The Justice Department has subpoenaed indymedia.us for its visitor logs for a certain date. While this raises big flags regarding online privacy, something else happened with this action that is very odd. The recipient of the subpoena was told she could not talk about it unless authorized by the Justice Department – an essential gag order.

Of course news like this would send the right into a full frenzy that Obama is trying to silence the media, even a left-leaning site like indymedia. Here’s Hot Air’s take on it:

Did the White House try to open up a two-front war on the media?   Before the Obama administration launched an all-out battle with conservative-leaning Fox News Channel, the Department of Justice demanded the records of all visitor information of left-leaning Indymedia.us in an remarkable subpoena of a media outlet, for one specific day.  No one can recall any precedent for such a wide-ranging probe into the records of a media website, but it may provide a challenge to a national-security law if the DoJ presses hard enough:

But there’s a problem with this “blame Obama” mentality. The original source of the article is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and this is what they say about the subpoena:

On January 30th, 2009, Kristina Clair of Philadelphia, PA — one of the system administrators of the server that hosts the indymedia.us site — received in the mail a grand jury subpoena from the Southern District of Indiana federal court. The FBI had sent an email to Ms. Clair a couple of weeks earlier asking where a subpoena directed at the indymedia.us site should be sent. So, we at EFF were ready and waiting to evaluate the subpoena as soon as it arrived. Yet even we were surprised at what we saw. A PDF of the entire subpoena is available here.

And let’s look at when the actual subpoena was signed:

Continue reading »

When history looks back at the disgrace of the Bush presidency, the one celebrated quote that will help capture much of what went wrong will be John DiIulio’s. It was DiIulio, the first director of the president’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who told Ron Suskind, “What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

DiIulio was taken in by a bogus pitch in 2000. He notes today in the Philadelphia Inquirer that it was eight years ago this week that Bush delivered his first campaign speech, which DiIulio helped write, titled “The Duty of Hope.” Candidate Bush rejected as “destructive” the idea that “if only government would get out of the way, all our problems would be solved.” Rather, “from North Central Philadelphia to South Central Los Angeles,” government “must act in the common good, and that good is not common until it is shared by those in need.” There are “some things the government should be doing, like Medicaid for poor children.”

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s rather difficult not to laugh.

DiIulio pauses to take stock of what happened to “compassionate conservatism.” He's not impressed.

There you go...The Aqua Teen hunger Force caused havoc in Boston...I happen to like Robot Chicken.

Turner's Statement:

The "packages" in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger. They are part of an outdoor marketing campaign in 10 cities in support of Adult Swim's animated television show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They have been in place for two to three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Parent company Turner Broadcasting is in contact with local and federal law enforcement on the exact locations of the billboards.

We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger.

Update: Here's the story

The NY Giants play Duncan's Philadelphia Eagles today. They don't have much of a chance winning, but I'll be rooting anyway. Good Luck Duncan...

I've tried to understand what he calls "devoted fandom" because I definitely qualify. I'll have a few words on that later...

Martian Anthropologist: “…Once you’re used to living in a lawless world, the transition back to civilization will be stressful at best…” Our lawless mercenaries and what could very well be an uneasy re-integration into civil society

Mia Culpa: Friday night, Members of the Union League of Philadelphia arrived in tuxedos and gowns to honor Donald Rumsfeld and give him A Medal!

The Osterley Times: Millions of people are being assigned a risk assessment score designed to identify their terrorist potential as they enter the US, including the US's own citizens. The information is garnered from several US departments, including intelligence, and is to be held on file for forty years.

Rozius Unbound: BushCo is doing for the economy what they've done for America's standing in the eyes of the rest of the world

Suburban Guerrilla: A "terrorist" is anyone who says no to the Bush Crime Family

Bob Geiger: Best of the week's editorial cartoons

The General writes a letter to Santorum.

Meanwhile, "Deidre Imus began her questioning of Rick with the following question, "Why did your Communications Director call me asking me if I would write an op-ed piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, quote, praising your work on the CAA bill?" See the video.

Is this Arafat's legacy?

I took a taxi cab ride in Philadelphia around 1999. I asked the driver to take me to get a cheese steak sandwich (of course) and he joined me saying he was hungry also. After a few minutes of small talk, he told me that he was Palestinian. I asked him, "Do you ever think there will be peace between Israel and Palestine?" He stopped eating and and said one word: Never! I asked him how come? " They kill babies in the streets! They threw my family out of their homes. How would you like it if someone came to the house that you lived in all of your life and kicked you into the streets?" After a few minutes I said, "Wouldn’t it be better for your people to finally make peace as long as it’s fair so that your families can heal and your society would begin to grow? He threw his sandwich to the ground and said, "There will never be peace! Never! "As long as we still breathe, we would all rather die!"

He was so angered that he took me back to the hotel and radioed in to his boss and told him that he couldn’t work the rest of the night.

At the time I was naive to the whole conflict and I thought I was asking an innocent question. I've heard that resentments are the number one offender in twelve step programs, and as this one goes, well… I’ve never felt hatred like I did talking to that man.

Will a new leadership help to create peace? With that type of resentment embeded in their hearts, I don't see it anytime soon.

It appears nothing is off-limits. Even a sick child with a brain tumor.

The Hill:

"Weldon also suggested Sestak should have sent his daughter to a hospital in Philadelphia or Delaware, rather than the Washington hospital. Sestak said that as soon as doctors give his daughter the all-clear, he’ll buy in Pennsylvania."

Read Sestak's response to Curt. Here's a snipet.

"I believe these medical choices should be left in the hands of parents and family members throughout the country and not in the hands of beauracrats, special interests and especially not in the hands of politicians like Curt Weldon...read on"

When is a lobbyist a lobbyist? Rick squirms answering some questions in front of the camera as Team4's Jim Parsons (Full transcript ) asked Santorum about connections with Rob Bickhart and his charity "Operation Good Neighbor."
Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (hat tip David Edwards)

WTAE News 4 Pittsburg: "And Operation Good Neighbor's executive director is Rob Bickhart, who gets paid a salary by the charity and rent because Operation Good Neighbor is located in the suburban Philadelphia offices of Bickhart's company, Capitol Resource Group. Santorum's re-election campaign and his PAC are also located there and they pay rent, too. And they pay management fees to Capitol resource.

Parsons: "Why are you paying a lobbyist, Rob Bickhart, to run that charity of yours?"

Santorum: "Well, first of all, he's not a lobbyist, No. 1."

Parsons: "Well, he's a principal in a lobbying firm."

Santorum: "No, he's a principal in a public affairs firm, a government relations firm. And he does a whole bunch of other things."

But Capitol Resource Group's Web site clearly lists lobbying as a service it provides to clients.

Parsons: "Sen. Specter said last month that he was lobbied by Rob."

Santorum: "That's fine. Look, the bottom line is, I have a charity … My name is associated as the founder."

Atrios:

Santorum and his wife received a $500,000, five-year mortgage for their Leesburg, Va., home (pictured at top) from a small Philadelphia private bank run by a major campaign donor — even though its stated policy is to make loans only to its “affluent” investors, which the senator is not.