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You left out cyber-industrial complex

I would be very surprised if ObamaCare even made it into THOMAS.

Be surprised then. Both The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the earlier House version called The Affordable Health Care for America Act (subsequently amended into an entirely different bill) are in there. (And apropos of TFA, trying to find those bills then extract a stable URL is a pan because the UI appends session specific data to query result URLs).

But it turns out there's a good reason why you might have the impression that Obama was secretive about the health insurance reform bill.

Keep in mind that when it came to health insurance reform the political game had three sides. The Democrats in Congress wanted to pass the most ambitious reform bill they could manage. The White House wanted a bill big enough allow them to say they delivered on reform promises but not so big Obama face the kind of shit storm Clinton faced when he tried to do insurance reform. The Republicans wanted to force Obama and the House Democrats through the same political meat grinder they put Clinton through in the 1990s.

Obama was inexperienced in national politics at this point. His strategy was to make a high profile call for reform, then leave it up to the House to come up with a package of specific proposals that it could pass. The intent was to get a reform bill passed without staking too much White House credibility on the specifics, and not to give opponents a political punching bag before the details of the actual bill had been worked out. This was a miscalculation. The Republicans were able to attack straw men proposals like death panels, bolstered by the lack of political leadership from the White House. And by leaving the specifics up to the House, Obama got a bill that was a lot more ambitious and politically risky than he wanted (source:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/health/policy/21reconstruct.html). It was also some 70 billion dollars more expensive than he wanted (source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34753.html).

The House Democrats, for their part, based their proposals on Romney's Massachusetts plan, which in turn was based on Bob Dole's Republican alternative to Clinton's reform plans. While this would seem to be a politically safe move, the lack of leadership from the White House meant they ended up taking the political damage for a much more radical government takeover of health insurance, while at the same time alienating their base for *not* doing that.

In the end Republicans were able to gain a significant political victory in Congress and and advantageous position against Obama at the price of enacting their own health care plan from the mid 1990s.

(Go Daddy contends that their security systems were not breached, but instead that the recall website was brought down due to unauthorized access of the email address associated with the domain registration account.)
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76723.html#ixzz1vpWrlb5a

Since Go Daddy is saying that this is not a security breach of their system, I guess this means they have no intention of ever fixing the this completely stupid and inane security response of theirs.

This article indicates that Roque the Younger called "Victim 1" to 'say that the page had been taken down by “high government officials and that everyone would pay for getting involved against Mayor Roque.” '

Now that is poor hacking skills!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76723.html

The forest for the trees is that a: microsoft does this and b: they're the ones leading this campaign against google and encouraged others to campaign against google. But nice try.

changing search engines is exactly true, and you *can* do that. However, scraping data from "competitors" (which they aren't) - scraping data from sites with good data to aggregate their reviews is not an abuse of position. It's aggregation of information. Taking yelp reviews for google maps reviews is an agreement google had with yelp. That's not discrimination, that's a strawman to call that "competition" or abusing competition.

The adwords thing is something stupid, but it's not any different than Microsoft getting entire corporations to sign up for using windows and requiring that they do not support any other OS (yes, this is in every company wide subscription based windows 7 deployment/office365 agreement).

Nice try to mislead the entire issue, step by step, along with a similar reply. from Neokushan. Can we stop with the obvious shills to just make this sound like it's a real problem? the "I love (thing), but (comments of hate for a product)" is a really old shill technique and we're bored of it. It's like "I'm an MSCE and love windows and do windows deployments all day, but microsoft is evil". We're tired of that kind of shit.

If you had linked to a real article covering the matter you'd see that the EU is just telling google to comply before they look to press charges.

That doesn't prove Fox News is MORE biased, only that they are. How do you quantify which is more biased? Obviously your opinion carries more weight for you, and mine for me.

I'll see your John Prescott Ellis, Heidi Noonan, and Tony Snow, with Al Sharpton, and Kieth Olberman and Chris Matthews and raise you Dave Weigel of Journolist fame, Susan Roegen, and George Stephanopoulos.

To me the issue isn't whether bias exists. It does. To me the issue is whether the United States is a better place if both political points of view and parties are held accountable by the corporate media. My answer is yes, it is. But I don't drink any particular Party's cool-aid, YMMV.

Ron Paul announced Monday that he would no longer campaign in states that have yet to hold their presidential primaries, effectively putting an end to the last remaining primary challenge to Mitt Romney. “Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Paul said in a statement released by the campaign Monday afternoon. “Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”

Then support this... http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75896.html

I know... Oh, those crazy Pauls... Always coming up with those crazy political ideas. I mean just crazy, like this one. Eliminate the TSA... That's just crazy! I mean what would we... I mean, what... Uh... OK, they may not be that crazy after all.

The good news is it sounds like this one will get the big V.

That's what he said about the NDAA, and we all know how that turned out.

Their primary mission wasn't canceled until 1991. Most were destroyed as one of the terms of the arms reduction treaties.

Cite: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42732.html

It would be nice if politicians could also be taught to recognize words instead of randomly using them to attack the opposition.

Why recognize words when identifying suitcases full of hundreds is easier. The only words these idiots understand is Corporate Toad-licker.

It would be nice if politicians could also be taught to recognize words instead of randomly using them to attack the opposition.

Already known, even to amateurs.

And the White House has been warning the media about this.

Actually, I've pretty much only have seen the vitriol spewing forth with idiocy from the usual race baiting crowd. Most reasonable, thinking people have remained silent on the issue, waiting for the wheels to turn.

Since it is popular to post "Thanks to TSA, I now drive instead of flying", I will point out that the House and Senate are currently in a showdown that likely will result in a cutoff of federal highway funding.

Here is a CNN article about the situation: http://articles.cnn.com/2012-03-21/politics/politics_congress-transportation-bill_1_committee-chairman-john-mica-highway-bill-senate-democrats

And a FoxNews article: http:/// www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/03/24/obama-urging-congress-to-end-transportation-standoff/

And a Politico article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74498.html

It's long been a liberal stance that policies that increase fossil fuel energy prices are a good thing and that we should pursue policies with that goal and mind (e.g. cap and trade). Steven Chu, the guy obama picked to head the energy department, has made this point very explicitly, and it's hard not to fathom that the administration has been pursuing energy policy with this goal in mind (Even if you agree with blocking the keystone pipeline and the moratoriums on offshore drilling, I think there would be an agreement that these would indeed affect oil prices) .

Now that the prices are rising you'd think the administration and democrats as a whole would be celebrating. The problem is, of course, once the price spikes do hit, the populace tends to get mad (and usually it's the lower class that gets hit the most by it). So now they have to backtrack by blaming somebody else for the price spikes.

Actually, Bush believed that global warming is a real problem but he had reservations about how to handle it on the global level.
 
Either way I say a big "fuck you" to your ilk. You want to insult people and turn around and expect cooperation from them? Where does this way of thinking come from?

From the government that brought us flag@whitehouse.gov. "Homeland security" is a tool used by a media-obsessed administration to justify its ever-increasing intrusiveness. This kind of robotic behavior in which common sense isn't allowed to override unreasonable strictness isn't making us safer, but it is making us miserable. Terrorist attacks have the word "terror" in them for a reason. The killing of innocent victims is just a vehicle for the ultimate goal of instilling paranoia and apprehension to influence behavior, and now we're fretting over jarred cupcakes. Mission accomplished.

So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here?

I really don't understand why further regulation is needed here to protect the rights of the content owners. Are there not copyright laws in effect? Don't they already have the ability to take down sites (with a certain amount of due process), sue for damages, etc?

I often see the use and positive impact of regulation (not dumping raw sewage in the river, etc) - but I still don't follow what exactly the need really is to provide more control to the corporations over the net (I absolutely understand their desire for it, but not any valid reason why there should be any further corporate control allowed).

The timbre of this administration remains the same. It gave away health care by inches to the corporations until they were able to declare "we win!" while trying to look like they were actually fighting. And now they're doing the same with the 'net, as far as I can tell: putting on a dog and pony show, but preparing to hand the show over to those paying the lobbyists.

Exactly. Let's not forget how Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnak whored themselves out to the RIAA/MPAA straight out of Lamar Smith's office. No waiting period to dispel any appearance of impropriety. They know it doesn't matter, just follow the money because the corruption is so ingrained.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70149.html

Just because it's not one of the other two, major parties, or one of the several minor parties, doesn't make it "a credible, nonpartisan ticket that pushes alternative centrist solutions to the growing problems America's current political leadership seems unwilling or unable to tackle." It makes it a different party, which is by definition partisan.

And practically every party claims to offer only "a credible ticket that pushes alternative centrist solutions to blah blah blah".

This new party might have something to offer. But painting it as a non-partisan effort is lying.

But what else do you expect from a party organized by the 1%? How about calling itself non-partisan while organizing itself as a party:

AE states that it is “non-partisan” in its approach, and also claims that it is not a political party. However, to get a ballot line in some States you have to identify as a political party. Also, their draft by-lawscontain this section:

“Section 7.2. Transition to National Organization. Pending the formation of state committees, the Board of Americans Elect shall be deemed to be acting in each state as an authorized state committee and to perform and exercise all duties, powers and responsibilities of a state committee as may be required by state law. In states where Americans Elect has met all statutory requirements to form a minor political party, such organizations shall be considered separate legal entities from Americans Elect, and shall be governed by the Board pending qualification as a national political party in accordance with law in the 2012 election.

You can expect secrecy and total control by its directing board:

This board is to have unfettered discretion in picking a committee that can boot the presidential ticket chosen by voters if it is not sufficiently “centrist” and even dump the committee if it doesn’t like the direction it’s heading.

Campaign finance reformers have already condemned Americans Elect for switching its organizational status under the Tax Code from political organization to 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. This change allows an organization to shield its donors. The group, which says it has raised $22 million of its $30 million goal, insists that it doesn’t have to be registered as a political organization, with publicly disclosed donors, because it is not a political party.

So it defines itself as a party to get on the ballot, but with a legal invention to fund itself as a "social welfare org" to keep its donors secret. It is known, however, that its $5M seed money came from a hedge funder. Its founding board has people who were Bush's EPA Director and previous FBI and CIA directors, among similar backgrounds.

Note that I am not saying that's any different from the other parties. In fact, I'm saying it's not any different.

“The dynamic is clear. Once SOPA — and its Senate counterpart, Protecting IP Act, or PIPA — became high-profile among the Internet community, the lazy endorsements from companies and various hangers-on became toxic. And now, those supporters are scrambling, hollowing out the actual support for the bill. Suddenly, a bill with ‘widespread’ corporate support doesn’t have much support at all,” Dayden said.

If you haven't seen, the scale of construction on these projects is mind-bogglingly large. See here for some juicy pictures of the site under construction. It's just astounding.

I certainly consider any congressmember insider trading on their privileged info to be criminals. Darrell Issa, for example, bought deeply discounted property from a bank he had the power to bail out or not. But the rest of them, and there are many regardless of party, are all criminals, too. Somehow, though, you read the Wikipedia article and missed the political crimes that were the subject of my post saying I don't trust the Issa bill this Slashdot story reports.

Solyndra was not a scam - it was a failed investment by the Federal government. Its fund has had far fewer failures, especially during this recession, than its private counterparts. It failed because Obama failed to stop China from dumping solar illegally. There do seem to have been some collusions between DoE and Solyndra, delaying its bad outlook until after the election, which do seem criminal. Those are misdemeanors, though, the kind that rise to felony only in their commonplace frequency. And I don't see Obama directly implicated, even though there are appointees who might be. If there's actual evidence of Obama actually doing something for personal gain rather than according to an established (and valid) industrial policy I'll believe it when I see it.

I don't really trust any of them. But Issa's career, especially his political career, gives me ample reason to distrust him and the products of his office. For example, the Solyndra that you miscall a scam, Issa has wasted ever more precious government time and money flogging in terms that are at least as applicable to his own promotion of Aptera which was a far less reliable investment than was Solyndra. Somehow you didn't notice that in the Wikipedia article, either.

Libertarians are Republicans who don't want to admit it. Corporate anarchy in the power vacuum vacated by legitimate government. Republicans are Libertarians who don't want to admit it. Corporate anarchists.

I am registered as no party. Parties are the problem, even fake ones like the Libertarian Party. They're political corruption clubs. There are, however, degrees, as in valuing any human activity. Republicans are the worst degree of distrustworthy politicians.

Typical political response from Bachmann (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69492.html)

House Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) has been holding hearings on the corruption he accuses Obama having when Federal loan guarantees were given to Solyndra, the large solar startup that went out of business this year. Issa has also been busy denying his own work using his own power to try to get the same loan guarantees for Aptera, which is in his own district. Now Aptera has also failed. Will Issa investigate himself for corruption?

Good job completely avoiding the topic at hand. How does your favorite candidate's plan to bring home the troops make any difference for emergency responders?

- National Guard would come home AND money would be available in case of real emergencies.

Oh, how cute. Most conservative idiots just try to link Obama to the middle east or Islam. Instead you want people to think he is a Star Wars Wookie from Kazakhstan? Yeah, that makes perfect sense if you're on heavy drugs.

- no, I just like the SOUND of it:

Just say it outloud: BORAT CHUBAKA.

It really sounds better than his name.

By the way, it's on the record in this site (I can find the links), I don't believe in any of the nonsense about Obama, he is whatever, it doesn't matter to me one bit. His mother is a US citizens, so is he. He says he is Christian, good for him. I am an ATHEIST. I don't care.

As opposed to what other president that we've had in the US in the past several decades?

- PRECISELY.

--

Now, tell me this: are you sympathetic to the OWS demand that the banks stop having special privileges with the government? Are you against special privileges that the banks have, with all that money?

If you say 'YES', then you are a hypocrite. You are against some special privileges but you are for other special privileges.

FEMA is no better than the banks, it's all moral hazard, it's all fake insurance and it's all financed by theft (either via taxes or via inflation - printing or via future taxes - borrowing).

To me the banks getting bail outs or the victims of natural disasters getting bail outs - SAME DEAL. They all have moral hazard provided by government and they all get bailed out with theft. They all should go out of business and they all should have private insurance and be regulated by market regulations, not gov't bullshit.

if you say 'NO' - then I can understand your position. You like big gov't, you are with all this spending, you are fine with borrowing, taxing income, printing and inflating money, then your position is NOT hypocritical, but it is the WRONG position.

--

As to whether Ron Paul has no chance. Whatever. Let us look at the facts.

Ron Paul is pulling in millions from tiny donations, he pulled in 8 million in the third quarter of 2011. He is steady at 11-15% support.

He just won another straw poll in Iowa with 82% out of 430 voters.

In the Iowa voters result, Paul took 82%. Following him were Herman Cain with 14.7%, Rick Santorum with 1%, Newt Gingrich with 0.9%, Michele Bachmann with 0.5%, Rick Perry with 0.5%, Gary Johnson with 0.2%, with Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman 0%.

for non-Iowans who voted he ALSO won:

In the tally of non-Iowans who voted, Paul won 26% followed by Cain at 25%, Perry and Santorum tied at 16%, Gingrich at 11%, Bachmann at 6%, Romney at 1%, and Huntsman and Johnson with 0%.

See, that's called COMMITMENT. You think it takes a majority to win? It takes a group of dedicated people acting as one and not sitting on their asses.

Ahem... you were saying?

FWIW, "all extremists should be shot" was never more relevant.

And where the fuck are all the civil libertarians on THIS PRESIDENT?

ACLU chief 'disgusted' with Obama You asked?

The assault on our right under Obama has increased, yet you dumb cocksuckers just let him get by with it.

'

Who's this "you", Willis? Not everybody is an authoritarian or an Obama fanboi.

So this means the concept of prior art is moot?

That is correct: "The America Invents Act switches the U.S. patent system from a first-to-invent to a first-to-file nation.

You can invent and use and sell something all you want, but if you did not file a patent on it then someone else can file a patent and sue you for selling your own invention. Prior art no longer exists unless there was a patent for that prior art.

You are mistaken, plenty of people vote for somebody that I would vote for.

You will care when interest rates rise for everyone from the local bonds building your schools to state bonds building roads and bridges because those levels of gov't are dependent on federal funds, that is taxes paid by state residents and laundered through the federal government and returned at varying ratios with strings attached. It may even effect the interest rate on your home mortgage if it's not fixed.

The ratings agencies have warned the feds for months. They wanted to see $4 trillion in cuts and only one plan offered that. It was the one called "Cut, Cap & Balance" and passed by the Republican-led House first with some Democrats joining in. The Democrat-controlled Senate voted immediately to table the bill. It never even got a debate.

The White House belittled the plan as "Duck, Dodge & Dismantle" when all the cuts talked about are reductions in automatic increases. Since the Budget Act of 1974, the federal government depends on "baseline budgeting" and today that means a guarantee that budgets will rise 7.5% over the prior year every year. We should be using "zero-based budgeting" where departments must justify every budget dollar.

We know from debt commissions and other studies, there are billions--maybe $100-200 billion according to the non-partisan GAO--in overlapping and duplicative spending but we have Democrats screaming nothing should be touched and anyone who wants spending reform is a "terrorist" (Vice Pres. Biden) or wants to "destroy" government (Minority Leader Pelosi). This is NOT helpful.

Republicans offered their long term reform ideas months ago in the form of the so-called "Ryan plan." Democrats offered criticism all year but no formal counter proposal. There was nothing in writing that could be "scored" by the CBO and Obama's budget received ZERO votes in the Senate. Senator Majority Leader Reid said it would be foolish for his congressional Democrats to offer a budget. That body hasn't passed a budget period in 829 days. Way to avoid responsibility and accountability!

Instead the president's party and its allies used the GOP proposal in divisive, misleading campaign ads. One even showed a doppelgänger of Congressman Ryan pushing an wheelchair-bound elderly woman over a cliff when the plan itself doesn't effect existing benefits for anyone 55 or older. Again, NOT helpful. (Hey, what happened to the "new tone" of "civility" after the Tuscan shooting?)

The president talks about "millionaires and billionaires" when the actual tax changes would effect, not those super rich alone, but persons making $200,000 or couples at $250,000. Small business people filing as S-corps or a cops and teachers in some high cost of living areas like NYC. Taxation needs fundamental reform not just higher rates on easy political targets who are also the most able to avoid taxation. Just as Ireland about Bono.

For anyone reading here who doesn't know and feels guilty a

Here you go: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html
I'm going to guess that you also do not believe that Ayers ghost wrote "Dreams From My Father" as well.

We've exported most of the industry to foreign governments where only state-owned corporations are allowed to drill for oil but "the price is determined by the free market?"

After having a front-row seat to the slow bleeding inflicted upon the industry over the past two and a half decades, I was curious about how the people the rest of y'all handed the power to felt about y'all. This morning I found out:

Putin: US is a 'Parasite'.

Have a day, guys.

To be sure, Republicans claim the Treasury can just "prioritise" interest payments to avoid a default. Read the meticulous analysis that Jay Powell of the Bipartisan Policy Center did of the Treasuryâ(TM)s cash flows in August for a sense of how risky that is. Among his findings:

        For example, on Aug. 3, we project that the government will have about $12 billion in receipts and $32 billion in committed payments, including a $23 billion Social Security payment. And Aug. 15 presents a triple threat: a $19 billion daily deficit, a $29 billion interest payment and a quarterly refunding auction to pay off a maturing $27 billion bond.

Even assuming that Treasury manages to remain current on its debt, the firestorm that arises when vendors, pensioners and soldiers stop getting paid will be unprecedented. As the nonpartisan analysts at ISI Group note, the failure of TARP to pass on the first try in the fall of 2008 may not do justice. The main fallout then was the plunge in the stock market. This time, it will not be just financial market turmoil but âoevoter outrage associated with the prospect of an immediate 44% cut in federal spending that would instantaneously overwhelm the Capitol Hill switch boardâ. Both parties will be blamed, but Republicans more. After all, some, such as Michele Bachmann, have opposed raising the ceiling precisely to induce cuts on such a scale.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/06/republicans-and-debt-ceiling

So just stopping spending isn't that simple, and if you do manage to do it without defaulting on debt payments, you'll disrupt many lives.

If you really want to bring technological dominance back to the US, reduce or eliminate the corporate income tax. Right now, the US rate is crippling pretty much every industry that relies on large-cap businesses and forcing them outside the country.

Even Barack Obama and Bill Clinton favor a cut in the corporate tax rate.

They actually replaced an old tweet saying they had regained control of the account. Fox has also addressed the issue in mass media outlets Why haven't they addressed it on their account? Who knows.

A lobbying firm [Bonner and Associates] working for a pro-coal industry group sent lawmakers a total of 13 fraudulent letters opposing the House climate bill — five more than initially believed, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming said Tuesday. The fake letters ... purported to be from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, senior citizens groups and Creciendo Juntos, a Hispanic advocacy organization.

Source, 2010.
It seems that the fossil fuel industry will do ANYTHING, no matter how unethical, to convince you that the scientific theory of Gobal Climate Change is a hoax.
In the end I guess it doesn't matter if they succeed in convincing you because they'll just send out letters, in your name, assigning you whatever opinion they want you to have.

At the crux of it all is what is intellect?

I went through the system and I got my degree. My own view is that the college/university system has little to do with intellect.

It is a mass education system that has more to do with job creation and ideology than any serious attempt at academic study.

Not to pick on the current president. But has anyone read for example Michelle Obama's Master's thesis? http://www.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_1-251.pdf

There is no intellectual merit to it at all. It reads like an opinion piece.

About the last refuge for real academic work is in the hard sciences. Yet even there you see the problems. Professors have to constantly make up studies and work to show value to administrators and grants...

And so are geeks anti-intellectual?
I'd prefer to ask:

Have Colleges and university become anti-intellectual.

I have this underlying theory that all institutions are inherently corrupted over time. As Locke would say, power corrupts and absolutely power corrupts absolutely.

Just as the church was one associated with God...
universities used to be associated with intellect.

We can all see in plain sight how ridiculous it was to associate belief with the church.

In time, we will see that associated intellect with educational institutions was also ridiculous.

And no... peer review does not solve anything. When the institutions in question get to pick their peers... when there is a lot of self interest and ideology involved...

you don't point out that there is a hell of a lot of money sloshing around in all this, I doubt that these peoples motives are as pure, they are not just worried about 'national security.' Fraud in defense contracting is extremely common. See Boeing tanker contract fraud, BAE systems Bribery and the primary contractor for trailblazer, SAIC, has had previous fraud prosecutions for the FBI information system they worked on and the New York citytime contract: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110527/FREE/110529884 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/business/16tanker.html?_r=2 http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0210/US_settles_with_BAE_in_Saudi_bribery_case.html This kind of activity is very common in the defense department and more generally in corporate america, see the massive amount of fraud that at least partially caused the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The U.S. needs to attack white collar crime much more vigorously. http://natsecurityeb.blogspot.com/2010/10/top-secret-america.html http://natsecurityeb.blogspot.com/2010/10/13-bankers-vrs-brooksley-born.html

There is a hell of a lot of money sloshing around in all this, I doubt that these peoples motives are as pure as you present them, they are not just worried about 'national security.' Fraud in defense contracting is extremely common. See Boeing tanker contract fraud, BAE systems Bribery and the primary contractor for trailblazer, SAIC, has had previous fraud prosecutions for the FBI information system they worked on and the New York citytime contract: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110527/FREE/110529884 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/business/16tanker.html?_r=2 http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0210/US_settles_with_BAE_in_Saudi_bribery_case.html This kind of activity is very common in the defense department and more generally in corporate america, see the massive amount of fraud that at least partially caused the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The U.S. needs to attack white collar crime much more vigorously. http://natsecurityeb.blogspot.com/2010/10/top-secret-america.html http://natsecurityeb.blogspot.com/2010/10/13-bankers-vrs-brooksley-born.html

Men with no oversight are doing what they will in the name of national security because they've convinced themselves that they can't permit 9/11 to reoccur, and that it was their fault. They've driven themselves mad, falling into the mentality of "those who prefer security to freedom." It's not that they're innately cruel tyrants, or sadists, it's that they're paranoid and guilt-wracked—a horribly dangerous combination when you add on the "defend the collective" mentality that causes police officers to protect each other when corruption charges manifest.

you don't point out that there is a hell of a lot of money sloshing around in all this, I doubt that these peoples motives are as pure as you present them, they are not just worried about 'national security.' Fraud in defense contracting is extremely common. See Boeing tanker contract fraud, BAE systems Bribery and the primary contractor for trailblazer, SAIC, has had previous fraud prosecutions for the FBI information system they worked on and the New York citytime contract: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110527/FREE/110529884 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/17/AR2006081701485.html http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/business/16tanker.html?_r=2 http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0210/US_settles_with_BAE_in_Saudi_bribery_case.html This kind of activity is very common in the defense department and more generally in corporate america, see the massive amount of fraud that at least partially caused the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The U.S. needs to attack white collar crime much more vigorously. http://natsecurityeb.blogspot.com/2010/10/top-secret-america.html http://natsecurityeb.blogspot.com/2010/10/13-bankers-vrs-brooksley-born.html

You think he's gonna wave a white flag and take a trip to the Hague because a SEAL team comes knocking on his door?

Knocking, indeed. Using 4 helicopters. And some say the reasons the home was not bombed is that Obama wanted a proof and wanted to avoid civilians killed unnecessary - which is commendable indeed.

Now, commendable as it is and also an undeniable success, the story itself is at best a war story, and not about bringing one to justice. My objection is mixing the two in presentation: war is and will be war, a beast totally different from justice.

"Let's go pick a fight," proclaimed Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). "If liberals in the Senate play political games, then shut down government. I say shut it down." http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/04/02/spending-fight-political-calculus

“Listen, there’s no daylight between the tea party and me,” the Ohio Republican [John Boehner] said in an interview with ABC News conducted Wednesday. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52722.html

the [Tea Party Rally] crowd chants: "Shut'er Down! Shut'er Down!" http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/04/shut_er_down_shut_er_down.php

Now, who do think will get the credit for the shutdown, if it occurs?

We have excellent congressional newspapers:
http://thehill.com/
http://www.politico.com/
Washington Post.

I agree the competition is important but it doesn't do anybody any good to have competition with one reporter that doesn't have time to follow up.

Don't paint the GOP as the ones screaming about the Constitution, some of the Democrats are doing it as well, hell Kucinich thinks the President could be impeached over it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/21/dennis-kucinich-obama-impeachment_n_838502.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51595.html

To some degree this is what a lot of people do before a romantic date.

Agree. Or what a successful salesman does before going into a large negotiation.

Let's suspend the black helicopters, people. These are not supermen capable of reading minds or "Jedi mind tricks." And despite some in congress being complete idiots, I don't think they were hypnotized or given a case of Stockholm syndrome.

All in all, if that's what they were doing, it looks like a big waste of time. Many of those *targeted* were already clearly supporters of the war and the military and likely didn't need much persuasion.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he was certain top military officials would investigate any abuses or wrongdoing. He added that he was the last person who needed to be convinced of more resources for Afghanistan, never mind by the arts of a “psy-ops” team.

Now were they lied to...quite possibly, and I'll bet they are lied to by every other department wanting an increase in their budget.

And your point is? All this comes from Media Matters who on their own about page says:

"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." Emphasis mine.

Hardly a unbiased source of which they make no secret.

Donors include George Soros, one of Beck's prime targets. (They don't publicly list their donors.) They are well known for attacking anyone on the right-wing, namely anyone who is popular in the conservative movement: Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Palin, etc.

There needs to be a Media Matters to correct Media Matters.

Because the text of the speech is always distributed to the media before hand.

I just tried looking for evidence that this is true, and could not find any through a Google search or through a search of Wikipedia. Can you cite any sources for this?

Evidence and I did not bother looking for it until 2 min. ago. They probably had it a good bit longer.

Why not throw "target" in there with a surveyor's mark! Did Palin take over /. while I wasn't looking?

You are promoting an atmosphere of fear and hate.

It was a knife fight anyway, so he brought a gun.

Obama brings a gun to a knife fight

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night.

June 14, 2008.

Oh, and the Arizona shooter? A full-fledged US-flag-burning, Bush-hating, 9/11 Troofer MORON:

He became intrigued by antigovernment conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by the government and that the country’s central banking system was enslaving its citizens. His anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government.

Yeah, a flag-burning, Bush Derangement Syndrome-addled 9/11 Troofer gets his cues from Sarah Palin. More likely Keith Olbermann and Daily Kos, no?

So sorry to blow your meme up with facts.