running the show could feel safe that we would never completely connect the dots, because even Democrats played along and "distanced" themselves from the "craaaazy" conspiracy theorists who asked these questions.

Back to the spying thing, we *do* know that people have been flagged for "special attention" simply because they belonged to a peace group. I read about one couple that came to the attention of Homeland Security simply because they payed off their credit card. They found out when they discovered that the money they sent in had not been credited to their account--because it was "under investigation".

The bottom line is this--if we can only stand up for our rights when we are in the majority, we are in deep doo-doo. The more power the corrupt people in charge are able to amass, the more they are able to insure that they stay in power.

Oh, and, by the way...
September 11! (Booga-booga!) Apparently that's the gist of the new attack ad against Russ Feingold.

Timid Dems, the time to redeem yourselves is now. Support Russ Feingold's censure resolution and prove to Americans that you're not too timid to lead, no matter what the challenge.

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