As the Bush/neo-con kleptocracy disintegrates in a toxic cloud of military defeat, economic bankruptcy, environmental disaster and escalating mega-scandal, its attack on basic American freedoms---its "New Totalitarianism"---has escalated to a desperate new level, including brutal Soviet-style prosecutions against non-violent dissidents and an all-out offensive for state secrecy, including an attack on the internet.

In obvious panic and disarray, the GOP right has turned to a time-honored strategy---kill the messengers. While it slaughters Americans and Iraqis to "bring democracy" to the Middle East, it has made democracy itself public enemy Number One here at home.

The New Totalitarianism has become tangible in particular through a string of terrifying prosecutions against non-violent dissenters, an attack on open access to official government papers, and the attempted resurrection by right-wing "theorists" of America's most repressive legislation, dating back to the 1950s, 1917 and even 1797.

Bush's universal spy campaign is the cutting edge of the assault. The

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas, as they say in Democratic circles. It's likely the former top policy advisor for President Bush will soon come under federal indictment for his role in the CIA leak case. In the Fall '05 indictment of VP Dick Cheney's former chief I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Rove is repeatedly referred to as "Official A." According to legal experts, individuals given that status typically get indicted. More significant, of all the cases prosecuted by independent counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who's leading the investigation, every single "Official A" was indicted. Not a good sign for Turd Blossom.

On Wednesday, Rove was called before the grand jury for a fifth time, and faced 3 1/2 hours of grueling questioning by Fitzpatrick. Given the amount of times he's been called to testify, and the amount of time he spent under oath this week, it's becoming increasingly certain that an indictment is imminent.

To The Editor:

Brian's great piece on Michigan's sell out to Corporate financial power and political privilege was much needed and appreciated. Perhaps our fair-lady-- faint-hearted governor does not realize what she did. I will never vote again for her, and she knows this.

My best to THE FREE PRESS. May you long continue the good fight and endure the subversive corporate pressures of the dark side of our corrupted Capitalism.

"Sir . . . sir."

Need has a tone of voice that's hard to ignore, as badly as I might want to. It pierced my purposeful hurry this night. I had stopped at the store after work and was carrying two plastic bags of groceries - milk, OJ, cottage cheese - which were cutting into my hands. My briefcase was slung awkwardly over my shoulder and I felt tired, stressed, put upon.

Words can hardly convey how little I wanted to turn around just then and find out who was summoning me.

I live in Chicago, a city with lots of dark corners, a city of want spilling up from the margins. The want is perpetual, as much a part of the cityscape as Lake Michigan - always there, sometimes roiled up, sometimes dangerous. I resist it with a weary heart, having no clue what my relationship to it ought to be.

I turned around. A woman was standing in front of an apartment building about half a block behind me. I walked back to her, lugging my groceries and briefcase. She was skinny, scrawny, with a scraped-raw look to her face and terror in her eyes, which instantly made me forget about the weight of my own life.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It's nice to know that the investigative reporter Jack Anderson is still under investigation, although seriously dead.

Anderson died last year, and for 19 years before his death he suffered from Parkinson's disease and was increasingly less active as a reporter. Now that he's safely deceased, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants to go through nearly 200 boxes of his files to see if there are any classified documents in there. If it's classified, they want it back -- even though Anderson was in the habit of printing anything he ever got that was of any interest.

This is apparently part of the Great Bush Reclassification Project, in which government information that has previously been declassified and offered for public consumption is now being reclassified as secret so nobody can find out about it. Those who saw government documents between declassification and reclassification are just going to have to forget what they saw. That, or some Man in Black will be sent around to zap your memory with a little thingamajig.