1

Burn!  The truth hurts, people.

2 This "docudrama" sounds like it intends to incite what it is proposing, and thus, should be prosecuted as a hate crime.

3 LOL! Bunch of pacifists couldnt find a gunstore if you gave them a google map.

4 I've asked myself the same question, Rusty.

5 The truth is that the lefties are more afraid of an unleashed Cheney!

6 It's art -- and according to a new lefty poster here you can use art depicting harm to a President, and if the U.S Secret Service come to investigate -- well that's just more proof that the Nazi Brownshirts in office are getting rid of our fweedoms.

Yeah, that's what they did; sorry it's not threatening enough for you. And that's what the the KGB and East Germany's Stazi used to do to intimidate people on a routine basis. Read up a little on your history and what governemtns do to "protect" their sheeple from agitators and other dangerous types.
Posted by grinnel at August 29, 2006 03:11 PM


A painting was a threat to the President of the US? Maybe if somebody hit him with it ...
Posted by grinnel at August 29, 2006 03:14 PM

Because art is art and threats are threats. Look, I'm not going to debate the meaning of art here. Give up whatever freedoms you want. Give 'em all up. You're not using them anyway. Except the Right to Bear Multiple TV Sets.
Posted by grinnel at August 29, 2006 03:34 PM

The left love pictures depicting assassinations of Presidents they don't like, then if the artist is visited by a Federal Agent it's like Stalin's rounding up and murder of dissidents, except non of that happens and they get interviewed, but it's one more step in the direction of concentration camps...

7

Added to my roundup at Old War Dogs >> Bill's 2006.08.31 Short Shorts (Updated throughout the day)

8 Thanks for the best accounting yet in today's mini storm about the Bush movie. Handwringing and angst and all manner of words are being written about the Bush haters, but you cut through it all.

9 Hey davec ... why don't you be honest for once. Nothing in the article I posted about the art gallery owner being grilled by the Secret Service and FBI said anything about hosting a painting of President Bush's assisination. That was a scenario you fabricated, and you did it in an attempt to prove one of your typically lame points. Re-read the article, ya wingnut.

And yeah, a painting is a painting and a shot at a president is a shot at a president. As far as I know, Booth, Czolgosz, John Schrank, Oswald, Lynette Fromme, or Hinckley were painters. And yet, they actually did kill or take shots at presidents. How can this be?

But not to worry --davecs' Secret Service and FBI have got all the galleries covered ... now if they could just do something about those ports.

10 Line above should read "As far as I know, Booth, Czolgosz, John Schrank, Oswald, Lynette Fromme, or Hinckley were NOT painters. And yet, they actually did kill or take shots at presidents. How can this be?"

11 grinnel:
Because you pasted from some lefty moron writing about being terrified by Government agents, as I said then -- the U.S Secret Service is only tasked with certain roles in Law enforcement and making weak wristed liberals urinate in their panties isn't one of them:

Your story:
Donna Huanca works as a docent at the Art Car Museum, an avant-garde gallery in Houston. Around 10:30 on the morning of November 7, before she opened the museum, two men wearing suits and carrying leather portfolios came to her door....

Now read below and tell me I fabricated it:

The Art Car Museum's director James Harithas, who served as the director of the Corcoran Art Museum in Washington D.C. in the late 1960s, described the visit from the G-men as unbelievable. "People should be worried that their freedoms are being taken away right and left." Robert Dogium, the FBI spokesman, said the visit was just routine follow-up on a call "from someone who said that there is artwork of a threatening nature to the President."

I can't help you have no understanding of how Federal Agencies work in the United States.

12 "The left love pictures depicting assassinations of Presidents they don't like, then if the artist is visited by a Federal Agent it's like Stalin's rounding up and murder of dissidents, except non of that happens and they get interviewed, but it's one more step in the direction of concentration camps..."

Your whole argument has been about Bush's assassination. Please point to where the article says that.

13 And "They were just doing their jobs" has a whole history unto itself.

14 grinnel:
Let's perhaps put it in a context you can understand:

You're working at your job on the drive-thru window of McDonalds, and an obese person drives up and asks for a Big Mac with three slices of Cheese.
As a liberal hand-wringer you think to yourself "This guy is going to have a heart attack maybe I shouldn't give him this meal"
Your Boss informs you, that your job is to hand him a Big Mac, not decide the health ramifications.


The Secret Service do not have the luxury of deciding what constitutes a threat or not, they have protocols to follow, one of which is to do interviews with the party to do a threat assessment.

It is their job. I'm sorry you can't understand that, but it isn't something new -- they have been doing it since they were tasked with protecting the President -- but hey keep thinking you're losing your fweedoms.

15 I get it, I get it...please no more davec made-up scenarios. I understand that they have to follow-up. But just off the record, don't you think this is a little nuts? I mean, you must have an opinion on this and I'd like to hear it. Shipping containers that come into the US from ALL OVER THE WORLD aren't checked, but galleries are.

Why? Because these calls for censorship are motivated by the belief that exposure to or creation of images of violence causes people to act in destructive--even deadly--ways.

Pro-censorship forces, including politicians and pundits, cite all kinds of "scientific studies" that are supposed prove fictional violence leads to real-life violence.

There is, in fact, virtually no evidence that fictional violence causes otherwise stable people to become violent!

And if we start suppressing material based on the actions of unstable people, no work of fiction or art would be safe from censorship. Serial killer Theodore Bundy collected cheerleading magazines. So cheerleading lead to his becoming a serial killer? And the work most often cited by psychopaths as justification for their acts of violence is the Bible. Shall we ban the Bible? Maybe it'll stop even one psychopath. Of course not. Thaat's as crazy as staking out art galleries.

16 As for the art gallery, the Feds either didn't find anything nearly as threatening as they were lead to believe by the "someone who said that there is artwork of a threatening nature to the President" or they did, but also agreed it was merely art and art can't physically threaten. So apparently they too thought the whole thing was bullshit blown way out of proportion.

17 You know, you keep saying you get it but then you go back to your argument that art should be exempt as a "threat" because you think there are no links to "fictional" violence except there are several cases where murderers both drew violent art before and after being caught [like DC snipers:http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-03-16-malvo-documents_x.htm ]

Defense witnesses testified they did not know the boy who drew pictures of figures holding bloody, decapitated heads and bloody knives.
...
Dyleski is accused of bludgeoning 52-year-old Pamela Vitale, slicing open her stomach, and carving a symbol resembling a "T" with two cross marks into her back. The prosecution has presented evidence that Dyleski tried to purchase marijuana-growing equipment using stolen credit cards, and that he listed Vitale's Lafayette address as the billing information.

ED LAKE, Minn., March 22 - Before Monday, before his storm of bullets that left 10 people on this Indian reservation dead, Jeff Weise was rarely noticed here. But when he was, people saw a confused, brooding teenager with few friends, a peculiar attraction to Nazism and a lifetime, already, of family troubles.

Residents here said they were stunned by Mr. Weise's actions, though they said they had seen signs of trouble. Some said he favored Goth culture and clothing and Nazi philosophy, and had seen him drawing graphic, violent pictures.

So while it is rare -- so are serial killers, and Presidential assassination attempts, that is why it's left to the secret service to interview people that are reported of making threatening threats again the U.S President.

As for your comments about nothing being done about the art -- Congratulations!! you might have just figured out what I told you the other day --- it is not illegal to draw such art -- just the secret service investigate any potential threat, and while they most likely thought it was bullshit from the get go, they still did their job and investigated it.

18 Well, I don't know that I can equate a couple of messed-up kids who happened to draw with gallery-quality artists whose work somebody didn't personally like as easily as you do. (What did the article mention they were ... a burning skyline and Geo. Bush Sr. in the belly of a monster or devil or whatever the hell it was? Not realy very threatening.) At the same time, it's plain the Secret Service and FBI have to check reports out from any and every crank with a gripe, especially when it comes to a president.

19 grinnel:

Let's switch that up a little Your left leaning article does not even mention the agents were on-site investigating a call that said the art gallery had material deemed threatening to President Bush by a citizen, in fact if I remember correct they tried to slant it to being "Anti-American" (shades of McCarthy?) behavior that got their attention -- but I guess that is what you have to say when you're trying to paint a Federal Agent doing his job as some sort of CheneyBushHitlerChimpy stormtrooper / brown-shirted Nazi invading your fweedoms!

As your article isn't even factual, I have a hard time believing their descriptions of what the U.S Agents were interested in.

20 Good grief! I suppose my kill the Clintons video is OK to post on the Internet now. I might have one on killing all illegal aliens, and Muslims too. I do not think anyone would really care, right?

21 No, the article I quoted from doesn't make mention of the fact that, Robert Dogium, a spokesman for the FBI in Houston, later said "the visit was a routine follow-up on a call 'from someone who said there was some material or artwork that was of a threatening nature to the President.'" Wonder why the agents failed to mention this to Ms. Huanca as they flashed their badges. Hm.

Of course the article you quote from also doesn't make mention of the thoughts of the writer (Christopher Brauchli) that "He (Dogium) failed to observe that the conduct of his agents might be considered threatening by the few people left who worry about those sorts of things."

It did mention, however, that the agents "asked Ms. Huanca where she went to school and whether her parents knew she was working in that sort of place (emphasis mine) ... questions to protect the President if I ever heard 'em.

No, I don't think one has to slant this story to find the undertones of McCarthyism both articles were raising. 

Oh, and let's seeif you can comment without the hyperbole, sarcasm and over-generalizations for a change, if you can. You'll be taken a little more seriously.

22 grinnel:
You have evidently missed the whole point of your own source; When you are attempting to provoke the reader into believing that the United States Government has become a fascist police state, one conveniently leaves out facts like the purpose of a United States Secret Service visit -- the article says that they were being investigated for "Un-American activities" which leans towards "dissent is unpatriotic" and invokes in the mind of the reader, that the art gallery is being molested by fascist agents of the U.S Government.

This was reinforced by the writers suggestion that not only did the agents 'barge' into the art gallery, wearing their menacing G-Man suits, and flash their badges, but their physical appearance made the poor hapless woman scared to be alone with them.
It is obvious, even to the mere village idiot, that any cooperation she gave at this point was voluntary. including access to the Gallery, any answer she likewise provided she did so under her own volition, understanding that she was under no obligation to answer them.

The whole article is wrote to push the agenda; If they had disclosed the reason the agent was there, and that it was a routine investigation following a tip there would be no story, likewise the fact investigations of this kind happen everyday, and for every President, Democrat or Republican only enforces it is routine.

23 I work with a former Secret Service agent. I can ask him any question Grinnel would like to ask.

24 Speaking of getting the KGB treatment; a few years ago, during the Clinton junta, Hillary visited a local town by the name of Clinton, to give the local democrats the privilege of kissing her ass while she reviewed them like she was the Queen or something, which of course they did. Well, I made up a sign just so I could let her know how I felt, but I couldn't get near her parade route, because the Highway Patrol Gestapo had all the roads blocked and were searching all vehicles. When the Trooper saw my sign, which wasn't threatening in any way, he told me to turn around and go back or I would be arrested, while he moved his hand to rest on his gun. Liberals bitch and whine about repression, but they don't know what it is, because they get to protest, but anyone who opposes them faces threats and intimidation.
The sooner the government collapses and we fall into civil war, the better, so we can kill off all the lefturds, muslims, and other assorted scum.

25 Actually, grinnel, you are the one not taken seriously here. You are asked to come up with something material about the affects of the Patriot Act on our freedoms, and this is all you can produce. Neither of these instances even has anything to do with the Patriot Act, and you think anyone here is taking you serious. Please go somewhere like Kos or Atrios, where they will take your rants seriously. Here, you are seriously lacking in credibility.

26 """The 90 minutes feature explores who could have planned the murder, with a Syrian-born man wrongly put in the frame."""

Of course! Those cowboys just want to blame Muslims for everything!

27 Interestingly grinnel I spent at least a decade of my life in a place where there is a REAL Police state, you should be thanking yourself everyday for the freedoms you have:
In Britain, you do not have the right to bare arms.
You do not have the right to self-defense in your home.
You will be monitored by Government cameras on the street, what started as an inner-city project expanded into the suburbs.
I have been detained by the Police, in a public area, during a lawful assembly and have been searched, while my friend was handcuffed to his car steering wheel and searched, under the Criminal Justice Act.
This along with taxation like the "Poll Tax" repealed by public demand (Pensioners were imprisoned for not paying) and then re-released under the name the "Council Tax", also bare in mind that they are looking at requiring a national id card, that contains both biometric and encoded record data, as compulsory and requiring their citizens to pay $130.00 for the privilege of owning one!
You don't even know what Freedoms you really have, until you live in a place that doesn't have them.

28 From Jesusland Joe: "You are asked to come up with something material about the affects of the Patriot Act on our freedoms, and this is all you can produce."

Question: If you WERE affected by the Patriot Act, would you even know it? See, one of the main tenets of the Patriot Act is that the federal government can check out your library records, your Internet visits, your associations, your basement and any other venue they deem relevant without ever being required to inform you, so long as they meet the requirements of the Act-- a little too easy to do for many. Not before. Not during. Not after. Not at all.

So I may know a dozen people who've been affected. Or, I may know absolutely no one. How would I know? That's my answer to your challenge and my problem with the Patriot Act, or any legislation passed that gives the government broad authority to operate without oversight, without accountability, and without sunshine.

Right now, you're saying "I've done nothing wrong, and I'm not a terrorist or a threat to the state or the people in it, you have nothing to worry about. I'm glad they're checking out the bad eggs and protecting us."

Well, that's what a lot of people said in 1934 Germany: "I'm not one of the 'undesirables' identified by the National Socialists, I'm OK. Go ahead, let them investigate me, I've nothing to hide" and for a while, many groups did have nothing to hide, at least by the old rules. But then came 1935, and 36, and 37 and 38 and 39, and the rules kept changing. And new laws limiting what Jews, Slavs and other "undermentschen" could do kept being slowly but surely introduced, until it was eventually illegal for them to continue even to live. And no one stopped it 'till the US and the Soviets.

I'm assuming you're right, you have done nothing to warrant investigation, and therefore the Act really doesn't threaten you. Me neither as far as I know. But that doesn't mean I ignore the parts I don't like. And the fact they can go ahead and check you out without ever telling you is at least potentially threatening to this democracy, at least IMHO.

History never repeats itself exactly. But familiar patterns always, always, always reappear.

As for "taking my rants" to KOS, JJ, I think you're a grown up and can probably handle disagreement ... unless that's why you come to a blogsite, to avoid it. Sorry, as long as Rusty allows my continued commenting, I can't help you there. Just ignore me.

Now, davec ... He's made a lot of hay about what Federal agents are required to do when a citizen phones in a complaint about a possible threat to the President of the US. And he's right, they are required to do just that. And if this lady felt threatened by questions or a situation she even agreed to, well, that's her problem. OK.

After reading his last post, you think davec would be the last guy here to defend unjust legislation. But though he makes some pretty good points on this art gallery argument, I've got a feeling he's less than intellectually honest. I think he would have absolutely no problem letting the G-Men/Feds do whatever they want to do to the dirty liberals, requirements of the job aside. It's nice they are required to do so because it gives his argument a certain legitimacy, but I think it wouldn't bother him in the least if they were not required to do what they did at the art gallery, whether there was a serious threat or if there was merely something this person found personally distasteful or irritating. C'mon davec, your attitudes are part of the record here; come clean.

"You don't even know what Freedoms you really have, until you live in a place that doesn't have them."

That's right, and I don't want to find out either. So I will continue to voice my disagreement with legislation that does away with them.

Improbulus Maximus: sucks to have some asshole can your right to free speech, doesn't it? But as davec could tell you, the trooper was just doing his job, assessing threats and taking action. But really, shoulda called the ACLU … they might have taken your case, like they did Rush Limbaugh's during the DA's attempt to search his medical records.

29 I'm intellectually dishonest? You provided the scenario of the Art Gallery, and the U.S Secret Service / F.B.I as an example of abuse of the Patriot Act -- which was neither an abuse of the U.S Secret Service charter, or was powered, nor granted by the Patriot Act..
As the Art Gallery was not an abuse of the powers granted to the United Secret Services charter (protection of the President) I am unsure of why you're hinting I'd be fine with it if it was illegal or a breach of civic rights -- because it was handled within the Law, so anything else is another fictional liberal fantasy, concocted like a scene out of "V for Vendetta."

Unfortunately, just because Liberals view an Art Gallery as a shrine of "Talking truth to Power" it does not make them exempt from investigation, nor the law.

See, one of the main tenets of the Patriot Act is that the federal government can check out your library records, your Internet visits, your associations, your basement and any other venue they deem relevant without ever being required to inform you

Can you tell me if this is exclusively granted by the Patriot act? I am unaware if John "Teflon Don" Gotti was given a telegram in advice by the F.B.I in 1995 making him aware that his club, business and residence were broken into, and bugs placed? I wonder how many other criminals were made "none-aware" of an active investigation while in progress?
Out of all the powers you have mentioned, most, if not all were used by the F.B.I before the Patriot act.

30 hat's right, and I don't want to find out either. So I will continue to voice my disagreement with legislation that does away with them.

You know, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also "voiced his disagreement" with the SMERSH officers after his arrest, while imprisoned in the Lubyanka.
Something to bare in mind if you believe this country is becoming a Police State.

31 "You provided the scenario of the Art Gallery, and the U.S Secret Service / F.B.I as an example of abuse of the Patriot Act -- which was neither an abuse of the U.S Secret Service charter, or was powered, nor granted by the Patriot Act."

Guilty.

"I am unsure of why you're hinting I'd be fine with it if it was illegal or a breach of civic rights --"

Based on much of your past commentary, I think you'd be fine with this kind of intimidation, as long as the recipient was a liberal. If the roles were reversed, I doubt you'd be so willing to defer to the legal trappings, much as Improbulus Maximus didn't care for the tratment he got above.

"Can you tell me if this is exclusively granted by the Patriot act?"

Absolutely; these subsections are the parts of the Patriot Act that has most civil libertarians up in arms. In every criminal instance I can think of, a search warrant had to be obtained, used within a a certain timeframe and every attempt made at delivering it to the owner/occupier of the premises. Not so with the Patriot Act. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly be corrected.

"I am unaware if John "Teflon Don" Gotti was given a telegram in advice by the F.B.I in 1995 making him aware that his club, business and residence were broken into, and bugs placed?"

A probable cause warrant had to be issued by an appellate court allowing for the placement of the bugs. The placement was allowed for a prescribed period of time, named in the warrant, after which they had to be removed.

Any information gathered before or after the warrant would be inadmissabile. These same rules that applied to Gotti do not apply to those targeted by the Patriot Act.

"Out of all the powers you have mentioned, most, if not all were used by the F.B.I before the Patriot act."

This is a common theme, not just here, but by all who defend the Patriot Act. If all these powers were in place and used before the PA, and opposition to it is much ado about nothing, tell me, what was the purpose of passing it? What has it added to our security as a nation if the Secret Service, the FBI and others already had these powers and used them? Why does it exist?

32 That's right, Solzhenitsyn knew what was going to happen and did it anyway; that's courage. I feel the least we can do out of respect for him and people like him is to speak up when we have the opportunity and make sure our country doesn't get like that.

33 On a side note, wasn't it the NKVD that arrested Solzhenitsyn?

34 A probable cause warrant had to be issued by an appellate court allowing for the placement of the bugs.
The Patriot Act also requires a warrant be issued:
http://www.law.uga.edu/academics/profiles/dwilkes_more/37patriot.html
Even the review of Library book records requires a warrant, so it is a extreme hyperbole to frame the issue that the Patriot Act removes the need for judicial oversight.

Likewise you're incorrect in regards to Solzhenitsyn, his arrest while on the front line was for statements he made in a letter to a boyhood friend not his literary works, which is not exactly courageous.
In fact his opening statements in one of his books is that he wished he had not only resisted his own arrest, but also other peoples that he had watched -- Solzhenitsyn had the courage of his convictions, after his own arrest, but only when he had been thrown under the wheels of the machine himself.

35 Solhenitsyn was arrested by SMERSH:

""You are under arrest!"
Burning and prickling from head to toe, all I could exclaim was: "Me? What for?"
And even though there is usually no answer to this question, surprisingly I received one! This is worth recalling, because it is so contrary to our usual custom.
Hardly had the SMERSH men finished "plucking" me and taking my notes on political subjects, along with with my map case, and begun to push me as quickly as possible towards the exit, urged on by the German shellfire rattling the windowpanes, than I heard myself firmly addressed--yes!"

I believe he was arrested by SMERSH due to his position in the Military.

36 Yes, I should not have said no warrants, I should have said next-to-no warrants. From the law article you referenced on the Patriot Act:

"It is obvious that these restrictions on issuing sneak and peek search warrants border on the meaningless, especially in light of the somber reality that search warrants are issued secretly and ex parte, that they are typically issued on the basis of recurring, generalized, boilerplate allegations, and that the judicial officials who issue them tend to be rubber stamps for law enforcement. "

When it comes to defending your statements, you're often your own worst enemy.

You're right about Solzenhitsyn  -- SMERSH  I mean: ,not courage:

"During the war, between 1944 and '45, Solzhenitsyn had corresponded
with a school friend, N.D. Vitkevich, criticizing Stalin but referring
to him under a pseudonym. Nontheless, Captain Solzhenitsyn was summoned
to the office of brigade commander, Colonel Travkin, where he was
arrested. His Colonel defied the SMERSH men arresting Solzhenitsyn by
informing the young officer of the reason for his arrest, shaking his
hand, and wishing him happiness."

In 1945, criticizing Stalin period was courageous.

37 I am my "own worst enemy" in defending my statements because I read opinions that might differ from my own.
Numerous sections of the Patriot Act have been ruled unconstitutional, this alone points to judicial oversight, not to mention the Congressional attempt to block it's renewal without review of the wording.
One could argue that the main fault with the Patriot Act, is it's lack of transparency -- what is it used for, are the Government using it for drug-dealers / organized crimes, or strictly terrorist behavior? how many warrants were granted, versus how many rejected, but the nature of anti-terrorism work itself would mean information leaks could endanger active investigations.

I don't look at Solzenhitsyn as 'brave' for his communication, doing dangerous things, does not always equate to courage, criticizing Stalin knowing that communications from the front line were being monitored, makes me believe it was foolhardy.
However, there is no doubt that his works of literature after the fact are monumental, as were the effects of his books on the Russian Government.

I admire his works after the fact, however just like Christopher Reeves "Championed" the cause for the disabled with Spinal injuries after he himself was disabled with an injury, it shouldn't be seen as altruism like that of Mother Theresa, after all they were all victims first, champions after.