Freedom's on the march. From the Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 3:

Arrest over Cheney barb triggers lawsuit
A Denver-area man filed a lawsuit today against a member of the Secret Service for causing him to be arrested after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney in Beaver Creek this summer and criticized him for his policies concerning Iraq.

On Sept. 21, the House of Representatives voted 328-95 to approve HR 6094--the "Community Protection Act of 2006"--an anti-immigrant bill which would allow indefinite detention, overturning the Supreme Court's June 2001 Zadvydas v. Davis ruling. The bill would also allow noncitizens to be quickly deported if the government believes they are gang members, and would bar suspected gang members from obtaining political asylum. The same day, the House voted 277-140 to pass HR 6095—the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006—which would authorize state and local police to enforce federal immigration law, expand expedited removal, limit appeals and lawsuits in immigration cases and revoke the Orantes injunction, which protects Salvadorans from expedited removal. A third bill, passed unanimously, would impose a 20-year prison sentence for creating or financing a tunnel under the US border.

Are domestic Islamophobes starting to emulate the tactics of their counterparts in India? Note that this comes on the heels of the atrocious mosque desecration in Maine. From AP, Sept. 23:

Shots were fired at a mosque in Melbourne, Florida as worshippers celebrated the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but no injuries or arrests were reported, authorities said Saturday.

Tell us again how the anti-Semitic upsurge is all in our imagination. We keep forgetting. From KNBC, Los Angeles, Sept. 22:

ENCINO, Calif. -- Two flags depicting Nazi swastikas were draped over a freeway overpass in Encino on Friday, on the eve of the Jewish High Holy Days.

On Sept. 2, about 5,000 immigrant-rights supporters marched through downtown Los Angeles to City Hall as part of a series of events planned through Labor Day weekend. The march was organized by the March 25th Coalition. (CBS2.com, Los Angeles, Sept. 2)

Can somebody explain to us why this is legal? US citizens, who have not been charged with any crime, are denied entry into the US. Why should submitting to an FBI interrogation abroad be a prerequisite for being allowed back into their own country? If the US has evidence they forfeited their citizenship by taking military training at a camp in Pakistan, then they can, conceivably, be legally barred. But lacking such evidence, this is just arbitrary abuse of power. Where is the outrcy over this? From the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 26:

This is how censorship works in the USA: by other names—which, of course, makes it more insidious. An ACLU press release, Aug. 24:

Village Cannot Impose Prohibitive Insurance Requirement as Condition of Free Speech, NYCLU Warns
NEW YORK -- The New York Civil Liberties Union today urged the village of Bellport to drop an arbitrary and unconstitutional requirement that any group wishing to march on the street must purchase $2 million in insurance and indemnify Bellport from liability as a condition of receiving a permit.

The ongoing indigenous uprising in Ontario perculates up into the New York Times, Aug. 17. The Times gets a B for at least including some historical context, but a failing grade for consistency, having largely ignored this crisis for months, and finally slapping it in their "Journal" slot, for off-beat "local color" stories. They could have got an A for historical context if they were more accurate—the Six Nations (also known as the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee Confederacy) were officially neutral in the American Revolution, and the campaign of ethnic cleansing that George Washington ordered against them (led by Gen. John Sullivan) was in response to guerilla activity by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant and his band of partisans—not the Confederacy as a whole. The Times also fails to inform readers that the British had effectively won Indian sympathies by promising to halt settler colonization west of the Appalachians—as we have noted.