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The 4th Amendment, for example.

The article contradicts you.

DHS spokesman Jason Ciliberti says the ACLU's description of the zone as "Constitution-Free" couldn't be further from the truth and that the check points follow rules set by Supreme Court rulings.

"We don't have the abilitty to just set up checkpoints willy-nilly," Ciliberti said. "The Supreme Court has determined that brief investigative encontuers do not constitute a serach or seizure."

When citizens or visa holders encounter a checkpoint, most are waived on after showing identification, but if an agent suspects the person is not lawfully in the country, the agent can detain the person until the agent's investigation is satisfied.

The government has long had the power to set up such check points, but has recently expanded the number of permanent and 'tactical' check points and deployed them in areas they hadn't before -- such as near the Canadian border.

The courts, however, are not on the ACLU's side -- and have regularly ruled that the Fourth Amendment's protections don't extend to the border area, airport screening or even to laptops at the border.

Free the Nuremberg 24!
A presidential pledge broken, thank goodness

The Fourth Amendment is in fine shape, but many people here have mistaken notions about its application..

Detailed here:

1) oil depletion allowance, [which is only available to smaller, independent companies, not "big oil"]
2) expensing indirect drilling costs, [which is an accelerated expensing schedule. It changes the timing of expense writeoffs, not the amount.] and
3) a tax credit for taxes paid to foreign nations during foreign operations (foreign tax credit) [which every multinational company gets, not just oil companies.]

When you hear about oil company "subsidies", this is what they're talking about.

The US is the only one allowed to use this tech to abuse human rights, and it really doesn't want to risk losing its lead in technology used for spying on citizens.

You are completely wrong. First off, it's legal, and not an abuse of human rights. (And no, this isn't the first time a court has made a similar finding.)

Second, it's necessary because some American citizens, immigrants, and visitors don't want to live in peace, but have taken up the cause of extremists. (Just a sample - there are many, many more.)
Daniel Boyd pleads guilty to US terrorism charges -9 February 2011
Domestic Terrorist 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Guilty to Four Charges - Feb 2, 2011
Stockham requests new attorney - February 05, 2011
          Note: This individual is apparently an American Sunni Muslim who tried to attack a Shia Muslim Mosque.
Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert - January 27, 2011
Baltimore man accused of plotting to blow up military recruiting station in Md. - Thursday, December 9, 2010
Oregon Bomb Suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud Wanted "Spectacular Show," - November 29, 2010
Faisal Shahzad: 'War With Muslims Has Just Begun' - Oct. 5, 2010
2 MN women charged with aiding Somali terrorists - Aug 5, 2010
U.S. links 8 to Somali terrorist group - November 24, 2009
And here's one for the Canadians: Converts Who Kill

And how did this get started? September 11 attacks

If you bother to read bin Laden's 'letter to America', you will see that in order for him to call off his minions, Americans will have to convert to his flavor of Islam, give up the constitution, implement Sharia law (which will mean cutting off hands of thieves, stoning adulterers, no more alcohol (prohibition again), drugs, porn, executing homosexuals, etc., etc., etc.), and many other odious demands.

Ultimately this is about various factions of Islam trying to extend their power by force. It won't go away soon. I suggest you get used to it.

Dreaming of Al-Andalus

By the way - the Muslim Brotherhood is not helping.

Since WWII, there are have been precisely two periods where the ratio of U.S debt to GDP rose in a sustained way. The first was under Reagan/Bush, when under Reagan especially, the (democratic) congress consistently approved a budget that was lower than what the president recommended. The second was under Bush Jr./Obama.

That's a bit of a deceptive way to view it since it makes it appear that debt was shrinking most of the time, when in fact it was growth in GDP (inflation) which is causing existing debt to become a smaller share, not fiscal responsibility.

If you look at the historical revenue vs. outlays, you'll see that Washington has an almost completely pathetic record of spending within their means. Except for a brief period in the 1950s and during the 1990s when Clinton and a Republican Congress coupled with the tech bubble managed to achieve budget surpluses, every administration and session of Congress since WWII has had a budget deficit. It's not a matter of some years being good and some being bad. Nearly all were bad, just some were worse than others. (Raw numbers here if you want.)

False. Look for example at the comparison between private and federal government compensation. Both raise, but the raise of government compensation is much quicker. CPI was 174 in 2000, 210 in 2008.

The tea party is the name for a group of people who have been led by the nose by millions and millions of dollars poured into "grassroots" network

[CITATION NEEDED] However, we DO know that Media Matters Inc. IS funded by a single man with an angenda to control the world cash flows, known as George Soros who recently directly donated a million with a specific agenda [CITATION].

4-7 trillion dollars we've spent and have accrued liability for with pointless boondoggles in Iraq and Afghanistan

[CITATION NEEDED]. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars under the Bush administration cost around $200 billion, but the Obama administration recently granted $390 billion for the same wars (NOT including the stimulus and health care bills) [CITATION].
 
No, you are just severly misinformed.

It is comments such as this http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/08/027102.php The numbers in the link are for the networks as a whole, but I have seen articles on line in the past that list just the news divisions and they are comparable. As for the counts I was referring to, I was thinking of on-air personalities.

I've not seen stories of LARGE groups of "RIGHT WINGERS" gathering to beat people up or drag people behind trucks.

I've seen the Obama Administration ignore CLEAR intimidation of voters (Black Panthers). I'm sure the violence at the G9/G20 summits was all because of the police, and not the peaceful protesters.

I haven't seen news lately of gays being beaten on a regular basis, I do see video of left wingers assaulting people all the time. If you want, I'll get you a list the MSM won't show you. But you'd chalk it up to Faux news or DrudgeReport hysteria. It only happens if CNN or NYT says it did.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mithridate-ombud/2010/03/24/medias-myth-right-wing-violence

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=PA&last=Leboon&first=Norman

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6848176.ece

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/09/021387.php

http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/09/25/msm-promotes-left-wing-fantasies-of-right-wing-violence/

Of course the global warming hysterics true tyrannical intentions have been unmasked. Stories like this have zero credibility and do not belong in the politics not science section. How about a story about a space elevator?

Oh heck no, I want to see more of this stuff. It's got to be better than science coming from an unbiased source. You can tell it's the truth because it has an actual email in it. When we're done here, I'd like to see the absolute, inarguable proof that Pope John Paul II was a bigot by reproducing the email from him to Yassir Arafat telling the joke about black (Nelson Mandela), the redneck (George W. Bush) and the jew (Menachem Begin) going into the bar and arguing about who's going to pay for the drinks (Mandela won't drink anything until they've all paid the same amount; Begin won't pay anything unless he gets to drink the most and Bush gives him the money; Bush drinks all the drinks, shoots the bartender, and tells the other two they had all agreed the bartender WMDs behind the bar even though they turned out to be those little umbrellas he likes so much in his drinks). If you like, I can help with the headers to make it even more true than the email in the blog post by making them all accurate including IP numbers, even if the headers say it was sent after both were dead.

I'm just kidding, the pope didn't tell that joke. I just made that joke up. He told the one about "Peter, I can see your house from up here."

Of course the global warming hysterics true tyrannical intentions have been unmasked. Stories like this have zero credibility and do not belong in the politics not science section. How about a story about a space elevator?

Oversimplifying somewhat, I think of the public sector as userspace, and the government as kernel space.
The reason OS kernels work is that the kernel/user space divide is strictly enforced.
Conversely, conflation of the two is actively killing us.
Your criticism is fair: communicating detailed ideas via /. ransom notes is absurd.
But if I wasn't laughing, I'd be doing something unspeakable.
Exit question: is passing non-existent legislation any more sober?

Well, 60% of her decisions have been overturned... some by the Supreme Court Justices she will join... so...

That figure is dramatically incorrect - read Powerline's take on this, certainly no friend of hers. An excerpt:

"It relates only to Sotomayor's decisions as to which a petition for a writ of certiorari was granted by the Supreme Court--a total of only five. (The overwhelming majority of such petitions are denied.) Of the five cases in which the Supreme Court granted the writ of certiorari, it reversed three. Not only is this a ridiculously small sample, the overall rate of reversal of cases in which the Supreme Court grants cert appears to be around 70 percent."

Even if you do not approve of her (I myself am neutral) that's not a good figure to quote.

how come all the climatologists predicting global warming based on man's CO2 emission failed to predict that temperatures would remain steady and fall slightly after 1998

Perhaps because they hadn't included that El Nina of 1997/8 raised temperatures before declining slightly? Eleven of the warmest years recorded were in the past 13 years.

Oh yeah, what is the relationship between the temperature rise on other planets circling our sun and that of Earth?

"Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data."

Falcon

Of course this never happens in western comics at all, it's a uniquely Japanese phenomenon not found in comics produced
by such reputable companies as Marvel, DC and the like.

I could go on... in fact, I could probably just make every letter a link and it'd still work.

Special bonus: http://forums.comicbookresources.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=31045&d=1167172520

In fact, it is the government that can't take your money, your freedom or your life without good reason. Private industry feels no compunction against doing so.

This comment is laughable in light of what the government is doing RIGHT NOW to illegally take GM's assets.

People who made legitimate investments in GM are being cheated by the Gov't and the UAW (through raw Gov't corruption) in ways that would be clearly illegal if the company were in actual bankruptcy!

3) The Global Warming Trend does not follow the Sun activities close enough for it to be the cause of the trend. 4) The only thing we know of at this time that could be causing this global warming trend is CO2

5)We are talking about the release of trillions of tons of CO2 that has been buried for millions of years.

6) If we keep increasing will will make the planet uninhabitable by us.

Actually the "Global Warming Trend" follows Sun activities quite closely and CO2 levels not at all (at least when looking at recent variations in CO2 rather than over longer periods where CO2 levels at times were hundreds of times higher than their current levels).

Here's a graph of the correlations: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/03/Don_Easterbrook1.017.php

Certainly given that there have been periods where, as I said, the level of CO2 was hundreds of times its current level, it's hard to take your "If we keep increasing will (sic) will make the planet uninhabitable by us." seriously.

Do you have evidence to back up your claim?

Finally, note that since the end of the last ice age we have seen two periods of higher temperatures than we have now and three periods of comparable temperatures.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/03/Dennis_Avery4.012.php

The above links were taken from this post:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023144.php

3) The Global Warming Trend does not follow the Sun activities close enough for it to be the cause of the trend. 4) The only thing we know of at this time that could be causing this global warming trend is CO2

5)We are talking about the release of trillions of tons of CO2 that has been buried for millions of years.

6) If we keep increasing will will make the planet uninhabitable by us.

Actually the "Global Warming Trend" follows Sun activities quite closely and CO2 levels not at all (at least when looking at recent variations in CO2 rather than over longer periods where CO2 levels at times were hundreds of times higher than their current levels).

Here's a graph of the correlations: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/03/Don_Easterbrook1.017.php

Certainly given that there have been periods where, as I said, the level of CO2 was hundreds of times its current level, it's hard to take your "If we keep increasing will (sic) will make the planet uninhabitable by us." seriously.

Do you have evidence to back up your claim?

Finally, note that since the end of the last ice age we have seen two periods of higher temperatures than we have now and three periods of comparable temperatures.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/03/Dennis_Avery4.012.php

The above links were taken from this post:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023144.php

3) The Global Warming Trend does not follow the Sun activities close enough for it to be the cause of the trend. 4) The only thing we know of at this time that could be causing this global warming trend is CO2

5)We are talking about the release of trillions of tons of CO2 that has been buried for millions of years.

6) If we keep increasing will will make the planet uninhabitable by us.

Actually the "Global Warming Trend" follows Sun activities quite closely and CO2 levels not at all (at least when looking at recent variations in CO2 rather than over longer periods where CO2 levels at times were hundreds of times higher than their current levels).

Here's a graph of the correlations: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/03/Don_Easterbrook1.017.php

Certainly given that there have been periods where, as I said, the level of CO2 was hundreds of times its current level, it's hard to take your "If we keep increasing will (sic) will make the planet uninhabitable by us." seriously.

Do you have evidence to back up your claim?

Finally, note that since the end of the last ice age we have seen two periods of higher temperatures than we have now and three periods of comparable temperatures.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/assets_c/2009/03/Dennis_Avery4.012.php

The above links were taken from this post:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023144.php

Where are the posts comparing Obama to Hitler? Would Stalin be a better comparison?

I can't stomach the idiocy, but feel free to dig around Free Republic, WorldNet Daily, Powerline, Patriot Room, etc.

You'll find all manner of unpleasant things compared to Obama as well as cute backronyms of his name and the cold creeping realization that some people actually believe the batshit crazy things they are saying.

Mars and Jupiter have been experiencing "global warming", too.

Oh yes, you're totally right! I bet you're the sort who argues over accuracy of Earth's temperature records, but you're willing to believe that we have enough data to show global warming on Mars and Jupiter FFS.

Anyway. From Realclimate:

Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data.

A couple of basic issues first : the Martian year is about 2 Earth years (687 days). Currently it is late winter in Mars's northern hemisphere, so late summer in the southern hemisphere. Martian eccentricity is about 0.1 - over 5 times larger than Earth's, so the insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) variation over the orbit is substantial, and contributes significantly more to seasonality than on the Earth, although Mars's obliquity (the angle of its spin axis to the orbital plane) still dominates the seasons. The alignment of obliquity and eccentricity due to precession is a much stronger effect than for the Earth, leading to "great" summers and winters on time scales of tens of thousands of years (the precessional period is 170,000 years). Since Mars has no oceans and a thin atmosphere, the thermal inertia is low, and Martian climate is easily perturbed by external influences, including solar variations. However, solar irradiance is now well measured by satellite and has been declining slightly over the last few years as it moves towards a solar minimum.

But what I would really like to see ... is a comprehensive breakdown of funding ...

The problem is, the Obama donations have been shown to not even implement the simplest of credit card validation. Their software readily accepts made-up names and addresses, gift cards, and doesn't even filter for credit cards sourced by American accounts (which is a violation of campaign finance laws to have contributions from foreign countries).

• In early October, citizens began reporting fraudulent donations made to the Obama campaign on their credit cards. Flash in the pan, lasted about 2 days on the talk radio circuit, but...
• PowerLine broke the story by discovering that Obama's donation site bills no questions asked, including readers from England and made-up names/addresses...
• National Journal finds gift cards work which can be purchased anywhere in the world, and wonders why the FEC isn't enforcing this campaign law violation...

Essentially, they are using the $200 reporting limit to masquerade illegal donation practices, and none of it will hit the mainstream media until November 5th.

You know, yours started out as a seemingly somewhat insightful comment. Then you come in with lines like, "The Associated (with terrorists) Press" and you unmask yourself as totally off your rocker. It also doesn't help that almost all of your links point to what is clearly essentially a political propaganda site.

OK. I realize I probably won't change your mind, but I do want you to know I didn't throw that term out without reason. Here's why I said what I said:

AP Admits relationship with terrorists
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/009026.php

another angle to that same story: AP photographer Rahmatullah Naikzad was a witness to a Taliban murder.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/07/associated-with.html

AP and Reuters photographer Bilal Hussein colludes with insurgents
http://sirhumphreys.blogspot.com/2005/10/ap-and-reuters-photographer-bilal.html

Gunmen take up position behind a garbage bin **as they engage British troops** in central Basra, Iraq: http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/1005-Embedded-with-the-Enemy.html

http://caosblog.com/5367

"A group of smugglers recently gave an Associated Press photographer rare permission to accompany them as they dug one tunnel..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081400721.html
More on Kevin Frayer's hang time with the tunnel-digging, weapons-smuggling thugs of Gaza:
http://www.snappedshot.com/archives/1068-Embedded-with-the-Enemy.html
which resulted in some beautiful propaganda shots. Who needs a media relations department when you can get it for free courtesy of AP?
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0h2FcWH0gtbCn
http://www.daylife.com/photo/0eRMfTXdBvcpc/Palestinian_tunnel_diggers

I love the way it's written. It's so non-judgemental.

Gazans are finding an antidote to their growing isolation: digging tunnels under their border with Egypt to smuggle everything from weapons to cigarettes to people.
Gee, when I feel isolated, I go hang with friends. I don't dig tunnels and smuggle weapons like guns, bombs and rockets to be fired indiscriminately into civilian areas. But remember, there's no bias at AP.

one final case:
http://rising.blackstar.com/embedded-with-the-enemy.html

I love it. The "agenda" is destruction of terrorists, which is exactly what has been happening. Yet idiots such as yourself gripe about ONE GUY who no one even knows if he's alive or dead anyway, and who is not in any position to do anything about it.

(Yet your messiah, B. Hussein Obama, insists that all the "bad guys" from the 1993 WTC attacks are "incapacitated." Yeah, right).

Here is some more excellent analysis:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021207.php
Forget the Olympics, forget goofball Edwards: this is important, lads.

Well, most of this information is buried in dry industry and government reports. So save you some hunting I will link you to some articles that I got the quotes from that ALSO have links to the reports in them:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/05/020571.php

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/04/despite-energy-crisis-dems-vow-no-new.html

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=296435488187160

http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?Page=d4b72449-7edb-493d-88ff-76bfe669e0f2

Enjoy!

Sometimes it is enlightening to consider other viewpoints.

We're hitting the terrorists with a big rock. Al Qaeda's number two says Iraq is their most important battlefield. And they're getting mashed way over there, away from our other rocks.

I would have PM'ed or emailed this to you since the discussion has been archived, but felt compelled to reply to this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=451310&cid=22440922, and this is the only way possible it seems.

The immunity provisions were meant to apply to activities related to the president's warrantless wiretapping program instituted as a result of 911. I had thought that those activities would have been covered under the previous FISA passsage, but evidently that was not the case.

I'm not sure that the 4th ammendment would apply in this case as I believe that precedent indicates that executive wartime powers might supercede that protection. It hasn't been tested in court yet, but this: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/012760.php seems to indicate that there is a decent chance that the activities of the government/telco's might be upheld. No doubt the telco's view the provision they got as an insurance policy, though I believe the executive is primariy the responsible party in this case.

I don't see how the telco's could be held resposible for granting executive requests that the justice department (at least at the time) thought were legal. Considering the relatively low number of senators who voted against the immunity provision, it could be argued that the Democratic leadership was also for granting immunity and simply authorized those members for whom it might have posed political problems permission to vote against it. As I see it, the issue here is not the retroactive immunity granted to telco's but the (at least implied) immunity that certain govt parties might then be able to claim. It will interesting to see how this plays out in the house.

Try this instead of money: Punishing companies for assisting the President acting within the scope of his Article II powers to protect the lives of Americans from terrorist attacks is bad policy and stupid politics.

That is the current state of the law. The federal appellate courts have unanimously held that the President has the inherent constitutional authority to order warrantless searches for purposes of gathering foreign intelligence information, which includes information about terrorist threats. Furthermore, since this power is derived from Article II of the Constitution, the FISA Review Court has specifically recognized that it cannot be taken away or limited by Congressional action.

That being the case, the NSA intercept program, which consists of warrantless electronic intercepts for purposes of foreign intelligence gathering, is legal.

It's worth noting that all of the cases cited above involved warrantless searches inside the United States. The NSA program, in contrast, involves international communications only, and the intercepts take place at least in part, and perhaps wholly, outside the United States. Thus, the NSA case is even clearer than the cases that have already upheld Presidential power. -- On the Legality of the NSA Electronic Intercept Program

The FBI keeps arresting and convicting people in this country for ties to terrorist organizations. Now, how do you suppose domestic surveillance contributes to that? Did the idea cross your mind that those arrests and convictions, not to mention the other disrupted plots, are the reason we haven't had something like the Bali bombing, or the London tube bombing, or the Madrid bombing? Of course I'm sure that you also know that the Canadian bomb plotters had connections in the US, that the US helped the Germans foil a dangerous bomb plot, and British and American surveillance helped foil a major attack? There are plenty of other cases as well.... for anyone that cares to know.

On the Legality of the NSA Electronic Intercept Program

NBC IS REFUSING TO RUN PRO-TROOPS ADS from Freedom's Watch, but you can see them at the link.

They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we'd see a sort of soft fascism in which corporate media would freeze out views that were politically uncongenial. And they were right!

The ads are surprisingly benign and (one would think) non-controversial. They literally say "Thank You" to the troops and "Happy Holidays". Neither ad takes a pro- or anti-war stance, merely a "support the troops" position. Which is the position we are told both sides believe.

"Freedom of speech: at some of our networks, you can't even buy it!"

NBC IS REFUSING TO RUN PRO-TROOPS ADS from Freedom's Watch, but you can see them at the link.

They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we'd see a sort of soft fascism in which corporate media would freeze out views that were politically uncongenial. And they were right!

The ads are surprisingly benign and (one would think) non-controversial. They literally say "Thank You" to the troops and "Happy Holidays". Neither ad takes a pro- or anti-war stance, merely a "support the troops" position. Which is the position we are told both sides believe.

"Freedom of speech: at some of our networks, you can't even buy it!"

NBC IS REFUSING TO RUN PRO-TROOPS ADS from Freedom's Watch, but you can see them at the link.

They told me that if George W. Bush were reelected we'd see a sort of soft fascism in which corporate media would freeze out views that were politically uncongenial. And they were right!

The ads are surprisingly benign and (one would think) non-controversial. They literally say "Thank You" to the troops and "Happy Holidays". Neither ad takes a pro- or anti-war stance, merely a "support the troops" position. Which is the position we are told both sides believe.

  "Freedom of speech: at some of our networks, you can't even buy it!"

Don't forget http://powerlineblog.com/. My dad uses another one, too, but I can't recall it at the moment...

I wouldn't stand by and acquiesce to illegal activities, why should they be allowed to, irrespective of who asked?

Maybe because it isn't illegal? A warrant isn't required for everything done by law enforcement.

I am not a lawyer. These guys are and here is their analysis.

And you don't have to "prove" you've been listened to. You can clam you were and make a reasonable case you were. Convince some judges. You just can't sue based on "what if it happened to me!"

If no one can even come close to showing they were harmed by this program, then how is it harmful? Should the courts go around preemptively prohibiting whatever they want based on what-if?

You talk like there's only a possibility of cheating on one side of the aisle. To do so is to ignore evidence that Democrats are in fact also cheating. In my home state of Wisconsin, there's extensive evidence that fraud is taking place, and the culprits are Democrats:

• Five paid Democratic campaign workers slashed hundreds of tires on rented GOP get-out-the-vote vans the day before the 2004 election.
• The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel discovered multiple-thousand-vote discrepancies in the number of people who voted and the number of ballots cast in a number of Wisconsin municipalities in the 2004 election.
• In the 2000 election, the FBI was called in to investigate thousands of votes from invalid addresses cast in Milwaukee.
• In 2004, the GOP challenged thousands of invalid addresses [The article plays the race card -- good reporting there, Washington Post] based on undeliverable mail from the voter registration rolls in Wisconsin and Ohio. Their challenges were all struck down.
• In 2000, two illegal aliens went to Racine, WI, told the registrar they were illegal aliens, and then were allowed to register anyways.
• Recently, state Senate candidate Donovan Riley was fined and had his bar license revoked for voting twice in the 2004 election: first in the morning at his vacation house in Oconomowoc, WI and then later in the afternoon at his main residence in Chicago. The only reason he was discovered was his candidacy for state Senate -- which makes me wonder seriously how often this sort of thing takes place. There is no checking between neighboring states, and with a big chunk of Wisconsin's population just a couple hours' drive from Chicago and Minneapolis, it would even be theoretically possible to vote in Minneapolis in the morning, Madison in the afternoon and Rockford in the evening -- would anybody know?
• In 2000, a wealthy DNC donor was caught giving cigarettes to homeless people in exchange for their votes. While not demonstrably illegal, it certainly represents shady tactics.
• Governor Jim doyle has repeatedly vetoed voter ID propositions proposed by the Republican-controlled state assembly. I don't understand opposition to such a reasonable requirement that could go a long way towards improving election integrity.

Kerry won Wisconsin by just .38% of votes cast; before him, Gore took the state by just .22%. If improper voter registration, people voting with nonexistent addresses, and illegal aliens casting votes, a few thosuand fake votes for were cast -- the state may have gone a different way; extrapolated to a national scale, and all of a sudden our election integrity is in big trouble.

What lies behind the Daily News' "scoop" is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which Congress enacted late last year. For the most part, it deals with routine matters relating to the postal service. But Section 1010(e) of the Act included this paragraph; there was nothing like it in the previous version of the statute:

(c) The Postal Service shall maintain one or more classes of mail for the transmission of letters sealed against inspection. The rate for each such class shall be uniform throughout the United States, its territories, and possessions. One such class shall provide for the most expeditious handling and transportation afforded mail matter by the Postal Service. No letter of such a class of domestic origin shall be opened except under authority of a search warrant authorized by law, or by an officer or employee of the Postal Service for the sole purpose of determining an address at which the letter can be delivered, or pursuant to the authorization of the addressee.

President Bush signed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act last month; as he often does, he released a signing statement that described how the executive branch would construe several sections of the act. The signing statement included this paragraph:

The executive branch shall construe subsection 404(c) of title 39, as enacted by subsection 1010(e) of the Act, which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection, in a manner consistent, to the maximum extent permissible, with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances, such as to protect human life and safety against hazardous materials, and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.

This is what the Daily News describes as an assertion of sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail. In fact, though, I think the paper has the story exactly backward. Under pre-existing law, a search warrant was normally required to open first class mail (but not other forms of mail). However, many exceptions to the requirement of a search warrant have been recognized. The Fourth Amendment does not require a warrant in all cases; it requires that all searches be "reasonable."

...

So what President Bush is saying is that he understands that law enforcement authorities have exactly the same power to open first class mail that the had prior to the enactment of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, at least with respect to exigent circumstances and FISA-authorized searches.

These guys are lawyers and bloggers. I think their analysis carries significant weight.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016398.php

"...I think the paper has the story exactly backward. Under pre-existing law, a search warrant was normally required to open first class mail (but not other forms of mail). However, many exceptions to the requirement of a search warrant have been recognized. The Fourth Amendment does not require a warrant in all cases; it requires that all searches be "reasonable."

One broad category of exception to the requirement of a warrant is "exigent circumstances." Generally speaking, if there are exigent circumstances (e.g., a danger that evidence is about to be destroyed), a warrant is not required. Thus, to construe the act as permitting warrantless searches in cases of exigent circumstances such as the possible presence of hazardous materials, means that in this regard, the act did not make any change in pre-existing law.

Likewise with the President's second qualification. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, warrantless physical searches are authorized in some circumstances. Thus, the President's signing statement means that he does not construe the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act as changing these provisions of FISA.

So what President Bush is saying is that he understands that law enforcement authorities have exactly the same power to open first class mail that the had prior to the enactment of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, at least with respect to exigent circumstances and FISA-authorized searches."

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016398.php

for a lawyer's view of the signing statement.

The actual signing statement is here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20 061220-6.html

The problem is that slashdot readers are pig-ignorant about law and the constitution. I've seen at least four butchered versions of the fourth amendment posted so far. And that only requires a copy-and-paste from any of thousands of sites on the web. God help us if the readers try to figure out that things like "unreasonable" are also in the 4th. The strategy of slashdot lately seems to be to post something and then let the bozos vent at length.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/016398.php

for an actual lawyers view of the subject.

*If* this is true (and we won't know without a fair trial) he deserves the usual penalty for treason.

A Pulitzer Prize?

The HALP photo was fabulous.

There is another one too, from the Army-Air Force game.

The HALP photo was fabulous.

There is another one too, from the Army-Air Force game.

Fox News, on the other hand, actually takes itself seriously.

Sort of like CBS, ABC, NBC, the New York Times, etc., right?

Bias in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing; attempting to claim objectivity when clearly you're not objective is far worse.

I agree

Owning up to your own bias is in my estimation, a very mature thing to do.

I agree.

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism....

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran...

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.' .....

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'....

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'. ...

Biographies of Winston Churchill note mostly in passing that the BBC systematically barred Churchill from discussing his defense and foreign policy views during the 1930's; Sir John Reith was head of the BBC at the time. In the second volume of his Churchill biography, for example, William Manchester states that "Reith saw to it that [Churchill] was seldom heard over the BBC..." Reith wrote of Churchill in Reith's monumentally voluminous diaries, "I absolutely hate him."

In the fall of 1938 Churchill was scheduled to appear on the BBC for a half-hour talk -- on the Mediterranean. When the Czech crisis erupted, Manchester reports, Churchill asked that the program be cancelled. On the Saturday before Parliament's debate on the Munich Agreement, Churchill agreed nevertheless to meet with (future Communist spy) Guy Burgess of the BBC. Churchill complained to Burgess, according to Burgess's recollection, that "he had been very badly treated in the matter of political broadcasts and that he was always muzzled by the BBC."

Why did Reith detest Churchill? In Reith's eyes, Churchill was of course a warmonger, and Reith, not coincidentally, held Hitler in the highest regard. How little times have changed.

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism....

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran...

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.' .....

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'....

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!'

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'. ...

Biographies of Winston Churchill note mostly in passing that the BBC systematically barred Churchill from discussing his defense and foreign policy views during the 1930's; Sir John Reith was head of the BBC at the time. In the second volume of his Churchill biography, for example, William Manchester states that "Reith saw to it that [Churchill] was seldom heard over the BBC..." Reith wrote of Churchill in Reith's monumentally voluminous diaries, "I absolutely hate him."

In the fall of 1938 Churchill was scheduled to appear on the BBC for a half-hour talk -- on the Mediterranean. When the Czech crisis erupted, Manchester reports, Churchill asked that the program be cancelled. On the Saturday before Parliament's debate on the Munich Agreement, Churchill agreed nevertheless to meet with (future Communist spy) Guy Burgess of the BBC. Churchill complained to Burgess, according to Burgess's recollection, that "he had been very badly treated in the matter of political broadcasts and that he was always muzzled by the BBC."

Why did Reith detest Churchill? In Reith's eyes, Churchill was of course a warmonger, and Reith, not coincidentally, held Hitler in the highest regard. How little times have changed.