Countdown Newsletter -- 03/15/06: Spying on Anti-War Groups

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Tonight on Countdown
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FBI antiterrorism agents spied on a US peace group simply because it opposed the Iraq war, part of an ''unprecedented campaign" to spy on innocent citizens, the American Civil Liberties Union said yesterday. FBI documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act and provided to reporters show that the FBI conducted surveillance of the Pittsburgh-based Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice during antiwar demonstrations and leaflet distributions in 2002 and 2003. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/03/15/documents_fbi_spied_on_pa_pacifists/

Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.

Dana Milbank: Democratic senators, filing in for their weekly caucus lunch yesterday, looked as if they'd seen a ghost. "I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.). "I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer. In a sense, they were. The cause of so much evasion was S. Res. 398, the resolution proposed Monday by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) calling for the censure of President Bush for his warrantless wiretapping program. At a time when Democrats had Bush on the ropes over Iraq, the budget and port security, Feingold single-handedly turned the debate back to an issue where Bush has the advantage -- and drove another wedge through his party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031401519.html

More on the Barry Bonds book.

Keith last night on "The Colbert Report" and today on Al Franken...

A Pennsylvania motorist is going to federal court to protect a very specific part of what he claims are his free speech rights: the right to show his middle finger. Thomas Burns of New Castle, Pa., was cited for disorderly conduct last April after he became frustrated with a PennDOT traffic delay and he flipped his middle finger at a construction worker. The worker reported the gesture to a police officer in Beaver County, Pa., who cited Burns. http://www.nbc10.com/news/7992965/detail.html

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Finally,
FORT PIERCE, Fla. -- Paul Kuschel would have been better off naked - like many of the folks at Sunnier Palms Nudist Park. Instead, he was wearing a pair of nylon shorts Sunday when a generator he was working on backfired and sprayed him with starter fluid, setting him ablaze. The fire seared his shorts to his backside. "It's a good thing I wasn't wearing a shirt," he said. He was taken to a hospital with non life-threatening wounds and was treated and released. "I would have been better off wearing nothing on at all," Kuschel told Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BETTER_OFF_NAKED?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME
When in Rome...

-- Carey Fox

Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

More:
Charges were to be announced Wednesday against 27 people in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain in connection with an Internet chat room used to trade child porn and view real-time child molestations, federal law enforcement sources told NBC News. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11839832/

New York state filed a $250 million fraud suit Wednesday against H&R Block Inc., the nation's largest tax preparing service, charging the company fraudulently steered customers into a losing retirement account plan. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11839807/

A Dubai-owned company said Wednesday that it plans to sell all its U.S. port operations within four to six months to an unrelated American buyer and laid out new details about how it will pursue the sale under pressure from Congress. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11839552/

The U.S. military is dispatching an Army battalion of about 700 soldiers to Iraq from their base in Kuwait to provide extra security during the holiday of Ashura, three military officers said Wednesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11839126/

Saddam Hussein testified Wednesday for the first time at his trial, calling on Iraqis to stop a bloody wave of sectarian violence and instead fight American troops, prompting the chief judge to close the courtroom, saying he was making political speeches. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11805100/

Eleven people - most women and children - were killed when a house was bombed during a U.S. raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, police and relatives said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11819857/

Prosecutors seeking the death penalty against confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui told a federal judge that it would be a waste of time to continue the trial after key government witnesses were barred from testifying. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11840090/

After Israel's grab of top Palestinian prisoners from a West Bank jail, angry Palestinians staged protest strikes Wednesday and their embarrassed president rushed back from Europe. Israel said it was determined to put the detainees on trial for the 2001 assassination of a Cabinet minister. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11835690/

Ground-level ozone, the same pollutant that makes smog, is responsible for a surprisingly large part of the spring and summer warming that's been detected in the Arctic, NASA researchers said in a new study. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11838578/

Strange behavior by insomniacs taking prescription drugs, ranging from binge eating to having sex while asleep, have raised safety questions about anti-insomnia medications such as Sanofi-Aventis' Ambien. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11835999/

within four to six months? I'm thinking it's a game of kick the can down the road and hope people forget it. As for the censure, the Dems should stop skittering around like a bunch of Weebles in a high wind. If they think Bush broke the law but they don't have the votes to make censure happen because R's control everything, then friggin' say Bush has broken the law but the R's are afraid to point the finger. Keep pointing out that the efforts to change the rules now are a tacit admission that the law has been violated and is being violated. This wishy-washy crap makes it look like they can't decide whether or not warrantless wiretapping is okay. And. It. Isn't. Al Qaeda isn't buddying up to the likes of the Merton center and the Dems should run with that story every time Cheney trots out his bullshit.

if any of these Senators throw their hat in the ring for 2008 & start going on & on about how Bush broke the law, it's our duty to stand up & say "Oh yeah? Then why didn't you sign the censure filed by Senator Feingold?" Call 'em on the BS, Republican or Democratic, I don't care.

dg

:banghead: Russ didn't drive a wedge thru his party. Russ did what he believes in his heart is the right thing to do. It ain't his fault that the rest of the party are such weenies.

realistically, the Dems don't have the votes. Anyone with enough fingers and toes can see that. (Anyone with enough fingers and toes to see that is probably not a Dem, but we'll let that one slide for the moment.) The only question I see here is how should the Dems deal with the situation where the President has clearly done Something Wrong when they know they don't have the power to do anything about it. I have a feeling that with Dana on board, this will be chapter 47 of gosh, those darn Dems are the gang that couldn't shoot straight and there's some truth to that, but I'd like to delve a little deeper than that for a change. What do you do when you're the party out of power and the President breaks the law? What do you do when you're the party in power and the President breaks the law? At what point do you jump off the election year treadmill and remember that there's a country out there full of people whose interests you are allegedly representing? Ever? Do we matter anymore? Does the Constitution?

and he's sticking to it.

At least for the Ides of March Madness? :)

need thee every hour ;-)

:hi:

:* It's a good one for "between the sheets".

"It Only Takes a Spark(y) to get a fire going/between the sheets." :evilgrin:

"Rise Up O Men Of God" since every line of the first verse is good.

that my mother taught me how to play that game. With a Baptist hymnal, no less. :dilemma:

dg

"94" <thinking, thinking...> "'Men and Children Everywhere' bwah!" I've known someone who did that.

I got kicked out of church before I could memorize which page # went with which hymn.

Oh What a Friend We Have in Jesus

dg

Come, thou fount of every blessing

Jesus Loves Me

dg

Let all mortal flesh be silent

Very punny, honey. :hi: