This is the opening paragraph from an article in today’s Washington Post by staff columnist Dan Eggen.

"The FBI reported more than 100 possible violations to an intelligence oversight board over the past two years, including cases in which agents tapped the wrong telephone, intercepted the wrong e-mails or continued to listen to conversations after a warrant had expired, according to a report issued yesterday"

The rest of the article goes into the details of the violations as well as the Republican's assertion that this report some how proves that our rights aren't being violated.

I haven't checked yet, but I'm sure our good friend Renegade is all over the facts and stats of this most recent proof that our rights are being stepped on. With that in mind I think I'll relegate today’s blog to pissing and moaning about this bullshit.

On the surface, 100 instances in 2 years may not sound like much, but I think we can all assume that those are only a fraction of the violations that actually occurred. When people break the rules they try their best not to get caught, our President and his staff are living proof. It should be obvious to those of us willing to exercise the smallest amount of common sense that the instances referred to in the FBI report are just the ones in which people were weren't slick enough to get away with it.

In honor of all of the "bleeding hearts" that have been fighting the Patriot Act since it was concieved in the bowels of the earth I will say, WE TOLD YOU SO!!

I’ve done so much bitching about how obviously assed out our Republican Government's policies are. I’m beginning to see a pattern here and this is my version of the formula that is becoming as predictable as the President’s use of the word Freedom:

The Repugs have an idea. Liberals kick and scream. Repugs call us un-American. The nation agrees. Whatever cockamamie plan the Repugs are trying to institute is adopted. We wait for a little while. BOOM! The liberal's fears prove right on the money. The Repugs tell us that the bad news is actually good news. Everyone goes back to watching American Idle.

I suggest that all of us that have had the disturbing habit of being right about our nation's leaders start recording our opinions in a note book so that when we are left with no freedoms and a military draft we can prove that we were against it the whole time. This may seem like a weird proposal but it might just help us gain citizenship in a liberal foreign country that, I'm sure, will hate us by then when we're forced to move to a nation not run by a Christian Plutocracy.

All right, all right, I know, I'm being a bit melodramatic, but I just don't know what else to say about the systematic watering down of our rights as Americans.

The REALLY fucked up part of this situation is that there's not much we can do about it any more, at least not for a while. The story that inspired this post is about the implications of the Patriot Act, which we were told we "needed" for our "National Security". In this instance it's too late. We didn't let our leaders know that we weren't going to stand for this when we had the chance. Not only did we let them do this to us once but we have just recently sat by silently while they renewed the laws that give the people in charge the power to treat our freedoms with such disdain.

I'm not even mad. I'm just emotionally exhausted as far as the state of our nation is concerned. I'm having one of those days where you just feel overwhelmed by the bullshit reigning down on you on a daily basis.

This is a pointless request but I'll make it any way. Can all of us Americans PLEASE stop watching shit reality TV and open our eyes to the fecal matter that is falling on us out of the mouths and minds of the people we have chosen to rule us?

When I started writing this piece I was pissed off at the people that have written and voted these dictates into law. But as of right now that anger has turned into disgust at the apathy and ignorance that we have all shown regarding the running of our country. I'm not even in the mood to come up with a new way to tell you guys that the you-know-what called. Hey ass holes, the Jerk Store called. They ran out of us.

Moody