When you call something "chilling" it means that it sends a kind of shock through you because of its insidiousness, danger, or the like. In constitutional law, a "chilling effect" is the voluntary suppression of certain behavior or speech as a result of a government action that makes you thin that the behavior or speech is going to get your butt in hot water with the government.
Recent reports about the federal government tracking the phone records of reporters who write stories on subjects the government doesn't like are chilling in both respects.
Never at a loss for a way to connect a controversy to one of his pet peeves/bigotries, Pat Buchanan has actually decided that the fact that The Da Vinci Code has been produced is a sure sign of the power that Jews wield in our culture:
TPM Muckraker is reporting that:
Federal prosecutors working the Cunningham case have requested so much information from Congress, three committees might have to "shut down" to comply, Roll Call's John Bresnahan reports.
The committees are the House Armed Services, Intelligence, and Appropriations committees.
So the other day, the news wires report that there are e-mails showing that "Tom DeLay's office knew that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had arranged the financing for the GOP leader's controversial European golfing trip in 2000 and was concerned "if someone starts asking questions.""
Tony Snow apparently did not get off to a very good start with the White House press corps, deciding to hold his first "gaggle" in the comfort of his own, far-too-small office, not to mention that he amended the starting time, then started the conference before the new time that he had announced.
A bigger problem, at least for those of us who merely read the gaggle transcripts, is the first indication of how things are likely to go with Snow.
I'm really tired of the apologists, rationalizers, and, apparently brain-impaired voices currently arguing in favor of the NSA domestic spying program(s) (isn't it sick that we don't even know if we're talking about 1 program, 2 programs, 12 programs...).
As if we need even more proof that Bushonomics doesn't work, can't work and wouldn't work even in a fairy tale, and even despite the credit-card-company-friendly new law, guess what...filings are going up....
Courtesy those clever minds over at The Crisis Papers. According to author Dr. Ernest Partridge, a mother of a political hurricane is brewing, eye of said storm right over 1776 Pennsylvania Av...enjoy!
The investigations proliferate, the scandals wax and wane, and the current crop of Republicans continue to be...the worst that ever came.
Repub criminal news today. May 12, 2006:
You know this new television game show, Deal or No Deal, where contestants have to decide whether to take a cash offer or keep trying to get a higher amount by opening suitcases with various money amounts? That also sounds like a good name for this little exercise in Catch 22-iness that BushCo. plays with the NSA spying. Would anyone in their right mind accept the administration's endless string of "can't talk about it, but its okay, trust us?"
Here's a composite of the "give and take" between the press and the various Bush mouthpieces on NSA spying. Deal? Or no deal?
