DOWNLOADS: (761)

PLAYS: (1923)

Embed

Apparently, the job of filling in for Glenn Beck comes with a wingnuttery quotient proviso. Because yesterday on Beck's show, Judge Andrew Napolitano made sure he filled his.

Napolitano started by complaining that it was "progressives" who were arguing that we had to give up our liberties in order to obtain security. Come again?

What exactly did we hear from the American Right during the eight years of George W. Bush's nonstop assaults on civil liberties -- ranging from wiretapping citizens to using torture to using military tribunals to try American citizens? Oh, that's right -- we heard that opposing these measures meant we hated America and cared more about terrorist rights.

It's true that Napolitano opposed the wiretaps and the torture. But is he now claiming that these were progressives who argued they were necessary?

In any event, the real capper came shortly after:

Napolitano: Can the government keep us safe? I don't think so. I think airline travel is safer today because pilots have guns, because cockpit doors are now like bank vaults, and because the passengers have become courageous. All this was done by individuals, in the private sector, and not by the government.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: If the feds had not stripped us of our natural rights to keep ourselves safe by keeping and bearing arms, 9/11 would never have happened!

Come again, again? Napolitano seems to think that if everybody on board those planes had been permitted to pack heat -- which is the scenario he seems to envision here -- we'd all have been a lot safer.

Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just let everybody bring their guns on board. That'll make us safer. Uh-huh.

Maybe Napolitano is arguing that only pilots should have been allowed to pack heat. But that would not exactly be consonant with his complaint that the feds had taken away our "natural rights" to carry guns.

All I can say is that if the airline system were insane enough to follow his suggestion and let everyone exert their "natural rights", I'd be exerting my natural right to take a train or a bus.

This is why we have to fight every single encroachment on our civil liberties - they invariably get used for other purposes, simply because they can:

Reporting from Los Angeles and Oklahoma City -- Tamera Jo Freeman was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver in 2007 when her two children began to quarrel over the window shade and then spilled a Bloody Mary into her lap.

She spanked each of them on the thigh with three swats. It was a small incident, but one that in the heightened anxiety after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would eventually have enormous ramifications for Freeman and her children.

A flight attendant confronted Freeman, who responded by hurling a few profanities and throwing what remained of a can of tomato juice on the floor.

The incident aboard the Frontier flight ultimately led to Freeman's arrest and conviction for a federal felony defined as an act of terrorism under the Patriot Act, the controversial federal law enacted after the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

"I had no idea I was breaking the law," said Freeman, 40, who spent three months in jail before pleading guilty.

Freeman is one of at least 200 people on flights who have been convicted under the amended law. In most of the cases, there was no evidence that the passengers had attempted to hijack the airplane or physically attack any of the flight crew. Many have simply involved raised voices, foul language and drunken behavior.

Some security experts say the use of the law by airlines and their employees has run amok, criminalizing incidents that did not start out as a threat to public safety, much less an act of terrorism.

In one case, a couple was arrested after an argument with a flight attendant, who claimed the couple was engaged in "overt sexual activity" -- an FBI affidavit said the two were "embracing, kissing and acting in a manner that made other passengers uncomfortable."

DOWNLOAD (289)

PLAY (225)

US Airways jet crashes in Hudson River

OK, so it's not political, but it's still fascinating. MSNBC has been doing a bangup job covering this.

Apparently the flight hit a flock of geese. Our prayers are with everyone who was onboard.

Senator? Terrorist? A Watch List Stops Kennedy at Airport. Senator Edward M. Kennedy had trouble boarding airplanes several times because his name resembles a suspected terrorist's alias. By By RACHEL L. SWARNS. [The New York Times > Home Page]