Rep. Drew Springer

Texas lawmakers ask attorney general to support ‘In God We Trust’ on police cars:

A furor involving a small-town Texas police department and national secular organization has reached the state attorney general’s office, and may well wind up in court after that.

At issue: does slapping “In God We Trust” stickers on police patrol cars violate the U.S. constitution?

After fielding a complaint from a citizen of Childress, a Panhandle town of about 6,000, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent the town’s police department a letter last month asking it to stop using the motto.

Monday, the two state legislators representing Childress — state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, and state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster — asked Attorney General Ken Paxton to weigh in on the question.

There’s nothing wrong or unconstitutional about officers finding solace in the words of the motto, and it should comfort nonbelievers to encounter law enforcement officers that subscribe to a belief system, Springer said.

“If I was a nonbeliever,” Springer said, “I would still have good feelings if someone was acting in a religious way from that standpoint.”

Drew Springer seems to have many misfiring synapses. Either that or he is simply a terrible person. A Christian telling an atheist what he would think if he was an atheist is totally irrelevant and nonsensical. It's like a man telling a woman that he knows what childbirth is like. It's like me saying I know what it is like to be Chinese. I've never been to China and I don't know the language. I know nothing about what it would be like to be Chinese. Drew Springer knows nothing about atheism and does not know what it is like to be an atheist. He is a ridiculous man.

I do not want the police to advertise their belief in the supernatural. It disturbs me. It does not give me good feelings. It is not comforting.

In the future will the police stop patrolling and simply hold prayer meetings and try to wish all of the bad guys to simply vanish into thin air?

A Matter Of Trust

I don't trust police who place their trust in something that is non-existent.

Contemptuous responses to “In God We Trust” letters show how far atheists have to go:

In the past couple months, FFRF has sent dozens of letters around the country to sheriffs’ and police departments that are decorating their patrol cars with “In God We Trust” stickers.

FFRF’s entreaties for law enforcement officials to take into account their communities’ nonreligious and polytheistic residents have largely fallen on deaf ears. And the few formal responses that have trickled in are breathtakingly disrespectful.

If not for legal reasons, law enforcement agencies should still not be so hasty to plaster such an exclusionary statement across government property. What is an atheist, agnostic, or polytheist supposed to think when the law enforcement officers sworn to protect them are so blatantly dismissive of their concerns? How would the supporters of the “In God We Trust” stickers feel if they instead read “We Trust In No Gods,” or “In Allah We Trust?” You don’t have to answer that—I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from here.

My translation of "In God We Trust" is "In Nothing We Trust".

Preemptive Strikes Come Home To Roost

“Shoot first, ask questions later” seems to be the Bush Administrations motto both abroad and now here at home. The same twisted moral logic that led to illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (“preemptive strikes”) seems to have now come to St. Paul, Minnesota. It doesn’t matter whether you are innocent or not, the Bush Administration just wants to kick your ass.

Interestingly this latest ramping up of the United States police state was predicted five-and-a-half years ago by FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley.

From Storm Troopers at the RNC by Ray McGovern:

Ten days ago, as the nation focused attention on the hurricane nearing the Mississippi delta, another storm was brewing far upstream in St. Paul, Minnesota — a storm far more dangerous, it turned out, but one by and large overlooked by the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).

When I flew into St. Paul on the evening of Aug. 30, I encountered a din in local media about “preemptive strikes” on those already congregating there to demonstrate against the Iraq war and injustice against the poor in our country.

St. Paul’s Pioneer Press expressed surprise that “despite preemptive police searches” and arrests, a group calling itself “the RNC Welcoming Committee” was still intent on “disrupting the convention.”

A headline screamed, “Preemptive Arrests of Protesters in Twin Cities.” But it was the article’s lead that hit home: “Borrowing from the Bush administration’s ‘preemptive war’ playbook, police agencies in the Twin Cities have made ‘preemptive strikes’ against organizations planning to protest at the Republican National Convention.”

In the following days I was to see, up close and personal, a massive and totally unnecessary display of ruthlessness.

What struck a bell was that this domestic application of the doctrine of “preemption” was totally predictable — indeed, predicted by those courageous enough to speak out before the U.S. “preemptive” attack on Iraq.

Ironically, it was FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley, living in the St. Paul area, who served warning of precisely that in her hard-hitting Feb. 26, 2003, letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, three weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Read the rest here.

Amy Goodman Explains Her Arrest

Bicycles, Maps, And Helmets

From Democracy Under Surveillance by Michael Scherer

As I noted yesterday, a document obtained by the Colorado ACLU shows that the Denver Police had requested a widespread effort to gather intelligence on such normal activity as people with "bicycles," "maps," and "helmets," since all three devices could be used by violent protesters. (Recently, a Denver activist who had gathered bricks to do masonry work on her home was interviewed by police on suspicion of gathering projectiles for protests.) The end of the same memo also included this alarming notation: First responders who "discovered the above mentioned" were asked to contact Denver Police and the CIAC, a joint fusion center for information sharing between local authorities and the Department of Homeland Security.

Read more here.

The American Police State

And the Right has the nerve to label the Left as communist, while the Right uses Stalinist tactics more and more every day.

From Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis by Glenn Greenwald:

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Read the rest here.

There is also more here and here.

And Emptywheel makes an excellent point:

If the Bush DOJ approved the use of terrorism techniques to prepare for the convention--in spite of the fact that such an approval would violate DOJ guidelines--we'd have a crystal clear example of why it is inappropriate to interpret terrorism as broadly as the Bush Administration has been pushing to do.

The Republican National Convention is off to a great start, before it even begins.


Update 08-31-08:

Glenn Greenwald has more. The FBI is involved in this. From Federal government involved in raids on protesters:

Any rational person planning to protest the GOP Convention would, in light of this Government spying and these police raids, think twice -- at least -- about whether to do so. That is the point of the raids -- to announce to citizens that they best stay in their homes and be good, quiet, meek, compliant people unless they want their homes to be invaded, their property seized, and have rifles pointed at them, too. The fact that this behavior is producing so little outcry only ensures, for obvious reasons, that it will continue in the future. We love our Surveillance State for keeping us safe and maintaining nice, quiet order.

What's next? The Republicans deciding that Bush gets to stay in power for another year or more because of all the National Security threats we face?

First they will cancel the Republican convention. Then will they cancel the election?

Bias Removal?

From Police (usually) are able to curb racial bias in shooting suspects by Dave Munger:

In 2005, E. Ashby Plant and B. Michelle Peruche tested 48 Florida police officers and found that they were initially more likely to shoot unarmed Black "suspects" in a crime-fighting simulation than White people holding similar objects. Interestingly, however, as the test went on, the officers improved, and by the end of the session, any bias had been removed.

Read the rest here.