I protest.

The devil you say!

Well, it looks like the excrement is finally about to hit the air-moving device. I'm pleased to see that Rumsfeld is backing and filling on his admission that there may be no "weapons of mass destruction," and I'm even more pleased that, this time, the media seems to be going after the story. I guess they scent blood in the water; even CNN is going after the story as is the Los Angeles Times. The hawks are now running scared; Billmon also has the absolutely definitive quote list: What a Tangled Web We Weave . . .. It has to be read to be believed. Kos also writes about those pesky WMDs.

Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq is going from horrible to utterly, indescribably bad. With an average of more than one American death a day since the beginning of May, Lt. General McKiernan declares that "the war has not ended." I guess that "Mission Accomplished" banner was a tad premature, eh?

And on the home front (a term that is disturbingly apropos lately), various bloggers are picking up on this disturbing development. I posted about this situation back on May 17, when I wrote about the ACLU's report on dissent in post-9/11 America in "The freedom to assent.." No one really noticed then; I'm glad that this is now getting some of the attention it deserves, even if it did mean the arrest of Brett Bursey. This was bound to happen, and indeed had already happened, but those arrests didn't receive the attention that Bursey's case has.

The only thing that is astonishing to me is that everyone seems surprised about this. This has been going on for quite some time. This kind of thing is standard procedure these days.

Welcome to the United States, land of the formerly free and home of the no longer brave.