Bush, King Get Muzzles

The 16th annual "Muzzle" awards were given out by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. Among the winners of the award, given to people deemed violators of Free Speech are President Bush's administration and Congressman Peter King (R-New York.)

King, a Nassau County Republican and the only member of his party still representing Long Island, won his "muzzle" because of his calls to try the New York Times as spies after they leaked information about a classified government program to monitor international financial transactions.

The Bush administration and the Pentagon both received "muzzles" for rather obvious reasons

Here's the full list of award "winners;"

The Bush Administration
The National Collegiate Athletic Association
Representative Pete King (R-New York)
The Federal Communications Commission
The US Department of Defense
The Ohio General Assembly
The Administration of Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher
The East St. Louis (Illinois) City Council
Maine Bureau of Liquor
The Charles A. Beard Memorial School Board (Knightstown, IN)
Watson Chapel (Arkansas) School District
Miami-Dade County Public School
1.A Joint Muzzle to Ben Davis High School (Indianapolis, IN), Princeton High School (Cincinnati, OH), and Wyoming Valley West High School (Kingston, PA)
The Philadelphia Human Relations Commission

More information, you can find it here

Third Senator Wants Gonzales Gone

Senator Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) called for Gonzales' resignation or firing today;

"When an attorney general lies to a United States senator, I think it is time for that attorney general to go. He did not only lie to me as a person, but when he lied to me, he lied to the Senate and to the people I represent."

Pryor joins Senators Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) in calling for Gonzales to leave his post.

In other Pryor news today; he sided with the Republicans on the Iraq bill, along with Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) and Joe Lieberman (I don't even know anymore-Connecticut)

Liberal Arguments Vindicated

The Headline says it all

FBI used Patriot Act to invade privacy, intimidate businesses

All it took to do this was to scare the living crap out of Americans long enough to enact this law. There is no reason for this, they did not gather this information. This country has been had...and you can hear the Democrats who opposed the Patriot Act and were called unpatriotic and defeatist screaming a rousing "WE TOLD YOU SO!"

I can see right through Robert Mueller;

“We strive to exercise our authorities consistent with the privacy protections and civil liberties that we are sworn to uphold,” Mueller said. “Anything less will not be tolerated. While we’ve already taken some steps to address these shortcomings, I am ordering additional corrective measures to be taken immediately.”

translation: "Ah, you caught us, sorry, ok, we'll stop"

The Patriot Act needs to be repealed, or at the very least, heavily altered.

I SAID THIS WOULD HAPPEN!

Is anyone really shocked?

This is what we warned about, this is what we said would happen. We allowed them to scare the crap out of us enough that they were able to go and do this?

Warrantless spying on American citizens is idiotic if you ask me. There are so few, if any, American CITIZENS who are tied to Al-Qaeda that this does not justify spying on Americans.

The Patriot Act needs to go...or at the very least, needs to be restructured and reorganized. I can't fathom how anyone can stand for this.

They're up to something else, and this is what we got for trusting the government with limitless powers. Have we learned nothing from history? Just because we're a democracy, doesn't mean we can stay that way (see: Pre-1933 Germany)