Over at AmericaBlog Matt Browner Hamlin lays out in simple terms why liberals need to join #OcccupyWallStreet. Hamlin specifically zeroes in on a key passage of a must read Glenn Greenwald post pushing back against criticisms coming against these movement from certain mainstream progressive corners:

But for those who believe that protests are only worthwhile if they translate into quantifiable impact: the lack of organizational sophistication or messaging efficacy on the part of the Wall Street protest is a reason to support it and get involved in it, not turn one's nose up at it and join in the media demonization. That's what one actually sympathetic to its messaging (rather than pretending to be in order more effectively to discredit it) would do. Anyone who looks at mostly young citizens marching in the street protesting the corruption of Wall Street and the harm it spawns, and decides that what is warranted is mockery and scorn rather than support, is either not seeing things clearly or is motivated by objectives other than the ones being presented.

Seth D. Michaels from Working America’s “Main Street” blog also made similar arguments yesterday:

What’s important about this protest, to my mind, is not the particular goals, tactics or supporters. While the protest itself has drawn criticism or indifference from many corners, it illuminates two important points. First, the financial sector in this country has been taking up a larger and larger share of the economy as the rest of us have fallen further and further behind. Second, the big banks and investment firms who helped cause the crisis and the recession haven’t been fully reined in or held accountable.

That matters, and people around the country get it. We talk to thousands of Americans in their neighborhoods every week, and they understand the real-life effects of Wall Street’s outsized power: the failure of the economy to create good jobs at good wages, the powerful influence of corporations in our politics, the difficulty of keeping a roof over your family’s head.

If you want to get an understanding of the broad scope of this movement, I would recommend reading up Sarah Jaffe’s piece yesterday describing how these protesters are fighting banksters greed and the surveillance state.

Obviously I don’t expect the wankers in the DC media to get this. They are too busy slobbering all over former Wall Street lobbyist Chris Christie as “the people’s choice,” shamelessly begging him to run for the White House. Those guys are hopeless.

However, I think it is also worth noting that this movement provides a great opportunity for progressive organizations, talkers … well to organize around. The amazing narrative being threaded by these protesters against Wall Street greed and corruption seems to be right in the wheelhouse of traditional progressive groups who have always spoken up against too much money in politics.

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On May 10th, a middle-aged man carried a can of gasoline and a pipe bomb into the Jacksonville Islamic Center of Northeast Florida during evening prayers and detonated it. Fortunately, there were no injuries to people, though the bomb did damage property.

The surveillance video above gives a fairly decent picture of this man, who is clearly white, middle-aged, and on a mission.

The local news is all over it, of course. WOKV.com reports the FBI investigating it as a hate crime and possible domestic terrorism.

"It was a dangerous device, and had anybody been around it they could have been seriously injured or killed," says Special Agent James Casey. "We want to sort of emphasize the seriousness of the thing and not let people believe that this was just a match and a little bit of gasoline that was spread around."

Casey says surveillance video from the Islamic Center shows the arsonist carrying gasoline and the pipe bomb. When the explosive went off, parts of it were found 100 feet away on 9A.

So, a mosque is bombed by a white guy and the bomb isn't exactly small, but the national media sees no value in reporting it? Really? And yet, that is evidently the case.

Anti-Muslim sentiments in Florida have been bubbling to the surface, particularly after Republican Dan Fanelli's campaign commercial was aired asking if a man appearing to be from the Middle East "looked like a terrorist." According to Yahoo News, there were two other ads with even more pointed messages against Muslims:

Another ad has Fanelli saying, "This is a terrorist," as he presents a "Middle Eastern" man strapped with a "bomb" and wearing what appears to be a dish towel "turban."

Yet another ad shows two Arabic-speaking "terrorists" constructing a bomb while discussing "martyrdom" and "killing infidels." The ad also mocks long-standing due process rights such as Miranda warnings and access to lawyers.

These ads air, and a mosque is bombed. The bomb could have killed many people. To further stir the pot, this:

Last month, CAIR reported that a Muslim university professor was appointed to the Jacksonville, Fla., Human Rights Commission despite a prolonged smear campaign by the anti-Islam hate group ACT! for America, whose leader says Muslims should not be allowed to hold public office.

There's a deep pattern of anti-Islam behavior in Florida. CommonDreams.org has the list. It's a story worthy of attention by every single citizen in this country.

I did a quick Google news search. I found lots of local stories. But look what happens when I try major news sites:

FOX News: Nothing

CNN: Nothing

MSNBC: Nothing

CBS News: Nothing.

Why is that?

(h/t Shoq and BaileyMcC)

Please donate to C&L's Fellowship Action Program if you can.

I swear, there are days I wonder if the Democrats realize they are the majority party.

National Journal (subscription req'd.):

The House Intelligence Committee's top Democrat disclosed late Tuesday that he is ready to accept a Republican-brokered deal to rewrite the nation's electronic surveillance laws, signaling that a long-running congressional impasse could soon be coming to an end.

House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes told CongressDaily that he is "fine" with language offered by Senate Intelligence ranking member Christopher (Kit) Bond and other Republicans to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Notably, the GOP language, which was offered a day before the recent congressional recess, would leave it up to the secret FISA court to grant retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies that have helped the Bush administration conduct electronic surveillance on the communications of U.S. citizens without warrants.

About 40 civil lawsuits already have been filed against the companies. The administration, Bond and other Republicans had backed a Senate-passed FISA bill that would have shielded the telecom firms from the lawsuits upon enactment.

"It's about finding middle ground and we have middle ground," Reyes said of the compromise offered by Republicans. "It's not going to please everyone but let's get on with it."

Reyes said he believes enough Democrats will support the proposal to pass it in the House.

But he said House Majority Leader Hoyer told him that House Democratic leaders want to have the liability of the telecoms reviewed in federal district court as opposed to the FISA court.

A senior Reyes aide clarified his boss' positions by saying that while Reyes thinks Bond's proposal is a positive one, he remains supportive of Hoyer's efforts to improve on it.

Why on earth would Reyes do this? As Digby says:

There just isn't enough money at stake to explain this. Nobody's suing for the money, they are suing for the discovery. Something bad happened here and the Democrats are helping the Republicans cover it up.

Good Girl Roxie: 8 million Americans are "potential suspects" in an illegal domestic surveillance program

TPMCafe: Liberal pundits offer an unprecedented apology.

Bring It On! A bad day to be a climate-change denying Christian creationist?

The Washington Independent: Burger King to tomato pickers: Have it your way

Pensito Review: One guy who won't ready for any 3 AM phone calls.

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: IFC, Fact-esque, The Edge of the American West, The Root

Download | play Download | play (h/t BillW)

Stephen Colbert skewers the Terror Watchlist by speaking to Hasan Elahi, who remains on the Watchlist despite being cleared of all charges and who has resorted to an innovative way to respond to those federal watchdogs.

My favorite terrorist is Hasan Elahi. Just saying his name makes my heart go up one Terror Alert level. Why Elahi? Well, to begin with, he’s innocent. A quality so rare in someone so guilty. You see, in 2002, Elahi was detained by the FBI on suspicion of hoarding explosives in a Florida storage unit. Turns out, he didn’t have any explosives. In fact, he was the only person in Florida without gunpowder. But the FBI refused to give Elahi a written letter clearing him of suspicion because he refused to change his name, religion and skin color. Instead, they just asked him to “check in” with them periodically. And here’s where I really like this guy: for the last six years, Elahi has taken the burden off government surveillance by surveilling himself. Everyday, Elahi takes hundreds of photos of his whereabouts and sends them to the FBI. Pictures of the airports he travels through, the bathrooms he visits, even the meals he eats. With these pictures, he’s ensuring that he’ll never be arrested on suspicion of terror, though by judging by some of the meals he’s eating, Gitmo might be an improvement.

TPMMuckraker:

For days, Bruce Barclay's political career hung in the balance. The Republican commissioner of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, had been accused of rape -- by a man, no less -- and the police were bearing down. Barclay's lawyer issued a strong denial ("This accusation of rape is ludicrous It will be defended forever and is wrong."). But it was clear things were looking pretty dicey. Until... vindication! Well, sort of.

On March 31st, police, investigating the allegation of rape by the 20-year old Marshall McCurdy, obtained a warrant to search Barclay's home. They didn't find evidence of rape. But they did find videotapes of hundreds of sexual encounters with men that Barclay had filmed on high-tech surveillance cameras. The cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, among other places. There was also one at his business office. [..]

On April 10th, the rape charges were dropped. One of the videos found during the search showed Barclay and McCurdy engaging in apparently consensual sex. [..]

Sadly, his vindication was his undoing. Barclay was forced to resign.

Of course, Barclay may be out of the frying pan, but he definitely landed in the fire. He faces charges of privacy violations, among others. McCurdy, on the other hand, is facing charges of making false reports to law enforcement and faces up to 3 years in prison.

Beautiful agitprop/freeway blogging from The Billboard Liberation Front. That's right, kids, it's not a photoshop.

What's up with this "compromise" on FISA? The Senate has split it into two equally bad bills, one of which includes Telecom Immunity. ACLU:

With a House vote on domestic spy legislation rumored to occur within days, there are reports of a plan to split the two titles of the terrible bill passed by the Senate that gutted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The Senate bill contains almost no Fourth Amendment protections in its Title I, and its Title II contains immunity for telecommunications companies that illegally aided the president’s warrantlesss wiretapping program.

ACLU also has a letter to congressional leaders re FISA, that you can send online here. They also have radio spots they'll be airing in markets where they think it will make a difference.

How can the Senate even consider a bill which leads to further deterioration of privacy rights when they found out just this morning that "the FBI improperly used national security letters in 2006 to obtain personal data on Americans"? Wired's Ryan Singel has more...

MSNBC's morning host Alex Witt brought on Col. Jack Jacobs on Friday to discuss the FISA debate and served up White House talking points very nicely. (h/t Bob F)

JACOBS: There are something like 30 or 40 pending lawsuits already against the telecommunications industry, internet service providers and so on for cooperating with the government and um, violating their privacy. They’re not going to participate any more—the telecommunications industry with the government if they can’t be protected and so Mukasey’s saying there are conversations we could have listened to, information we could have received, but we didn’t get it because nobody’s cooperating.

WITT: So does this mean the terrorists, who were certainly aware of this situation right now, that they got this open window and they’re able to communicate?

JACOBS: They do indeed. They do, indeed. And there are other ways they can take advantage of this situation too, not just this law. But this is a big stumbling block in getting information, which we can use to protect ourselves. It’s a big fight and it will continue and this is an election year, don’t forget, so it’s got partisan overtones you’ll continue to hear about.

Are you flipping kidding me? The amount of fearmongering and misinformation is sickening. Let's be clear: the telecoms want to be immunized from prosecution from violating the privacy of AMERICANS. Not terrorists. Do you really think that al Qaeda will instruct one of their minions walk into court and file suit against AT&T? How stupid do they think the American people are? Wait, don't answer that.

The ACLU has issued a press release scolding the White House for playing politics with the domestic surveillance bill.

In the legislative debate over the RESTORE Act, the administration is focusing much of its attention on immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in Bush's legally dubious schemes. Responding to an argument from Time's Joe Klein, Glenn explains how misguided this really is.

To Klein, telecoms did not act illegally. Not at all. They were simply victims of "the Bush Administration['s] refus[al] to update the law" to make the law consistent with what the telecoms were doing. That would be tantamount to a criminal defendant charged with embezzlement going into court and saying: "Your Honor, I didn't do anything wrong. Why should I be punished just because the Bush administration refused to update the law to make my criminal behavior legal?"

Such an "argument" would trigger judicial laughing fits and probably sanctions. But our Beltway elite is so desperate to defend telcoms (and, more importantly, to close off the sole remaining mechanism for investigating the administration's illegal warrantless eavesdropping and obtaining a judicial ruling as to its illegality) that they will twist themselves into the most inane positions in order to defend something as extraordinary as granting retroactive amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms....

[E]ven more unfathomable is the idea that the Congress would pass a law that has no purpose other than to protect from all legal consequences the largest and most powerful corporations in the event that they are found to have broken our nation's surveillance and privacy laws. What possible justification is there for any of that?

Christy has been working hard on this all week, and has more.

There was quite a scandal over the weekend when the New England Patriots were caught using sideline video to steal signals during a game against the New York Jets. It didn’t affect the outcome — the spying was discovered early on, and the Patriots won by a wide margin — but this kind of illicit surveillance drew a stiff penalty from the NFL.

The National Football League fined New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick $500,000 yesterday, and the team will forfeit its first-round draft pick in 2008 if it makes the playoffs, for violating league rules Sunday when a Patriots staff member was discovered videotaping signals by Jets coaches during the season opener at the Meadowlands.

The Patriots will be fined $250,000. If they fail to make the playoffs, they will forfeit their second- and third-round picks in 2008.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) had a very clever response to all of this.

Democratic Presidential candidate Governor Bill Richardson, campaigning today in Iowa, issued the following statement regarding the recent “spying” incident involving the National Football League’s New England Patriots:

“The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue. You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush.”

Good point.