AddieStan

And speaking of the Republican National Convention, Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft is blogging about a fascinating trial regarding a protester accused of kicking a security guard at the Republican National Convention. (Your blogstress's readers will recall this as the convention that called for round-ups of protesters who were held at a nasty building on the Chelsea Pier and not charged with anything.) Jeralyn rightly calls her readers' attention to the incident inside the convention hall, witnessed by many , of a young female protester getting roughed-up inside the convention hall for standing while wearing a garment that featured anti-Bush slogans.

Nine-eleven is the best thing that ever happened to Karl Rove, and he apparently knows it. With the war in Iraq wearing thin on the national morale, Rove, in a speech before the Conservative Party of New York State, chose to launch a weapon of mass distraction by virtually accusing Democrats of treasonous behavior in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Patrick Healy of the New York Times reports: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State. Then he really got mean: Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the moti...

Hans Johnson's latest column in In These Times is a must-read, especially for anybody who doubts that the most freedom-hating, ideological bunch of thugs to ever staff the executive branch are running amok over the Constitution. Check out Hans's piece, Scott Bloch’s Sad Saga .

As a public service, your net-tête here displays the text of the First Amendment. Commit it to memory please, because it soon may be redacted: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Who knew that the First Amendment posed such a threat to the republic so as to require its stamping out in the guise of a burning flag? Yes, the flag-burning amendment is back, having passed the House yesterday afternoon. Though the passage of such expressions of contempt for the Constitution has been standard-issue in the House for some time, in the past, the Senate could be counted on to do the right thing. Alas, not this year. (Long live Terri Schiavo .) When it comes to the trampling of rights via the Patriot Act, the rationale is always the need to deter terrorists before they inflict another wound on the order of 9-11. So what is the rationale for stomping the First Amendment at its root, in our nation's founding document? The sacred nature of the flag, we're told. Your blogstress does not recall a single Founder writing of the sanctity of the U.S. flag. In fact, your cybertrix seems to recall that the Framers were extraordinarily careful to avoid words like ...