Cindy Sheehan arrested for wearing a tee shirt.

UPDATE: San Jose Mercury News reports, Police Drop Charge Against Sheehan, Apologize.

Gracias to Blue Gal for pointing me to John Nichols’s editorial in The Nation, The War on T-Shirts. Here’s a bit of meat:

Is there really a law against wearing a political T-shirt to the State of the Union address?

No.

The Capitol Police, who on Wednesday dropped the charges against Sheehan, have acknowledged in an official statement that: “While officers acted in a manner consistent with the rules of decorum enforced by the department in the House Gallery for years, neither Mrs. Sheehan’s manner of dress or initial conduct warranted law enforcement intervention.”

What they have not acknowledged, and what is truly troubling, is the evidence that Sheehan was singled out for rough justice.

What follows is the entry I wrote this morning:

Here’s Cindy’s story. Her shirt said, “2245 dead. How many more?” Read the whole story, but here’s the part that gets me:

I had just sat down and I was warm from climbing 3 flights of stairs back up from the bathroom so I unzipped my jacket. I turned to the right to take my left arm out, when the same officer saw my shirt and yelled; “Protester.” He then ran over to me, hauled me out of my seat and roughly (with my hands behind my back) shoved me up the stairs. I said something like “I’m going, do you have to be so rough?” By the way, his name is Mike Weight.

The officer ran with me to the elevators yelling at everyone to move out of the way. When we got to the elevators, he cuffed me and took me outside to await a squad car. On the way out, someone behind me said, “That’s Cindy Sheehan.” At which point the officer who arrested me said: “Take these steps slowly.” I said, “You didn’t care about being careful when you were dragging me up the other steps.” He said, “That’s because you were protesting.” Wow, I get hauled out of the People’s House because I was, “Protesting.”

Bradblog has updates and pictures.

I don’t know if I have many Bush supporters in my audience, but I’m speaking to you folks now. What will it take for you to wake up? That’s all I’m asking. What will it take?

The rest of you, sorry for the political post, but it seems like something new pisses me off every single day.

D.

Samuel Alito got me out of bed this morning

. . . at 6 AM.

I guarantee you, if I had set the alarm for 6 with the intention of spending an hour editing, or perhaps working out at the gym, I’d have groaned, turned over, and gone back to sleep. Nope, it took Sam Alito to motivate my ass out of bed.

Something strange is happening inside my head; the neurons are rearranging themselves, like one of those old mosaic puzzles where you had to scoot squares around in order to unscramble the choo-choo train. I’m becoming more political. Yeah, I’ve written political posts, I’ve donated to lefty causes and campaigns, and I’ve even emailed my representatives in the past, but nothing compares to the all-out blitz against Alito that I — we — took part in over the weekend.

Sure, we lost, but we picked up 23 votes against cloture that we didn’t have when this all started. We know who our friends are, and we know who the Vichy Dems are, too. We have some sense of the clout we can wield as citizens of the net. And we did it all without support from the established liberal groups, like People for the American Way.

Quote from Kos:

But say what you will about blogs and the netroots, we are not effective organizers for this type of large-scale effort, with an opposition wielding tens of millions of dollars. That we got this much accomplished in the fact of that is simply incredible.

And a rallying cry from Meteor Blades that, I swear to you, brought tears to my eyes (but then, I cry watching sitcoms, too):

. . . But a battle is not a war. And, disappointing as it was, and as devastating as Alito’s tenure on the court may turn out to be, giving up is simply not an option.

No matter what the odds, and no matter how few of our elected representatives we can count on to stand with us on this matter, and a hundred others, we have to keep up the fight. The war against Big Brotherization is as crucial as that for abolition, for women’s suffrage, for civil rights.

In every case, the warriors in those wars suffered immense setbacks, repeatedly so, and found it hard to get the politicians to speak up and stand up for them. Eventually, however, because they refused to surrender, and because they took the fight beyond the electoral arena, they won.

We will, too.

Read the whole thing.

One more inspirational link — Jane, at firedoglake: We shook things up.

Oh, yeah.

It may sound weird to you, but I finally feel like a citizen of this country.

The other day, my son asked my wife — and I’m paraphrasing here, cuz I wasn’t present for the discussion — whether we were just watching the world go to hell, or whether we were trying to do something to change it. It feels good to show him that we do more in this family than write checks to politicians, Amnesty International, and the ACLU.

I don’t think this is a flash in the pan, either. I keep popping over at my favorite political blogs, looking for marching orders. I’ve already pledged money and phone-calling time to Ned Lamont, the one dude who looks like he has a chance to unseat Windbag Lieberman in the primary. I’m angry. I want to do more.

And I’m not alone.

Yeah, yeah. I know I promised you more self-esteem BS yesterday, but I’m not sure anyone cares about that but me. Right now, I’m having a hard time firing myself up over what used to be one of my pet peeves, since I’m too fired up about other things.

Off topic: go say hi to Balls and Walnuts’s newest friend, Mark Hoeschletter, an 82-year-old gentleman who just began blogging less than one week ago. Today, Mark has some important words for the young people of today.

Finally, my apologies to all of you in the blogosphere whom I haven’t visited this week. I’ll do better, I promise.

D.

Letter to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

(Feel free to use this yourselves. The DSCC’s email addie is info@dscc.org. Now, I’m off to post this as a Kos diary. See ya later!)

Dear Sirs,

I am a registered Democrat, and my wife and I contributed heavily to the last Democratic Presidential campaign. In the 2006 election, we fully intend to contribute both time and money to help defeat the Republican majorities in Congress.

However . . .

It has become increasingly difficult to support a party that fails to show spine in opposing the Republicans and their imperial President. I am opposed to the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito, because I feel he will push our country further from democracy, closer to fascism. Judge Alito has made clear his opinion regarding the unlimited range of Executive power. I feel that his opinions are discordant with my wishes and the wishes of a majority of my fellow citizens — and even if most Americans wanted to be led down the path of fascism, I still don’t think his confirmation would in any way be good for the country. It’s the old, “If your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff too?” routine.

I will not donate my money or time to a Party of Lemmings.

Actually, lemmings are not that stupid. This is a myth, but it is also a useful metaphor. In reality, humans are this stupid.

Let me be very clear: at this time, more than ever before, I expect to see leadership and resolve on the part of the Democratic Party. This may be the last chance we have to oppose an Imperial Presidency. Please, for the health of our democracy, get our Democratic Senators to vote to oppose cloture, and to support Senator Kerry’s filibuster.

Thank you.

Douglas Hoffman

Support the Alito Filibuster

Gilliard has coverage. Be warned: every Senate office number I called has the same message (this mailbox is full), so I had to resort to emailing as many Senators as I could.

From Daily Kos, here is a great list of links to Senators’ web forms.

The main point to make, assuming this Senator is not your Senator: “My contributions of time and money to the DNC will depend on the outcome of the upcoming filibuster.” Or words to that effect. Even if he or she is not your Senator, this message should still hit home.

Update: here is the most recent action post from Daily Kos. We have 15 no votes for cloture — up 3 votes from this morning.

One easy thing you can do to help: sign the petition at SaveTheCourt.Org.

D.

Support Jill Carroll

I’d like to follow Blue Gal’s lead and ask that you all give some thought (and prayer, if you’re so minded) to the plight of kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, the Muslim community has been vocal in their support for Ms. Carroll:

A delegation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations arrived in Baghdad Saturday, adding its voice to what is described as an unprecedented outpouring of Muslim support for the release of American reporter Jill Carroll.

“The kidnapping of Jill Carroll does not benefit the kidnappers,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based group that represents US mosques and Islamic associations. “She has been friendly and respectful of the Iraqi people, not an enemy,” he added.

I don’t think Blue Gal will mind if I shamelessly steal the rest of her post:

So here is my idea. Tell your blog readers you support Jill Carroll and link to the Monitor, just like I did. That’s it. Not too dramatic but drama is not what we need or want right now, no matter how much it might serve the interests of the 24/7 news universe.

Update: one reader had another good idea–to link to one of Jill’s own articles.

A leader of Hamas called for her release today. The Muslims are united on this. Amazing.

Let’s keep Jill Carroll in the forefront of our web-consciousness until she is released. Thanks!

D.