Slashdot Mirror

But they are still a damned sight better than pretty much anything the Republicans have to offer, where your choices are between the shit sandwich establishment, and the diarrhea buffet of the tea party.

Okay, let's examine your evidence. (For the record, I am neither Republican nor Democrat.)

Both may be in bed with Wall Street, and prone to expanding the surveillence state and engaging in foreign adventures.

Well, at least we agree on that.

But only one wants to eliminate the entire "welfare state" (sorry joke that it is in this nation), and roll the clock back to the pre-1930s.

This is somewhat true, though arguably the Democrats have also been guilty for not trying for further reform. Wealth disparities have been growing significantly in the past few decades, including under the watch of Democrats -- and the fact that they are "in bed with Wall Street," as you put it, means that Dems are about as likely as Reps to bail out the rich while making only minor advances for the poor.

In sum, there's a big difference in rhetoric, but in terms of actual economic impact or actual policy, the result is nowhere near as big. And let's be frank -- except for a few extremists who don't represent the Republican Party in general, none of the Republicans are really going to try to roll things back to pre-1930s. They're not going to actually try to repeal Social Security for example... it would destroy their reputation with older voters that lean conservative and depend on that. They're not going to get rid of Medicare. They may fight expansions of these programs, but anything more than that is just rhetoric -- just like Democrats' insistence that they are fighting for the poor when they're happy to dole out huge amounts of money to the rich and Wall Street also shows a gap between rhetoric and actual policy.

Only one is standing there in the building building and saying "I don't smell any smoke" as they ignore all the science and data pointing to global warming.

Again, we have to look at effectiveness and actual policy outcomes, not just rhetoric. Obama has great rhetoric on the environment, but has he actually done anywhere near enough? And you can argue that Congress is uncooperative, but the EPA does have some control here, and Obama has chosen not to be more aggressive with his policies. From the link:

There are legitimate roadblocks to progress in Congress, but as White House critics and supporters alike acknowledge, federal agencies set meaningful environmental policy on their own. And when it comes to climate change, their record ranges from the unimpressive to the downright harmful. The Environmental Protection Agency has advanced some modest policies that will result in minor emissions cuts, but at the same time, other agencies have shown an astonishing willingness to expand an industry whose bottom line depends on cooking the planet beyond repair.

Once again -- the "in bed with Wall Street" trumps Democratic rhetoric. So, you're asking people to choose people who are claiming to save the planet when they're barely doing anything over people who are idiots and science denialists but are at least honest that they care about things like jobs and business over the environment.

Yeah, there's a difference I suppose. But it's not a reason to vote for either party.

Only one is trying to tell women what to do with their bodies, and advocates legislating according to their particular sky fairy.

Once again, we need to look at action vs. rhetoric. Of course the Democrats say they are committed to "right to choose," but look at how they have let restrictions on abortions and clinics get worse over the years. Look at how they have resisted more appropriate regula

What and why he did it.

I am currently doing some research and I can't you how many times I run across a paper that would be perfect or to see that I buy it or I could "rent" it for $$$ for 48 hours. If the author got a piece of it, then I could possibly stomach it, but they don't. And when you have to read dozens of papers, it could easily cost you thousands of dollars to research something that you won't see a single dime in income.

I once met an author/professor who wrote a case study for the Harvard Business School. He says they don't get paid. Harvard has no problem charging big bucks for those things.

Aron had a real point about the absurd pricing of journals and academic papers.

Right, every poor person is poor due to back luck, not personal decisions and life choices.

I never said that, and no reasonably intelligent person could possibly believe that. That is just as ridiculous as your original statement that "all those assembly line/Taco Bell/Walmart people saying they want a "living wage" and $15/hr, maybe you shouldn't have fucked your life up."

The reality, of course, is that some people do make appallingly bad decisions and life choices. But there are also many, many impoverished people who are stuck in circumstances that are largely beyond their control. See unimacs reply for additional thoughts on this, and here are some more references.

The vast majority of unsuccessful people career-wise are that way because they didn't do what they needed to do to get a better job.

That is a comforting sentiment for rich people, so it is no surprise that it remains such a persistent cultural myth. How about sharing some evidence with us that substantiates your belief?

Anyone holding a security clearance is subject to periodic reinvestigation.

so, clapper was investigated and found to be guilty of lying to congress? when does his sentence in prison start?

look, if you want to be taken seriously here on slash, you have to stop YOUR lying.

Let's review what I wrote:

Anyone holding a security clearance is subject to periodic reinvestigation. Things are stricter at actual intelligence agencies, including the use of polygraphs. (Spare me the discussion on them.)

And here is evidence:

Periodic Reinvestigations

The whole thing about Clapper is you trying to put words in my mouth, and falsely claiming that I'm a liar. You seem to be providing evidence that you have an integrity problem.

Tell you what, I'll throw you a bone on the Clapper thing since you can't be bothered to come to a deeper undersanding of Wyden's underhanded dealing on your own.

Clapper and Wyden: Scenes from a Sandbagging
Wyden’s Stunt Was Congress at its Worst

`

By agriculture, you mean livestock.. Livestock soak up 50% of CA's water use. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120915/american-west-drought-being-worsened-livestock-industry

Those laws do exist in some states and the FCC also voted to ignore them.

http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

Competition from cities, which can and usually do own the right of way (ie. putting fiber cable on utility poles), is what will ultimately hit AT&T, Verizon and comcast's bottom line.

Our politicians are batshit insane from living in a "Yes we can"/"Change" propaganda bubble, and want no part of modern civilization, but the US is hardly a failed state.

FTFY. And consider the barrage of proposals from US congresscritters to further skin alive those sane Yanks who want to be free (exit wealth tax FFS, among others) before shackling those poor kids to a lifetime of American citizenship. They would be reviled by 80% of the world while traveling, their "homeland" is constantly starting one-sided oil wars and drone-bombing foreign schools and failing its own youth, what really are the benefits of being American if you don't live in 'murrica?

It's not the "handful of incidents, and fringe groups" that make me find islam to be a particularly repugnant religion, it's the millions of other muslims that are complicit in these acts of terrorism, or at the very least claim support or understanding for the groups that carry them out.

I don't hold all muslims responsible for these acts, but I hold them responsible for taking a more active role in denouncing and preventing them. Show me an islamic neighborhood in Europe openly displaying the comics in public as a form of protest and I'll be pleasantly shocked. Fat f**king chance.

BTW: "lose", "losing" - look into it.

I can't believe any FISA request was ever turned down. Basically, I thought the purpose of the FISA act was to suspend the constitution. What went wrong?

What went wrong? Apart from the too obvious naure of your karma whoring? (I guess I'll take that over lying.)

Secret court says it is no rubber stamp; led to changes in U.S. spying requests

The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Reggie Walton, told members of Congress in a letter that the court’s internal records show that more than 24 percent of government requests for recent warrants had “substantive” modifications in the wake of court review.

The FISA Court Is Tougher Than the Media Says - October 18, 2013

You’ve probably read 20 or more times that the FISA Court approves more than 99 percent of the government’s applications for foreign surveillance orders. What few media have mentioned—and none has emphasized—is that the court often bounces applications and demands modifications before approval. It does so precisely because the application process is not adversarial and secret. As Judge Walton noted, the 99 percent figure does “not reflect the fact that many applications are altered prior to final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them.” Those of us with inside knowledge have long known, and publicly said, that the FISA court scrutinizes the government’s applications with special care, but the data to prove it have been missing. Now we have them.

But the media have not reported an obvious comparison. How many federal and state applications for search-and-seizure warrants are modified before being granted? How many are denied? Knowing that would tell us a lot about how tough the FISA court is on the government.

In fact, the FISA Court looks tough when compared to the way federal district courts handle wiretap applications under Title III, as the federal law is known. Even if you stick with the misleading 99 percent figure, the approval rate for Title III wiretaps is higher. From 2008 to 2012, courts refused to grant only five wiretap applications among 13,593 applied for. That’s an approval rate of 99.96 percent. You can find that comparison in Judge Walton’s letter—it’s in footnote 6—and the information has always been available through the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for any journalist who isn’t afraid of numbers. But you won’t find it in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or any other news outlet. Bashing the FISA court is too much fun to let numbers get in the way.

Many people here hold a variety of opinions against me since I don't share their views. I'll take clarity over agreement if agreement means being wrong.

If you don't want to believe the FBI, that's fine. But then you don't really have an informed basis for much else to say unless you examine the evidence yourself, you designate someone else as worthy of trust, or choose to engage in speculation (and are clear that is what it is). If you are going to trust another party in this surely that party of trust isn't going to be North Korea given its track record of not simply lies, but fantastically unlikely lies?

Kim Jong Il Bowls a 300 and Other Great Moments in North Korean Sports

In his first round of golf ever, Kim Jong Il sinks eleven holes-in-one at the 7,700-yard, 18-hole Pyongyang Golf Club. North Korean media reports a score of 34, which would be a world record.

Would it surprise you to learn that not all the data out there supports the position of the primary advocacy group for the legalization of marijuana?

Acute cannabis consumption and motor vehicle collision risk: systematic review of observational studies and meta-analysis

Acute cannabis consumption nearly doubles the risk of a collision resulting in serious injury or death; this increase was most evident for studies of high quality, case-control studies, and studies of fatal collisions

Effects on Driving:

The drug manufacturer suggests that patients receiving treatment with Marinol® should be specifically warned not to drive until it is established that they are able to tolerate the drug and perform such tasks safely. Epidemiology data from road traffic arrests and fatalities indicate that after alcohol, marijuana is the most frequently detected psychoactive substance among driving populations. Marijuana has been shown to impair performance on driving simulator tasks and on open and closed driving courses for up to approximately 3 hours. Decreased car handling performance, increased reaction times, impaired time and distance estimation, inability to maintain headway, lateral travel, subjective sleepiness, motor incoordination, and impaired sustained vigilance have all been reported. Some drivers may actually be able to improve performance for brief periods by overcompensating for self-perceived impairment. The greater the demands placed on the driver, however, the more critical the likely impairment. Marijuana may particularly impair monotonous and prolonged driving. Decision times to evaluate situations and determine appropriate responses increase. Mixing alcohol and marijuana may dramatically produce effects greater than either drug on its own.

Marijuana Might Make You a Worse Driver Than Alcohol Does

How about where I live:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/109938/marylands-3rd-district-americas-most-gerrymandered-congressional-district

Oh, so it's entirely genetic, and that's why 20 years ago, the field's gender mix was almost 60-40 and now 85-15. Because genetics change dramatically over short timespans.[1] [2]

Bio-determinism bites. And it's an easy, lazy, insufficient answer. I, and others, are prepared to accept that there exist biological gender differences. But, given human history, you can't say that gender differences are strictly biological without evidence. And you can examine socioeconomic factors that influence gender-based occupation decisions. In the previous link, girls(and boys) with higher self-esteem are more likely to avoid gender-typical job roles. Rather substantially, if you can actually read the article, and not just the abstract. Primitivistic psychoanalysis suggests that people who fill gender-typical jobs are likely following social pressure, than innate instincts.

Sexism in IT is real, I mean, hell, ask a transgender person whose seen both sides. But even if that were 0% of the problem, it wouldn't imply genetic determinism.

Reagan was "hated" by the elites?

http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Ronald Reagan was a great friend to the elites.

"Be fruitful and multiply" enthusiasts like the grandparent AC are encouraged to experience the logical consequence of their beliefs firsthand by trying to navigate the streets of Dhaka.

Undercover of helping immigrant agricultural workers who have long needed a break in America, the American technology sector - lead by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg - has seen fit to heavily lobby Congress to increase H1-B and other worker visa permits, vastly increasing H1-B visas at a time when very good research shows that there is no shortage of tech workers in America. Zuckerberg has so far succeeded, in the Senate. What is motivating the claim for more H1-B visas?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

previously

One of the most respected technology pundits in Silicon Valley has this to say about the H1-B worker problem and Two H1-B's walk into a Bar: More on the H1-B visa problem

One of many examples of what goes on behind closed doors: an immigration attorney and his consultants teaching corporations how to manipulate foreign-worker immigration law to replace qualified American workers.

H1-B's are only the tip of the iceberg; there are more than 20 categories of foreign worker visas.

Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies on the H1-B and foreign worker visa problem. Matloff claims that Hi-B abuse has cost Americans $10Trillion dollars, since 1975. Inc. Magazine weights in Professor Matloff's Webpage

Mother Jones weighs in:How H1-B visa abuse is hurting American tech workers

Marc Zuckerberg and other wealthy tech scions - including large immigration law firms and corporation who profit from importing H1-B's continue to perpetuate this trend

How H1-B malpractice hurts the American economy

Most of the new crop of H1-Bs is coming from one of the most corrupt university systems in the world.

Indian government officials are not happy that the universities that they collude with might have some limitations placed on the abuses that have enabled them to "sell" their product to the American IT sector.

How the new immigration bill could ignite a trade war with India

How to underpay an H1-B worker

17K lives by one estimate
http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

A testimonial:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/...

I'm unsure home how that compares to the millions of lives W. saved when he invaded Iraq ;)

Of course! It's all rainbows, sunshine, lollipops and unicorns up here so there's nothing interesting to report.

Yup. And honored by a "mainly Canadian economics blog", no less.

I keep saying its impressive and I think that has to be remembered... that said...
http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

I hope the german experiment does well. But keep in mind that it is unlikely that it has gone flawlessly or that there are no consequences for making the shift.

As other states follow California's lead, it will become more and more difficult for coal plants to stay in operation.

The Clean Air Act was passed in 1970.
Existing coal plants were grandfathered in, with the assumption that they'd eventually be upgraded or replaced.
Instead, the coal industry has been operating the same dirty plants for >40 years.

The only reason "it will become more and more difficult for coal plants to stay in operation" is because the EPA has set a date for the closure of this loophole.

Related reading: The Coal Industry Has Been Fear-Mongering for 40 Years Now

Just going to put this up here.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...
http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

Not taking sides, just thought these are informative.

.
"Research" (and I use that term loosely) about the problems with the science of climate change apparently is quietly funded by the very energy companies that are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Energy companies which would have revenue issues if they were held accountable for the pollution they pump into our ecosystem.

.
The main question I have to ask is what the opinions reflected in the survey really reflect, a reaction to the misleading campaigns of the climate change deniers, or an actual understanding of what is happening to our planet.

Take a look at the issues in Miami due to increasing water levels...

It's about more than just "abortifacients".

http://www.nationalreview.com/...

Except, the four methods Hobby Lobby objected to are not "abortifacients".

http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

But I guess, if their faith tells them they're abortifacients, then abortifacients they shall be. Isn't that the whole point of the decision of the five (male) Supreme Court justices?

And we already have cases being brought to use the Hobby Lobby precedent to allow all sorts of civil rights violations, nullification of laws, and even special exemption from taxation based on religious faith. It's going to be a few interesting years until Hobby Lobby is overturned, which it almost certainly will be,

Hobby Lobby is the 21st century's Plessy v. Ferguson. But that's the whole point, right?

It's not their faith telling them they are abortifacients, It is the US Government Department of Health and Human Services. HHS says the 2 IUDs in question and the morning/week after pills in question keep a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Their faith says that life begins at conception, so being force to pay for something that keeps that life from implanting in the uterus is a violation of their religious belief.

The courts found that since this is a valid religious belief AND the government could provide the 4 questioned contraceptives through other means, that they could not force the owners of Hobby Lobby to violate their religious belief.

It's about more than just "abortifacients". http://www.nationalreview.com/... Except, the four methods Hobby Lobby objected to are not "abortifacients". http://www.newrepublic.com/art... But I guess, if their faith tells them they're abortifacients, then abortifacients they shall be. Isn't that the whole point of the decision of the five (male) Supreme Court justices? And we already have cases being brought to use the Hobby Lobby precedent to allow all sorts of civil rights violations, nullification of laws, and even special exemption from taxation based on religious faith. It's going to be a few interesting years until Hobby Lobby is overturned, which it almost certainly will be, Hobby Lobby is the 21st century's Plessy v. Ferguson. But that's the whole point, right?

"not as good at gerrymandering"

You obviously haven't seen California's maps.

Or Maryland's: http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

Further, the most dangerous cities to live in today, are precisely those cities with the strictest gun control.

Those cities enacted gun control laws because they were already the most dangerous cities. The effectiveness of those gun control laws is up for debate, but you got the cause and effect completely backwards. And you're modded up +5 Insightful. God, what's happening to Slashdot these days?

empirical evidence weighs in on my side

Sure, some of it does. But there is at least an equal amount of evidence supporting the opposing side of view, unless you ignore Japan, Hawaii, and articles like this and (yes, you read that right, The American Conservative) this and this.

My hunch is that there is probably little to no correlation between gun control and crime rates. So gun control is probably not a good way of curbing crime. But claiming that the evidence is irrefutable that more guns equals more safety is patently absurd. It's just as bad as the NRA claiming that armed teachers in every school would have prevented Sandytown. (Maybe it would've, but we'd have four or five instances each year of clueless teachers injuring a coworker with an accidental discharge or killing a student they "swore had a knife.")

I bet Democrats look at Putin with envy.

Maybe the "conservative" ones, but it shows much more strongly inside the republican sect.

A few weeks ago, Roger Pielke Jr wrote this in response to similar attacks on him by John Holdren.

BTW, the United Nations report he mentions comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group which shared a Nobel Prize with Al Gore.

Not much new there.

Warrant requests are modified regularly.

You aren't "straightening out" the picture so much as trying to confuse it.

The Sudeten crisis was Germany supposedly rescuing ethnic Germans from mistreatment. Does that sound familiar? That is what the Russian government claims they are doing - saving ethnic Russians from mistreatment. Just like they were threatening to do in the Baltic republics in the 90s.

Any place that has someone with Russian blood is apparently in danger of invasion by Russia to "save them."

Putin's War in Crimea Could Soon Spread to Eastern Ukraine

... Russian ethnicity and citizenship trump national sovereignty. At the very least, they provide a convenient pretext for territorial expansion, as they did in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where Russia was also ostensibly protecting Russian citizens—also newly minted for the occasion. Just this week, for instance, Russia introduced a law to make it easier for Ukrainians to get Russian citizenship—you know, to give Russia someone to protect.

If Russia is "well within its rights" to invade, then, I would say that NATO is well within it rights to come to the assistance of Ukraine at Ukraine's request, and Ukraine is well within its rights to rearm with nuclear weapons. Happy?

Why don't you complain about the USSR's actions to the Supreme Soviet. That would seem to be appropriate. It seems likely Putin will start reviving that once he is done rehabilitating Stalin.

Ukraine isn't Russia. Russia's current behavior is a menace to peace. If Russia was keeping Russian military forces in Russia instead of invading a neighbor we wouldn't be having this discussion. So, why don't you mind your own business and keep your country out of Ukraine?

That first graph isn't without its critics, it looks as though both the scale and the points in time that are labelled have been chosen to smooth over changes in tax revenue over time. Setting the scale at 100% does allow one to fit both a marginal tax rate of 90% and 28% within the same chart, but it does obscure significant-looking swings between 15 and 21% in revenue. Whether these changes in revenue were directly related to the marginal tax rate I don't know, though this author thinks they are:
http://www.newrepublic.com/blo...

"The tea party is the Republican Party" http://www.newrepublic.com/art... [newrepublic.com]

From that article:

According to a July Pew Research survey, Tea Party Republicans make up nearly half (49 percent) of the Republican primary electorate and fully 37 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners.

I.e., people who identify as Tea Party are only half of the Republican constituency, they are not identical with it. At the level of congressional representatives, they are even further underrepresented, because they haven't had time to kick out the senile GOP representatives in office for decades.

And that's what we were talking about originally: is the Tea Party only a way of GOP representatives to rebrand themselves. It clearly is not. Many GOP representatives feel threatened by the Tea Party and Tea Party candidates.

As an aside, the quality of your news sources is rather low; all three sources you cite have a strong political bias towards Democrats, and the three pieces you cite are anything but impartial journalism.

The Tea Party as a movement has largely been destroyed by Republican and Democratic old boys. However, the ideas and political program, namely limited government, low taxes, and spending cuts will not go away, much as you may want them to. Obama's presidency has been such a failure that I think Democrats and progressives are going to be in deep trouble in 2016.

"The tea party is the Republican Party"
http://www.newrepublic.com/art...

"More than half (54 percent) identify as Republicans"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/te...

"Views of the GOP and the tea party are virtually the same across all demographics."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I would love to see you propose something better and implement it. The truth is that we live in a world that was quite literally saved by a single guy who refused to follow orders.

But it's not like he was the only one. There was this guy and also (arguably) this guy.

To realize just how close we really came, this movie is an eye opener.

In other other news, Bloomberg, who's worth over $30 billion, just received a $1 million prize for being an outstanding philanthropist.

I live in Maryland, and my Republican representative was gerrymandered away by the Democrats. That shit happened on both sides, so quit trying to act like the Democrats are the wounded party here.

I live in Maryland, and my Republican representative was gerrymandered away by the Democrats. That shit happened on both sides, so quit trying to act like the Democrats are the wounded party here.

And you should be aware that blue states also gerrymander . . . Maryland is a perfect example, which has several of the most gerrymandered districts in the entire nation and gladly subverts its citizens' rights right to fair representation just as fast as Texas.

Maybe not.

Does Fluoride Make Your Kids Dumb?
Dr. Mercola: Visionary or Quack?
FDA Orders Dr. Joseph Mercola to Stop Illegal Claims
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations - 2011
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations - 2006
Joe Mercola: 15 years of promoting quackery
The New PuritansWhen did liberals become so uptight?

They'd never call it "Patriot talk." Remember, "Patriots" are the brave men and women who spy on everything you do to keep this great nation and its people safe.

Other awful problem of the state of the language: we've pre-Godwined ourselves. We're so ingrained with the idea that comparing something to nazi germany means that you have lost perspective and your argument has devolved into flinging hyperbolic insults, and you have therefore lost. People do not understand the literal definition of Fascism anymore, and as Orwell said in Politics and the English Language (relinked from a response to my original post by a fine poster), "The word fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies 'something not desirable.'"

In fact, "Italian Fascism promotes a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in corporative associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy."

Doesn't that sound like someplace we know? Where through "regulatory capture" (a fancy way of saying "industry writes government regulation to their benefit"), and "campaign contributions" (i.e., "bribes") the government and industry are basically one in the same?

Yes, that's America. But you can't say it! Because if you do, you lose. "Well that's ridiculous! I don't see any dictator marching Jews into ovens!"

You can't even criticize the system of our government, because the word that properly describes our system of government is no longer allowed in public debate. Orwell would be...not proud...sadly resigned?

The truly Orwellian thing about this nightmare isn't even so much the surveillance, but the wholesale redefinition of language.

Orwell's classic essay on the subject, Politics and the English Language.

don't worry about unbalancing the "krill biomass" by killing whales: we do a great job of harvesting Krill already. when we talk about overfishing, we are observing a trend of moving south as northern hemisphere fisheries are depleted. we are also observing a trend of moving up the food web to procecute the primary producers. We are literally fishing as south as we can go, and we are now harvesting the source of food for the larger animals we fish for in the ocean. There's no where else to go, and there's nothing left to fish.

Dr. Daniel Pauly from the UBC Fisheries Centre states that fisheries are a gigantic Ponzi Scheme. We also don't even know what the pre-fishery populations were, so there is no initial baseline to base your advocacy on. To think we can change the krill biomass and put the ocean back into balance by modifying whale populations is rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenberg.

Read this by Harvard Law prof, Yochai Benkler:

The Dangerous Logic of the Bradley Manning Case:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112554#

If Bradley Manning is convicted of aiding the enemy, the introduction of a capital offense into the mix would dramatically elevate the threat to whistleblowers. The consequences for the ability of the press to perform its critical watchdog function in the national security arena will be dire. And then there is the principle of the thing. However technically defensible on the language of the statute, and however well-intentioned the individual prosecutors in this case may be, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror of this case and ask: Are we the America of Japanese Internment and Joseph McCarthy, or are we the America of Ida Tarbell and the Pentagon Papers? What kind of country makes communicating with the press for publication to the American public a death-eligible offense?

Note, the espionage act doesn't apply only to people in the military.

But these fears are entirely irrational.

Going to actually TRY to back that up with more than your own opinion or do we get to hear about how you, too, are "The Voice of God" who merely hath speak to fashion thine words into truth? ;p

Nonsense. If you save 10-20% of your income every month

Assuming you CAN save 10-20% per month. Tell me, how are wal-mart workers trying to support a family on minimum wage going to do that? They can only starve themselves so far before it cuts into their productivity after all. Not everyone has something to cut, hell even people who make more can get saddled with massive medical or student loan debts. Student loans, by the way, are non-dischargeable, which means you get the carry that lovely saddle to your grave no matter what happens.

you quickly have more than enough of a safety net to cover just about every emergency, medical or otherwise

Really? I can save $40,000 to cover an emergency hospitalization because a drunk driver just performed a hit and run on me? And I can do that making minimum wage?

and everybody can save 10-20%.

Really? Even these folks here? (I can start quoting stories if you really aren't going to bother trying to understand my point here.)

If you are one step away from financial disaster, you only have yourself to blame.

Or your parents, damn them for being born poor! right?! ;p
Seeing as socioeconomic mobility is at its lowest levels ever.

Furthermore saving 10-20% would be even easier if government wouldn't force you to waste your money on costly and overpriced insurance programs: unemployment insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, etc.

LMAO! Here's an example (From a tax calculator) of what your average 40 hour minimum wage job paycheck is going to look like after withholding.
Bi-weekly Gross Pay $660.00
Federal Withholding $46.64
Social Security $40.92
Medicare $9.57
California $3.72
SDI $6.60
Net Pay $552.55

Now if you add up all the payroll taxes and multiply by 26 to get your yearly payroll tax cost? That's $1,581.06. That might be enough to cover regular preventative checkups if you're healthy and some prescriptions if you get sick. That's not enough to cover the cost of a serious disease or even a single 24 hour hospital state. Remember, not all insurance lets you get away with a quick co-pay, in many cases you have a deductible that has to be met first and that can be even higher than the number I gave above. Mine on my current plan for instance is $1750.

Now, if you were working SEVERAL jobs and managing 80 hours per week at three places total (which is what your typical minimum wage worker is doing) then yes, you MIGHT be able to afford healthcare IF YOU ARE SINGLE. Try doing that with a family to support. Rent for a two bedroom will easily run you at least $1200 anywhere reasonably populated, add on top of that food for several people, gas, essential toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc and that number gets stretched thin very quickly. Yes if you work three jobs you can probably still manage to survive, but you are effectively one disaster away from financial catastrophe.

Those programs are a gigantic rip-off; people are forced to pay into them not because they are "cost effective,"

More cost-effective compared to what? Letting poor people slowly starve to death on the streets until their rotting corpses choke our gutters? Oh certainly not! It's much cheaper to let the masses deal with the huge variety