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I don't think school shootings are really any more prevalent now than they used to be, they just tend to get more attention.

"Between 1979 and 1988 there were 27 school shootings. From 1989 to 1998 there were 55 and then they continued to increase from 1999 to 2008 to 66, so there were 148 shootings in the three decades from 1979 to 2008. What’s most disturbing is that in the three years since 2008 there have been 43 shootings, and that’s almost two-thirds of the number of shootings that occurred in the preceding decade." - http://www.salon.com/2012/03/04/inside_the_bully_economy

There is no ethical smartphone.

The question of whether Hassan was a terrorist is more interesting than you probably give credit, and really comes down to what the definition of terrorism is. Consider "Hasan passed up several opportunities to shoot civilians, and instead focused on soldiers in uniform." If he intended to terrorise the population, why didn't he shoot the civilians? Did he actually see some wider political meaning to his attacks, that American soldiers would not feel safe anywhere? And if he considered himself part of an non-state army, then are soldiers a legitimate military target? Note that question is an important one - it always comes up in response in similar situations e.g. to give two contrasting examples: French resistance attacks on German soldiers, and IRA attacks on British soldiers. If during the American Revolution, a soldier serving in the British Army had decided that the actions of the British were wrong, and to ally himself with the Americans, and he then killed some fellow British soldiers, would he have been a terrorist?

There was a similar debate over the Norway attacks, when some people argued that the attacks weren't "terrorism", even though hours earlier they had called the attacks terrorism, but literally changed terminology when it was discovered that the attacker was a Christian and not a Muslim. This is a man who espoused a very specific political platform, planned his attacks over several years, and wrote a huge thesis demanding wider political change, and who thought that his attacks would effect that change, and yet there were still people who refused to label him as a "terrorist".

Hey look over there at that evil Rush Limbaugh and even more evilily evil Iran! Nevermind that the Obama administration just declared that it has the authority to be judge, jury and executioner. Nevermind that the "Grand Bargain" zombie shit sandwich is being dug out of its grave again, where the "bargain" means the working class bends over and takes it so we can keep our $1.2 trillion military budgets, our tax cuts for the rich, and bankers bailed out. And then stuff like this:

Obama's personal role in a journalist's imprisonment

Despite that important journalism - or, more accurately, because of it - Shaye is now in prison, thanks largely to President Obama himself. For the past two years, Shaye has been arrested, beaten, and held in solitary confinement by the security forces of Saleh, America's obedient tyrant. In January, 2011, he was convicted in a Yemeni court of terrorism-related charges - alleging that he was not a reporter covering Al Qaeda but a mouthpiece for it - in a proceeding widely condemned by human rights groups around the world. âoeThere are strong indications that the charges against [Shaye] are trumped up and that he has been jailed solely for daring to speak out about US collaboration in a cluster munitions attack which took place in Yemen,â Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, told Scahill. The Yemen expert, Johnsen, added: âoeThere is no publicly available evidence to suggest that Abdulelah was anything other than a journalist attempting to do his job.â

That story was shown to be "largely bunk":
http://www.salon.com/2001/05/23/vandals/

Yep, Issa is very partisan. It gets complicated when somebody does the right thing for what are not necessarily the right reasons. I wonder what'll happen when this issue no longer garners him any press coverage?

Some Issa info: http://www.salon.com/topic/darrell_issa/

Let's put it down to the Fox News Effect, but your post is pretty much conservative urban legend crap.

In 2010 ACORN alone had over 15 convictions of fraud related activities.

Vote REGISTRATION fraud. Not actual VOTING fraud.

This is not some trivial difference, as organizations are required by law to turn in all the forms they collect. So if someone registers as Micky Mouse, ACORN would flag that form and set it aside for state officials to look at - a fact that seems to have been left out of your storyline. They can't pick and choose forms to throw in the trash, for reasons that should be obvious - partisans would throw forms from the opposing party in the trash.

Just last year at least 10 separate states investigated, indicted and/or convicted people for voter fraud and in almost every case (with at least 1 exception) the suspects were Democrats and/or their operatives.

You mean people like Usman Ali?

Ali, on the other hand, a 68-year-old Pakistani-born jewelry store owner in Tallahassee, Fla, didn't cast a vote at all. When Ali went to renew his driver's license at a Florida DMV, he was handed a stack of forms to fill out by the clerk. One of them, it turns out, was a voter registration form. He says he hadn't noticed that it was only for U.S. citizens and, in any case, he never actually voted. Ali's unintentional voter registration crime, a federal misdemeanor, resulted in his deportation back to Pakistan, though he had legally lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years.

Or Kimberly Prude?

Prude, a 43-year-old African-American woman from Milwaukee, was convicted of cashing a counterfeit check for $1,254 in 2000. She never served any jail time but was still on probation four years later, at the end of 2004, when she attended a Democratic election rally. Marching with others to City Hall that day, Prude registered to become a voter and later voted by absentee ballot, since she had also signed up to serve as a poll worker and therefore wouldn't be available to vote in person on Election Day. Since she hadnâ(TM)t served time in jail, she thought she was permitted to vote, but later found out from her probation officer that she was wrong. She immediately called City Hall in hopes of rescinding her vote. Her thanks for doing so? She was convicted of felony voter fraud by the U.S. attorney in the state of Wisconsin and sent to prison for more than a year.

The only **actual fraud** here is the Republican Party pretending this is a grave problem necessitating draconian voter ID laws when you can literally count the number of actual cases on one, maybe two hands. Out of millions and millions of votes cast nationwide.

and in almost every case (with at least 1 exception) the suspects were Democrats and/or their operatives.

Your partisan stone throwing would be funny if the Secretary of State of Indiana wasn't just convicted of half a dozen counts of actual voting fraud when he was the man in charge of the state's elections. And if Ann Coulter hadn't voted in two districts in the same election.

And if the GOP hadn't stolen a presidential election by disenfranchising tens of thousands of eligible voters in Florida.

...not the monied interests and mass media (I apologize for the redundancy) that have polluted our political discourse? How is the average American supposed to make an informed opinion on, say, Iran when the the overwhelming view presented from the point of view of right wing Israelis and Americans?

How many Americans know that for all the sabre rattling on Iran, that the 'Islamic Republic' boogyman hasn't actually attacked another nation in two centuries? How many Americans hear the hyperventilating about Iran 'getting the bomb' and know that Israel already has hundreds of nukes? How many Americans know that Iran had a secular, democratic government until it was overthrown in a coup by the U.S. and Britain?

Before you attack the population at large for not knowing shit, you might want to address the fact that the population at large is fed shit to begin with - don't be surprised with what comes out.

Your entire post gives reasons why Obama may have signed this bill while being against the portions for detaining citizens. Since he is actively in support of a currently running a UAV program used to execute the occasional citizen without a trial - (some deservedly so, some maybe not, but regardless there should be some sort of trial: http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/ )

I am guessing he doesn't have much heartburn with mere detention.

Payback for recent Anonymous hack of Stratfor. Corrupt global economic hitmen protecting themselves by going after the whistleblowers, yet again?

it is impossible to invent theories to indict them [Assange/Wikileaks] without simultaneously criminalizing much of investigative journalism

The emperor reacts violently when without clothes.

I would call helping to end the phase of the Iraq war with the US Military being officially there, a bit more than a yawn:

That cable was released by WikiLeaks in May, 2011, and, as McClatchy put it at the time, "provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." The U.S. then lied and claimed the civilians were killed by the airstrike. Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama administration was seeking. Indeed, it was widely reported at the time the cable was released that it made it much more difficult for Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain beyond the deadline under any conditions.

In other words, whoever leaked that cable cast light on a heinous American war crime and, by doing so, likely played some significant role in thwarting an agreement between the Obama and Maliki governments to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and thus helped end this stage of the Iraq war.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/

Please read these articles for a well-reasoned response to your concerns:

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/10/what_makes_a_progressive_president/singleton/
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/

Please read these articles for a well-reasoned response to your concerns:

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/10/what_makes_a_progressive_president/singleton/
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/

Sort of how this billionaire supporter of Romney does it when papers or websites investigate him: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/19/billionaire_romney_donor_uses_threats_to_silence_critics/singleton/

One minor tweak to your roster: Glenn Greenwald just wrote about how *MUCH* Frank Vandersloot / Melaleuca (a pyramid reseller akin to amway) would hate to be mentioned here. Vandersloot and his employees also have developed a slick process for tweaking the judiciary: funding opposition campaigns to local/state judges if they ever have to stand for a confidence vote.

Dude, it took literally 5 seconds of googling to find a refutation piece: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/16/the_right_is_attacking_media_matters_because_it_matters/singleton/

What is it with right wing neo cons and their bizarre character assassination schemes? It reminds me of the whole anti-AGW obsession with Al Gore.

Seriously, you are so brainwashed and yet you don't even know it. I just don't get how it happens. What deficiency in the mental process is required? I only see it happen among white people, especially Americans. Is it genetic? I honestly don't know.

What, exactly, in that Salon piece disproves anything reported by that TDC story? The Salon piece was a bunch of overly-dramatic outrage and hand-waving. But, I guess that's what typically passes for Truth(tm) among Progressives. The facts don't matter, as long as the "proper" ideological and political viewpoints and opions are adhered to and promoted.

The tactics and methods used by MM in their attempts at the intimidation and silencing of opposing viewpoints are deplorable & disgusting. They define the phrase "extreme partisanship". The news that the guy in charge is a moonbat can come as no surprise to anyone paying any attention at all.

But, for Leftist organizations like MM, the ends justify the means, and the needs of the many (determined by Big Gov. Inc.and George Soros's money) outweigh the needs (and the right to voice opposition) of the few (citizens wishing to keep their freedoms). This, also, is not news to anyone paying attention and with the ability to engage in critical thinking, free of partisan blinders.

If you want to see what the USA will look like under Progressive rule, look no further than Detroit after 5 decades of Progressive and Big Labor rule. There's your "Progressive Utopia" for you. I know. I live in the state and I'm old enough to have watched it happen. I won't allow the same thing to happen to the rest of the nation without one hell of a fight.

Strat

Dude, it took literally 5 seconds of googling to find a refutation piece: http://www.salon.com/2012/02/16/the_right_is_attacking_media_matters_because_it_matters/singleton/

What is it with right wing neo cons and their bizarre character assassination schemes? It reminds me of the whole anti-AGW obsession with Al Gore.

Seriously, you are so brainwashed and yet you don't even know it. I just don't get how it happens. What deficiency in the mental process is required? I only see it happen among white people, especially Americans. Is it genetic? I honestly don't know.

• A Staten Island satellite TV salesman in 2009 was sentenced to five years in federal prison merely for including a Hezbollah TV channel as part of the satellite package he sold to customers;
• a Massachusetts resident, Tarek Mehanna, is being prosecuted now "for posting pro-jihadist material on the internet";
• a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, Jubair Ahmad, was indicted last September for uploading a 5-minute video to YouTube that was highly critical of U.S. actions in the Muslim world, an allegedly criminal act simply because prosecutors claim he discussed the video in advance with the son of a leader of a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba);
• a Saudi Arabian graduate student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was prosecuted simply for maintaining a website with links "to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel" and "jihadist" sites that solicited donations for extremist groups (he was ultimately acquitted);
• and last July, a 22-year-old former Penn State student and son of an instructor at the school, Emerson Winfield Begolly, was indicted for - in the FBI's words - "repeatedly using the Internet to promote violent jihad against Americans" by posting comments on a "jihadist" Internet forum including "a comment online that praised the shootings" at a Marine Corps base, action which former Obama lawyer Marty Lederman said "does not at first glance appear to be different from the sort of advocacy of unlawful conduct that is entitled to substantial First Amendment protection."

...

You can also read this article by Courtney Love explainin precisely how record contracts screw musicians very very badly.

Yes, if there was anyone who knew about screwing other people, Courtney Love is it.

You can also read this article by Courtney Love explainin precisely how record contracts screw musicians very very badly.

Well she should know about screwing musicians badly.

Well, as a musician with a pal who was in the music business for a while (I'm not his kind of act, so I didn't work with him), he described it like this:
"The big distributors screw the labels in a very uncomfortable place. The labels, in turn, screw the band managers, who screw the musicians. Every time you move up in the business, you basically get to shift your position so that you are more the screwer and less the screwee." He also mentioned that because of the cash involved, if he'd wanted to screw his bands he could very easily have taken most of their share of the door and told the band members (when they woke up) that they'd spent it on alcohol, hookers, and blow.

You can also read this article by Courtney Love explainin precisely how record contracts screw musicians very very badly.

However, as others have noted, all such costs (studio rental, producer, marketing, etc) are billed to the artist, and must be paid from the artist's royalties before the artist sees a cent.

Oh, and the record company's parent company owns the studio, the production house, the marketing company, the manufacturing company, etc. So they charge themselves precisely enough to ensure they never have to pay royalties. Only a tiny number of artists will ever actually see any performance royalties.

Song writer royalties have no such encumbrances. Which is why manufactured "bands" break up so quickly for solo careers, the singers want to write their own music. Not for artistic reasons, but because it is the only way they can actually make money from being a top 20 act. Likewise, this is why the loser in TV karaoke show (Idol/etc) grand finals, tend to stay in music longer than the winners. The loser can get a deal allowing them to write their own music, the winner must accept the terms of the "Prize", which means they have songs written for them.

Courtney Love's classic piece on Hollywood Accounting

especially when it comes to religion (prayer in schools, prayer at government functions, the flagrant display of religious iconography in public buildings, denial of other religions equal access for displays, etc), the right for one to decide how to best manage body medically, and who one is allowed to have sex with, contraception, and who one is allowed to marry. Those issues hit me a lot closer to home than firearms ownership/carry, and how I'm allowed to access content vis-a-vis music and movies on the Internet.

 
How about the Assassination of American citizens without a trial for the fifth amendment violation, or Indefinite detention of US citizens without being charged with a crime for your 5th and 6th amendment violations? Does the federal government assuming the ability to detain you indefinitely without charging you with a crime, or even to assassinate you, hit you closer to home than denial of marriage to a class of people, or refusal to take down some hundred year old religious display?
 
Not trying to point the finger at you specifically or put words in your mouth, but as a general rule the people in this country have their priorities so fucked up it enrages me sometimes. These two policies recently exercised and or implemented under the demopublican rule can potentially affect any or every individual in the country, whereas the inability for gays to marry affect what, 10% of the population at most? And let's be honest, who really gives a rosy red rats ass if the supreme court has the 10 commandments on it or if some veteran memorial has a cross? FFS.

I consider myself a Libertarian, and yes I make a living because of copyright.

Correction: you take advantage of copyright to make a living. If there was no copyright, I believe that you would still make a living; possibly in a different field, possibly utilizing your other talents, possibly more successfully, possibly even benefiting society more than you do now.

I also think that piracy is rampant.

And I think that fornication is rampant.
And it was also rampant in the state of Virginia before 2005 (It was a criminal offence until Martin v. Ziherl).
Doesn't make it wrong though.

A LOT of people don't realize it is wrong.

Correction: A LOT of people don't AGREE that it is wrong.
And maybe, just maybe, the same "A LOT of people" are right about this.

But the general feeling I get from the average slashdotter is "copyright is evil because I want free stuff."

Funny. The arguments that I hear are that copyright -- in its current reincarnation -- creates artificial scarcity, locks down culture, limits the freedom of expression, robs the public domain, etc. Some of them laid down more logically are presented more eloquently than others but then, not everyone is a natural public speaker.

I hear time and again how the publishers are screwing the creators

Dont' they?

or the general public

Dont' they?

I think that things like SOPA are bad. But not that copyright should be abolished.

And I think that it should be. But then, I also believe that corrupt politicians and dirty cops should be thrown in jail to rot and corporate officers should be legally responsible for the actions of their respective corporations so it tells you how much my ideas are worth.

I also think there are a lot of people here who thing they way you think in that it is a matter of principle. BUT the noisiest argument tends to "I want my shit for free"

Then perhaps you should pay more attention to the quietly stated reasonable arguments and learn to tune out the noise.

Of course these people then call the "mafiaa" greedy

Aren't they?

This is guaranteed to get modded down because it's anti-piracy.

Well, let's test this hypothesis: Piracy is wrong. There I said it. Mod me down.

But here's the ting: the piratebay case and all the "intellectual property" discussion is is not about whether the "creative" people deserve to get paid or should be ripped of. It is a fight between the RIAA, MPAA, et al on the one side and the pirates on the other side over who gets to rip them of. Search for "Hollywood accounting", read Courtney Love does the math, or find out why some guy suddenly was called "the artist formerly known as prince" if you don't believe me about the real goals of the "MAFIAA". Now there are some exceptions to these rules; both the MAFIAA and the pirates are willing to pay some of the creators for some of the work they produce but these exceptions are few and far between.

In a fight between MAFIAA and pirates it is very easy to see who the real assholes are (hint: it's the guys promoting global censorship and life crippling penalties for what could arguably be called the equivalent of stealing a CD). That's why the discussion is so "one-sided". But all of this doesn't change the fact that pirating content is legally wrong in many countries.

Can you show me a single, solitary instance of where badmouthing the president has been treated as a criminal (or civil) offense, in the last 50 years?

You won't find one, because people bad-mouthing the President don't get arrested and tried. They just get secretly declared to be terrorists and summarily executed.

...which is AWESOME. I think it's super-great that our President has this power! GO OBAMA! WOOO! I am totally voting for him in November, I will even film myself voting and post it to Youtube so that there's public proof that I SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT UNCONDITIONALLY!!!

It's not the one I read (I think I read either New york times or Forbes), but content is 90% similar:

http://www.catholic.org/technology/story.php?id=44500

There are several others
http://open.salon.com/blog/steve_klingaman/2012/01/25/lets_not_kid_ourselves_about_manufacturing_jobs
http://gizmodo.com/5878209/why-apple-doesnt-make-the-iphone-in-america

--Coder

A million years ago I read Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood Online Entertainment Conference, explaining that situation in much more detail...

Unless you are Anwar al-Awlaki

http://www.salon.com/2011/09/30/awlaki_6/

It's just one component of civil liberties, but the number of whistle-blower prosecutions by the Obama administration seriously disturbs me. Remember, this is the guy that promised a new level of transparency in government.

What happened to “look forward, not backward”?:
http://www.salon.com/2010/04/15/prosecutions_10/

What the Whistleblower Prosecution Says About the Obama DOJ:
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/16-3

Stop the Criminal Prosecution of Whistleblowers!:
http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=731&Itemid=81

WikiLeakers and Whistle-Blowers: Obama's Hard Line:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2058340,00.html

Obama Admin: Immunity for Torturers, Prosecution for Torture Whistleblowers:
http://2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com/2012/01/obama-admin-immunity-for-torturers.html

You have made a couple assumptions in your post by relying solely on the indictment. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his article on the civil liberties issues at play here, http://www.salon.com/2012/01/21/two_lessons_from_the_megaupload_seizure/singleton/ :

The Indictment is a classic one-side-of-the-story document; even the most mediocre lawyers can paint any picture they want when unchallenged. That's why the government is not supposed to dole out punishments based on accusatory instruments, but only after those accusations are proved in an adversarial proceeding.

What you have done is convict MegaUpload based on nothing more than an assertion by the government, likely at the prodding of *AAs. The story told in the indictment may or may not be true and it definitely presents only one side of the story. Its this sort of rush to judgment, that allows the government to exercise due process free detention and execution and barely anybody bats an eye. Glen says it better than me though:

Whatever else is true, those issues should be decided upon a full trial in a court of law, not by government decree. Especially when it comes to Draconian government punishments - destroying businesses, shutting down websites, imprisoning people for life, assassinating them - what distinguishes a tyrannical society from a free one is whether the government is first required to prove guilt in a fair, adversarial proceeding. This is a precept Americans were once taught about why their country was superior, was reflexively understood, and was enshrined as the core political principle: "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It's simply not a principle that is believed in any longer, and therefore is not remotely observed.

Apparently the SSID of the WAP was "IHaveSomeConcernsAboutIsraeliGovernmentPolicy"

It's a shame the word "anti-semitic" has been rendered virtually meaningless lately. It used to mean something about hating or discriminating against Jews.

The number 0 in terms of civilian drone deaths comes from one source: the CIA. Do you trust them on this number? Why or why not? The US government is not even consistent on this number. Others place the number of civilians far higher.

These myths (of zero casualties) are familiar to those of us who have watched the US government justify its wars over the last 20 years. During every conflict since the first Gulf War we were promised that this time, technology meant we were only going to hit the Bad Guys but somehow this has never really panned out. It's almost as if these statements were mere propaganda to popularize the current conflicts in the face of opposition to past conflicts.

"Everyone" may have the tools to broadcast details, but if the mainstream media do not bring it to attention of the masses and takedown notices can keep it out of the online limelight, then only the "fringe" will every hear about it - and so no meaningful political consequences. This latest news about urinating on dead Taliban smells like textbook spin to hide even worse news in its shadow. Control of the news re: war is exactly why the government and pro-goverment media is coming down so hard on the foremost US political prisoner of conscience, Bradley Manning and the rouge publishing site Wikileaks. They are successfully influencing the majority public opinion against the first bit of real solid news to escape the lockdown control of public debate since the Vietnam war. Note: Leaking of sensitive information is obviously NOT why he is being persecuted - more sensitive leaks go without investigation all the time. There is some hope however, with some new professional investigative news channels springing up funded by viewer donations... just need to build their audience - if possible.

Gaaah, why must people say wrong things on Slashdot? I don't think the government is worried about the basement uprisings that are refering to.
The soldiers are being brought back from Iraq (the only real withdrawal I am aware of) because Bush signed an agreement to bring them back by the end of 2011. Also, Obama had negotiated to keep more soldiers in Iraq, but couldn't get unqualified immunity for them from the Iraqi government. You can read a well written article by Glenn Greenwald here if you wish to know more.

Second, if you are referring to the 'newsletters', well, we know who wrote them, and it wasn't Paul.

You mean all those people who were employed by Ron Paul to write things in his name and run his newsletter, people who were so close to Paul that it's completely implausible he never knew what they were doing? Some of them were close relatives, including his own wife! Another (one of those thought to have directly authored some of the virulent racism) still works for Paul, in a prominent position in Paul's current campaign.

Time to drop the Paulbomb, because you can't deny all the terrible things Paul has repeatedly supported in his time as a politician:

Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing cases on the Establishment Clause or the right to privacy, permitting the return of sodomy laws and the like (a bill which he has repeatedly re-introduced), pull out of the UN, disband NATO, end birthright citizenship, deny federal funding to any organisation which "which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style" along with destroying public education and social security,, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.

Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he's against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories, not to mention his belief that the International Baccalaureate program is UN mind control..

Hell, you can even use duct tape in a pinch.

I think you mean duct tape: http://www.politics.php3.salon.com/2011/10/27/ryanair_duct_tape_controversy/singleton/ OK, not really.

Wow, the Obama apologists are out in force today, I can't believe you were modded up to +5 Insightful.

http://www.salon.com/2011/04/25/obama_guantanamo_rhetoric/

excerpt below:

March 2011:

The president goes back on his campaign pledge completely. He signs an executive order to create a formal system of indefinite detention for the captives still kept at the Cuban facility. The order applies to around 48 of 172 prisoners currently held. The detention center — illustrated to be oppressive and reliant on haphazard methods by the freshly released documents — is now enshrined as playing a continuing role in U.S. policy.

Most notably, a promise to close the facility does even not accompany his announcement of the executive order. Here is his March statement in its entirety:

. . . (cf. original article in link above)

Little wonder then, that Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Washington Post, “It is virtually impossible to imagine how one closes Guantanamo in light of this executive order In a little over two years, the Obama administration has done a complete about-face.”

These liberal blogs that I am following have been very critical of Obama:

http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/
http://www.americablog.com/
http://agonist.org/
http://crooksandliars.com/
http://www.juancole.com/

Dailykos mission is too elect Democrats. They are more partisan than the progressive blogoshpere at large.

With anti-Talibanism on the rise, expect them to start detaining anyone with a beard or mustache, women who wear scarves, men who wear hats, etc.

Would not that be poetic justice?

"Lawmakers eventually dropped the military custody requirement for U.S. citizens or lawful U.S. residents".

You just have to read the text carefully, it's not a "requirement" to detain U.S. citizens in military prison without trial, it's optional. It means the president, or his administration, can decide on a case by case basis whether they want a citizen to receive a standard trial or be held in military prison. Check Greenwald for a full explanation of the bill.

Also, if you read the statements coming from the Obama administration around the time of the passage of the NDAA, the reason he dislikes the detention rules in it is not that it gives the president the power to ignore the Fifth and Sixth Amendments whenever it suits him, but because it suggests that Congress has to give him permission to ignore those amendments. Glenn Greenwald (among others) has been analyzing this pretty closely.

Now, in theory, the Supreme Court could give this the obvious constitutional smackdown it deserves, but this court doesn't seem all that inclined to do so.

"We in Israel really MUST insist that you Americans institute a censorship regime!"

That has to be the single most amusing phrase ever to appear unironically in the Paper of Record: Twitter terrorism. And, of course, the authority cited for this menacing trend is that ubiquitous sham community calling itself âoeterrorism experts,â

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/the_u_s_government_targets_twitter_terrorism/singleton/?mobile.html

As usual, Glenn Greenwald has covered 'twitter terrorism' and other parts of the never-ending war in all its absurdity: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/20/the_u_s_government_targets_twitter_terrorism/singleton/

So, you advocate the slow slide into imperial presidency, then to imperial presidency for life or something? Because that is where we are going and the risk of doing nothing is the greatest risk of all.

Obama has solidified due process free detention, execution, and even enshrined indefinite detention in statute: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/singleton/

These types of polices are the hallmarks of tyrannical governments. This is where we are going now if nothing changes, and shivering in your boots about a third party will only speed it along, rather than prevent it as you fear.

I still vote according to the lesser of two evils philosophy

The problem with this philosophy is that it can have the opposite effect and lead ironically to greater evil (*). Take for instance civil liberties. Obama has pushed forward every single civil liberty violating policy of the Bush administration. Yet because he is a democrat, there has been no push back at all. As a result, the radical usurpation of power by the Executive branch under Bush, has become the new normal under Obama.

As an example of the democrats' cynical nature, Marty Lederman once excoriated the Bush administration for using secret legal memos to justify due process free detention. Now that he is part of Obama's legal team, he is writing secret legal memos justifying due process free execution. The sad fact is, if there was a GOP president doing what Obama is doing, the democrats would pretend to care about civil liberties and at least put on a show of resistance. Instead, violating civil rights just became standard practice, a result far more evil than having the practice but also having some hope that opposition would change it.

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/09/the_awlaki_memo_and_marty_lederman/

Vote for a third party candidate. No they won't win, but if enough people abandon the mono-party with the dem/GOP faces, it will inject issues into the discussion as dem/GOP politicians try to figure out how to pander to the disaffected. It certainly is not a waste of a vote to refuse to choose between A) being raped to death at night by the Democrats or B) being raped to death by day by the GOP. You can't win that so don't play.

(*) While Obama did not appear to be a "lesser evil" candidate in 08, he clearly will be in 2012 given his wholehearted embrace of neocon philosophy.

Of course they're all from the same site -- it's my site. If you bothered to look, you'd find all the citations you seek. It's a hassle to have to keep repeating them, so I aggregated them.

Par.2: Obama ran in 08 as a candidate who would be different from the Mitts and Newts. He turned out to be their brother in policy however. It's very faint praise to say he's no worse than the GOP, which should be a hint at how much he sucks.

What exactly has Obama done to avoid the christian nation thing? Nothing. In fact, look at what happened with Plan B, where Obama allowed his appointee with a MA in Public Administration to overrule the FDA and whole panel of scientists. This stems from the same case BTW, wherein a federal judge excoriated the Bush administration for using politics instead of science to base its decisions. Indeed, Obama seems just as intent on perpetuating and financing myth as anyone: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ObamaAnnouncesWhiteHouseOfficeofFaith-basedandNeighborhoodPartnerships

Nobody pretends to be ticked off: Marty Lederman ripped the Bush administration hard for using secret legal memos to support due process free detention. Now that he is part of the White House legal team, Marty Lederman is WRITING secret legal memos to support due process free execution. http://www.salon.com/2011/10/09/the_awlaki_memo_and_marty_lederman/singleton/

If the Democrats really cared about civil liberties, little ones like the right to not be killed without trial or incarcerated without trial, they would be calling for Obama's blood. Because they are not, I can only conclude that their support of civil rights is a campaign issue when engaging the GOP and nothing else at all.

As for your last paragraph, there are not two parties. There is one party, with two faces, to trick people like you into voting for its candidates. That way, nothing changes.

Vote for a third party candidate of your choice. Winning isn't the only thing that voting is for. If enough people voice dissatisfaction, it will inject new issues into the mainstream consciousness, which may in itself be enough to cause change even without an electoral victory. But voting for Anthrax because you hate Ebola, or vice-versa, does nothing. Absolutely nothing at all and is the dumbest choice you can make. Choose to resist, not suck it up.

Obama forgave all the torturers thus making him complicit. But that's par now that we have a system where certain people are simply above the law.

Obama doesn't villainize Muslims the way the Republicans do. The fact that he uses drones to attack the Taliban is irrelevant, as they aren't true Muslims, just murderers and thugs using religion as an excuse.

Nice job of rationalization, that. And if you think only a handful of innocents being killed by remote control bombs is OK -- that's insane. If you think it's not, I suggest you volunteer to be an innocent bystander and see how that makes you feel.

As for Gitmo -- it's BS to blame the GOP. Was Newt holding a gun to his head when Obama did this:

March 2011:

The president goes back on his campaign pledge completely. He signs an executive order to create a formal system of indefinite detention for the captives still kept at the Cuban facility.

http://www.salon.com/2011/04/25/obama_guantanamo_rhetoric/singleton/

Abortion is such a non-issue when we're talking about true fundamental human rights, like the right not be executed without trial or the right to a hearing where the government must prove it has a right to hold you in prison. When people are subject to due process free execution and detention, all other issues pale in comparison. None of that matters if you are dead or in a gulag.

Obama is a neocon. Accept it and run a primary challenger.