It’s like McCarthyism all over again.

On September 24, FBI agents raided the homes of some anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis on suspicion that they were providing material support to terrorism.

This follows only a few weeks after it was discovered that Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security had been spying on activist groups in the Keystone State.

The Chicago Tribune quotes one of the harassed activists in Minnesota as calling the searches “an outrageous fishing expedition.”

Indeed. But this is apparently how our tax dollars are being used.

Apparently the authorities still subscribe to the George W. Bush-style assumption that if you’re not in lockstep with the government’s policies, then you must be with the terrorists.

And the Bush administration’s knee-jerk, fear-based policies in response to 9/11 have arguably made it legal for agencies to conduct these witch hunts.

The Patriot Act broadened the definition of domestic terrorism to an extent that it “may have a chilling effect on the U.S. and international rights to free expression and association,” says Amnesty International USA.

Amnesty continues: “The law defines ‘domestic terrorism’ as acts committed in the United States ‘dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws,’ if the U.S. government determines that they ‘appear to be intended’ to ‘influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion,’ or ‘to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.’ Such ambiguous language allows for loose interpretation that might violate civil liberties and international human rights.”

As we’re seeing right now.

To further complicate things, as I wrote back in June regarding Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is not unconstitutional for the government to block speech and other forms of advocacy supporting a foreign organization that has been officially (and arbitrarily) labeled as terrorist, even if the aim is to support such a group’s peaceful or humanitarian actions.

Coincidentally, the Justice Department’s Inspector General released a timely report last week after a review of FBI crackdowns on peace and social justice activists during the George W. Bush administration. The report is rather critical of the FBI.

The ProPublica Blog summarizes:

“The FBI activities reviewed by the Justice Department took place from 2001 to 2006, and involved groups including the Thomas Merton Center (a Pittsburgh social justice center), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Greenpeace, The Catholic Worker (communities of religious pacifists) and a Quaker peace activist.

“The report by the Justice Department watchdog didn’t find that the FBI targeted these groups on the basis of their free speech activities – which would be a serious violation of FBI guidelines – but did fault the agency for other reasons, most notably a ‘factually weak’ basis for opening investigations.

“‘FBI agents and supervisors sometimes provided the [Office of the Inspector General] with speculative, after-the-fact rationalizations for their prior decisions to open investigations that we did not find persuasive,’ the report said.

“The report also found that that the FBI unnecessarily classified its probes as domestic terrorism investigations, even though some of the potential crimes were trespassing or vandalism – acts not normally considered to be terrorism. This classification resulted in several individuals improperly being placed on terrorism watchlists.

“The Inspector General also found that the FBI gave ‘inaccurate and misleading’ explanations to justify its attendance at a 2002 rally against the Iraq war organized by the Merton Center.”

How much farther will they have to go before this becomes an actual police state?

Or is it already?

And will they raid my home for writing this?

There have been some interesting developments lately for gay men and lesbians who bravely want to serve this nation in the military. Sadly, some of the developments were not encouraging.

On September 21, Senate Republicans blocked a defense bill that included a conditional repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. Even though the repeal would have been dependent on the completion of a Defense Department study and subsequent certification that it would not harm military effectiveness, the Republicans wouldn’t even let the bill come to the floor for a debate.

The measure had already passed in the House and in the Senate Armed Services Committee. But that apparently made no difference.

Meanwhile, there’s been some action in the courts regarding DADT.

On September 9, in Riverside, California, U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled that DADT is unconstitutional. The case had been brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a grassroots organization that advocates for gay rights.

In her 85-page opinion, Judge Phillips wrote that “the effect of [DADT] has been, not to advance the Government’s interests of military readiness and unit cohesion, much less to do so significantly, but to harm that interest.”

Sounds good, right? Well, don’t hold your breath waiting for the judge’s ruling to make a difference, because Obama’s Justice Department announced on September 23 that it was filing an objection to the ruling. So the case could remain tied up in the courts for years.

Ditto for a September 24 ruling in a similar case in Tacoma Washington, in which U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton ruled as unconstitutional the discharge of flight nurse Margaret Witt under DADT. As of this writing, there is no word as to whether or not the Justice Department will appeal this case as well, but I would be surprised if it didn’t.

In response to the Justice Department’s decision to appeal the Log Cabin Republicans’ case, the organization’s Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper had this to say: “We are deeply disappointed with this Administration’s decision. Yet again, the Obama Administration has failed to live up to its campaign promise to repeal this unconstitutional law for the servicemembers of this country.”

I don’t usually side with the GOP, but in this case I proudly stand with the Log Cabin Republicans.

Terry O’Neill, President of the National Organization for Women, weighed in from a practical perspective. “This ‘witch hunt’ policy has already resulted in the discharge of more than 14,000 service members, with an estimated 66,000 LGBT people currently serving in the armed forces and at risk of expulsion,” said O’Neill. “It not only depletes the number of willing and able American troops, but the very ideal of equality on which our nation is based.”

Indeed. This nation was founded on the principle that “all men are created equal” – not just the heterosexual ones. And this discrimination in the military isn’t making us any safer.

In choosing to appeal at least one of these cases, the White House just blew a perfect opportunity to lend some validity to Obama’s rhetoric about equality. Talk, after all, is cheap.

This is what happens when you have a conservative administration running a state government:

When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took office eight months ago, he hit the ground running. He wasted no time in slashing funds for education and various other public services that benefit the “little people”, while at the same time giving huge tax breaks to New Jerseyans making more than $400,000 per year.

But that wasn’t enough. Now he’s going after women’s bodies.

Christy vetoed a bill that would have provided $7.5 million for women’s health clinics around the state. And, on September 20, the state senate failed to override the veto.

So is it about abortion? No. According to the Star-Ledger, “[t]he bill specifically says clinics, which provide birth control and health screenings, cannot use the money for abortions.” With the abortion issue out of the picture, it’s just about women’s health — low-income women’s health.

As a result of Christie’s veto, women’s health clinics are having to tighten their belts at best. Planned Parenthood of Southern New Jersey announced that it would have to close a clinic in Cherry Hill. Other clinics may have to close as well, and services will be scaled back at those that remain open.

As clinics close, some low-income women will have to travel farther to get the gynecological and family planning services they need. And, depending on their locations and other circumstances, that could be difficult or impossible. According to the Star-Ledger, “supporters of the bill said 40,000 low-income women would have to go without services such as birth control and health screenings” because of the cut.

This could result in more unwanted pregnancies due to harder-to-obtain contraception. It could result in an increase in cervical cancer due to harder-to-obtain Pap smears. And it could result in an increase of sexually transmitted disease due to reduced availability of STD education and treatment. Is that really what Christy and his senatorial cohorts want? (Of course, they would probably just respond with a call for abstinence — as Sarah Palin taught to Bristol. Enough said on that.)

To make matters even worse, Christie’s veto also closes the door on some significant funding for the clinics from the federal level. According to a statement by Democratic Assemblywoman Patricia Lampitt, the state bill would have brought in $9 in federal funding for each $1 New Jersey spends on women’s health care.

Michele Jaker, Executive Director of the Family Planning Association of New Jersey, had this to say about the problem: “The Senate Republicans stood with the extreme right wing of their party instead of standing with the women of New Jersey. Not only did this bill have its own funding source, but it [would have] allowed the state to leverage significant federal funding for these services.”

Jaker followed up with a good question: “Do we really live in a state that walks away from tens of millions of federal dollars simply because it funds women’s health care?”

Unfortunately, the answer appears to be “Yes”.

On Thursday evening, September 23, the Commonwealth of Virginia is scheduled to execute Teresa Lewis for the 2002 murders of her husband and stepson.

Some in the media are hyping the execution because Lewis will be the first woman to be executed in Virginia in nearly a century. Being a feminist, I don’t think a woman deserves any different treatment than a man would get for committing the same crime. I just oppose the execution altogether.

Aside from my categorical opposition to the death penalty, here are some reasons why I find the Lewis case particularly disturbing:

First of all, she didn’t pull the trigger. She was involved in the plot, but the actual killings were committed by her co-defendants, Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller. But Lewis was given a death sentence while the triggermen, Shallenberger and Fuller, got life in prison!

That alone is incomprehensible, but the plot thickens: Lewis has an IQ in the 70-72 range, which is borderline mentally retarded for legal purposes. In 2002, the Supreme Court had ruled (in Atkins v. Virginia – same state) that execution of the mentally retarded amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The generally accepted cut-off for mental impairment is an IQ of 70. Her lawyers have argued that because of her low IQ, along with a personality disorder and drug use, it is unlikely that she could have “masterminded” the murders as the prosecution contents.

Evidence seems to point to her co-defendant Shallenberger as being the real mastermind behind the murders. In an excellent Washington Post op-ed by John Grisham, the acclaimed author makes points out the following:

“Her lawyers have also argued that Shallenberger, who committed suicide behind bars in 2006, masterminded the murders. They have pointed to evidence that he had an IQ of 113 and was known to be intelligent and manipulative.

“They have cited the sworn affidavit of a private investigator who interviewed Shallenberger in prison in 2004. This investigator said Shallenberger described Lewis as not very bright and as someone who could be easily duped into a scheme to kill her husband and stepson for money. According to the investigator, Shallenberger said: ‘From the moment I met her I knew she was someone who could be easily manipulated. From the moment I met her I had a plan for how I could use her to get some money.’

“Lewis’s lawyers have also cited a letter Shallenberger sent to a girlfriend shortly after he was sentenced, in which he wrote, ‘I figured why go to New York for $20,000 a hit when I could do just one and make $350,000 off of it.’ In the same letter he said of Lewis: ‘She was exactly what I was looking for.’

“In addition, they have cited a 2004 affidavit by Shallenberger’s fellow assassin, Fuller, who said this: ‘As between Mrs. Lewis and Shallenberger, Shallenberger was definitely the one in charge of things, not Mrs. Lewis.’”

Nevertheless, on September 17, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell refused to issue a stay of execution.

At this point, it appears that there are only two things that could save Lewis’s life:

1. The Supreme Court intervenes; or

2. Governor McDonnell reconsiders and changes his mind.

What you can do:

Contact Governor McDonnell and ask him to reverse his decision and commute Lewis’s sentence to life in prison.

The group Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty have provided the following guidelines:

The time is NOW to take further action to save Teresa’s life. We are not giving up. Let Governor McDonnell know that he must reconsider his unjust and inhumane decision. Click on this link, which will take you directly to Governor McDonnell’s webpage for receiving emails:

E-mail Governor McDonnell

You may include your own text for your message to Governor McDonnell, or you may wish to include the following message:

Governor McDonnell, your decision to deny clemency completely ignores the fact that Teresa Lewis is borderline mentally retarded and had a dependent personality disorder, and that a life sentence was given to the man who has repeatedly stated that HE was the mastermind and that “The only reason I had sex with [Teresa] was for the money [and] to get her to ‘fall in love’ with me so she would give me the insurance money. . . . She was exactly what I was looking for.” Killing Teresa now, when this man was allowed to live, is so unfair and unjust that it cannot be permitted.

Or if you prefer: Call the Governor’s Office at 804-786-2211 and register your disapproval of his decision. Demand that Teresa be permitted to live.

Fingers crossed.

The tea partiers have their talking points, which they repeat loudly and forcefully (and often misspell). But I wonder if they’ve actually really thought about the points they’re parroting. I suspect not.

They rail against “Obamacare” and anything else that the White House (and Pelosi and Reid) might advocate, even though their protests fly in the face of their own best interests.

In repeating their talking points, here is what they’re really saying to the Obama administration and Congress:

– How dare you force insurance companies to cover my preexisting conditions?

– How dare you not allow the insurance companies to drop my coverage when I get sick?

– How dare you try to regulate the financial industry that got us into this economic mess so that they’ll be less likely to repeat the same greedy mistakes?

– How dare you pass a stimulus bill that has created some 3 million jobs so far?

– How dare you expect the wealthiest two percent to pay their fair share of taxes even as you extend the tax cuts for us middle-class folks?

– How dare my tax dollars be spent on your “socialist” agenda? (Of course I will gladly take advantage of our socialized fire departments, police departments, schools, roads, bridges, and clean water.)

– How dare you try to restrict more offshore oil drilling that could lead to even more environmental disasters like the recent BP oil spill? (As our Saint Sarah says, “Drill, baby, drill!”)

– “Illegal” immigrants are stealing all the great lettuce-picking jobs.

– Oh, and keep your government hands off my government-run Medicare! (Huh?!)

Absurd stuff in an absurd political environment.

Which is what makes me believe that they’re not really thinking about their talking points. Instead, it seems, they’re only reacting to the brainwashing by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the conservative fear mongers who indulge these people’s intellectual laziness, fuel their fears, and dictate their thoughts.

And it all boils down to the following:

– How dare you elect a president whose skin color does not match mine?

– Many of our ancestors immigrated here without papers, but they were white. We don’t want more brown people.

– I want my white-controlled America back.

– And I’ll demonstrate in front of the Lincoln Memorial, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s most famous speech, to show the world just how frightened I am!

Perhaps saddest and most frustrating of all, I’m sure they don’t even see the irony.

As America and the world observed the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it occurred to me that perhaps the terrorists have finally won.

No, not perhaps. It really seems like they have won.

After all, we are no safer today than we were in 2001. In fact, I suspect we’re becoming less and less safe with each day that the tea partiers, the anti-mosque protestors, and that crazy Florida preacher demonstrate their belligerent hatred of Muslims, which is founded on ignorance and right-wing fear mongering. That is no way to win hearts and minds, let alone a “war on terrorism”.

Al-Qaeda got its holy war. George W. Bush got his crusade. And America has become more divided than it’s been in decades.

And that may have been part of the plan all along.

We’ve lost billions of dollars, thousands of U.S. soldiers, and countless innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no conceivable prospect of any kind of real “victory” on either front. To add insult to injury, the Iraq war was waged on lies and was totally unnecessary, thoroughly immoral, and technically illegal. But now it’s the kind of thing that America does. God bless America, baby!

We hold terrorism suspects, including children, in illegal and indefinite detention. They’re kept in a legal limbo where they’ll be among the “lucky” minority if they ever get a fair trial and a chance to prove that maybe they were among the known innocents arrested on a translation error or turned over to U.S. troops by unscrupulous bounty hunters.

And we torture them. We’ve become a nation of torturers, where the torturers and their bosses escape any punishment. Is there anything uglier?

And it didn’t end with the Bush-Cheney administration.

Despite campaign promises of government transparency, the Obama administration is upholding the Bush administration’s “state secrets” excuse to avoid accountability in torture prosecutions.

Big Brother grows bigger.

Our economy has collapsed, along with the middle class, while Congress is too busy playing politics to address the root causes or even treat the symptoms.

But the military-industrial complex continues to thrive.

So do the greedy oil companies, who carelessly pollute our local waters even as they feed our addiction to Middle Eastern oil.

Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have become major political figures.

And xenophobia is the new norm in what was once a proud melting pot of cultures.

In other words, America has lost its soul. Or sold it to the devil.

Our way of life has been turned upside down, and that’s the idea.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, and is surely enjoying every minute of it. “I told you so,” he boasts to his followers. “America truly is the Great Satan.”

For far too many Americans, there wasn’t much to celebrate this Labor Day holiday. It’s hard to sincerely celebrate the American workforce when you’ve been out of work, or underemployed, for a year or more. It’s hard to celebrate when CEOs continue to rake in obscene salaries while shipping U.S. jobs overseas to exploit cheap sweatshop labor. And you can’t appreciate the extra Monday off from work when you’re off from work every Monday against your will.

It may be especially hard for Democrats who voted for President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress, many of whom are feeling ripped off and disillusioned. Continued unemployment is no change we can believe in.

Obama has tried, mind you. He just hasn’t tried hard enough. He just hasn’t been effective in standing up to the Republicans who only want him – and ordinary working Americans – to fail. It’s time for Obama to stop playing the community organizer and start being a strong leader and a champion for the American worker.

Obama and the Democrats in Congress need to work on their message, and then they need to take the message on the road. When the Republicans scream “deficit”, the Democrats need to scream “jobs”.

They need to stand outside empty factories with bullhorns and point out that the Republicans allowed the Wall Street bailout but won’t let Obama bail out Main Street.

They need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with small business owners who are ready to start hiring – if only the Republicans would stop holding up the small business bill that would make it possible for them to do so.

They need to stand by the unemployed Americans who are losing their homes, or have underwater mortgages, and ask: How can the Republicans oppose additional job-creating stimulus funds when the deficit they decry is largely a result of their own spending on an unnecessary war in Iraq and unnecessary tax breaks for the richest two percent?

They need to loudly make it clear that the Republicans are working for their rich corporate bed partners, not the American workers.

And they need to do it in a way that will stand up to the dirty, twisted campaign messages that the same corporations will be funding limitlessly as November 2 draws near.

They need to demonstrate – in terms that even the tea party crowd (many of whom are themselves unemployed) can understand – that returning Republicans to power in Congress would mean a return to the same policies that created this mess in the first place.

And, perhaps most importantly, they need to do it in a way that will once again inspire the kind of movement that led to the unlikely election of President Obama in 2008.

Can it happen in time for this year’s elections? I doubt it. But without that kind of change, things can only get worse.

So I cautiously cling to the audacity of hope.

Good news for all who care about true justice: On September 2, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland commuted Kevin Keith’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

As I wrote in a recent column, Keith had been sentenced to die on September 15 for a multiple murder that he might not have committed.

New evidence in Keith’s case discredits the eyewitness identification by which he had been convicted. The evidence also identifies an alternative suspect, Rodney Melton, who may have actually committed the crime for which Keith was convicted. Keith has an alibi for the time of the crime, supported by four witnesses. Nevertheless, on August 19, the Ohio Parole Board rejected Keith’s clemency petition by a vote of 8-0.

This is a case in which public pressure likely made the difference. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, “more than 25,000 people from Ohio and around the country signed online petitions in support of Mr. Keith. In the last two weeks alone, more than 7,000 people sent letters to Governor Strickland urging him to grant clemency. Kevin Keith supporters included a bipartisan group of 31 former judges and prosecutors, current and former state legislators, former Republican Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, the national Innocence Network, more than 100 Ohio faith leaders and organizations, and many others… [T]hey were instrumental in helping to persuade Governor Strickland to grant clemency.”

Governor Strickland issued the following statement regarding the commutation:

“Kevin Keith was convicted, by a jury, of callously murdering three people – including a four-year old child – and shooting three others, including two young children. Since the time of his arrest more than 16 years ago, Mr. Keith has maintained his innocence, insisting that someone else committed the murders.

“Mr. Keith’s conviction has been repeatedly reviewed and upheld by Ohio and federal courts at the trial and appellate level. The Ohio Parole Board recommended against clemency in this case. There is evidence which links him to the crimes that, while circumstantial, is not otherwise well explained. It is my view, after a thorough review of the information and evidence available to me at this time, that it is far more likely that Mr. Keith committed these murders than it is likely that he did not.

“Yet, despite the evidence supporting his guilt and the substantial legal review of Mr. Keith’s conviction, many legitimate questions have been raised regarding the evidence in support of the conviction and the investigation which led to it. In particular, Mr. Keith’s conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised. I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling.

“Clearly, the careful exercise of a governor’s executive clemency authority is appropriate in a case like this one, given the real and unanswered questions surrounding the murders for which Mr. Keith was convicted. Mr. Keith still has appellate legal proceedings pending which, in theory, could ultimately result in his conviction being overturned altogether. But the pending legal proceedings may never result in a full reexamination of his case, including an investigation of alternate suspects, by law enforcement authorities and/or the courts. That would be unfortunate – this case is clearly one in which a full, fair analysis of all of the unanswered questions should be considered by a court. Under these circumstances, I cannot allow Mr. Keith to be executed. I have decided, at this time, to commute Mr. Keith’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Should further evidence justify my doing so, I am prepared to review this matter again for possible further action.”

This is a good first step. Now what we need is a full and fair review of the case by the courts.

I hope that will be possible, even in the same court system that has rejected Keith’s appeals in the past.