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Ok, if it is a known practice, cite it.

Originalism. It's not hard to find.

Find me some supreme court decisions that disregarded amendments in favor of what the Founders thought. Or appeals court decisions. Or circuit court. Or traffic court.

Oh, you want to see it in an American legal context? Most especially you'll want to look at the criticism of the Dred Scott decision for the most infamous example.

More recently, well, there other sources of information as to the patterns and practices of your average self-proclaimed originalists.

It's a bankrupt and destitute moral philosophy.

Good question... Maybe the roof is sloped?

BTW, I just saw this old article which suggests Assange has a "sunlamp", but as in my other comments, I can wonder if it is good enough for adequate vitamin D production?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
"The fugitive has just a sunlamp, a running machine and internet connection in the threadbare room inside the ground-floor apartment in Knightsbridge."

A comment here suggests Ecuador only rents a few offices from the Columbian embassy, so maybe they don't control enough contiguous space to get Assange to the roof?
http://www.talkleft.com/story/...
"They are saying the Assange hasn't seen light since he got there, so I assume no roof access, and judging from the vehicle traffic, it doesn't even appear to have a garage. He's sleeping on an air mattress in someone's office. I can't find the link, but I read that Ecuador only occupies a couple offices in the building, basically renting space from the Colombian embassy."

And:
http://boards.straightdope.com...
"The "B" implies that the embassy occupies one of the floors, not the entirety of number 3. Which floor depends on how they are labelling them. The usual way in the UK would be for the ground floor to be plain "3", then the next floor up "3A" etc. Now, it looks like this building has a mews level, so who knows, it may just be the one floor above ground level, rather than the second."

So, it seems possible the Ecuadoran embassy subpart of the building has no roof access.

Entrapment is the FBI forcing you to buy drugs.

No, that's the old definition. I believe that's called SOP now.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/5/15/121647/790

Chuck Schumer is one of the biggest pro-government control-freak assholes in congress. He has no qualms bending logic, twisting and lying to spin whatever propoganda he needs to in order to advance his agenda. He has never met a law he didn't like, and works to restrict freedom with his every move.

This is only latest in a decades long series of moves by him.

See:
Chuck Schumer vs. Free Speech

Schumer Among Biggest Supporters of Anti-Piracy Laws (He was a co-sponsor of SOPA and PIPA)

Schumer's racket: Lobbyists and hedge funds

Schumer proposes new federal regulations on grill brushes

And since the above links are all pretty recent, here's some Schumer history:

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing in April, 1996, Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Democrats were very disappointed, however, because the bill passed without proposed expansions of wiretapping authority. In May 1996, Reps. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 3409 "to combat domestic terrorism."

The bill, titled the "Effective Anti-Terrorism Tools for Law Enforcement Act of 1996," would expand the powers granted to the FBI to engage in multi- point (roving) wiretaps and emergency wiretaps without court orders, and to access an individual's hotel and vehicle and storage facility rental records. It also relaxed the requirements for obtaining pen register and trap and trace orders in foreign intelligence investigations.

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=blg&q=dea%20scanner
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/5/19/03417/6341
http://www.phantomreport.com/dea-wants-to-scan-license-plates-all-of-them-on-utahs-drug-corridor

Maybe this is old news...

Don't forget Poland.

(I know it's an old bit, but I still enjoy it.)

> the fact that a specific website is accessible from country XYZ, does
> NOT mean this website must comply with the local laws of country XYZ.

That's what Richard O'Dwyer thought http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/1/29/12531/3634

If this ever does become a full-on police state, I'll be one of the first to grab my rifle, fill up some molotovs, and start taking back our rights. But until then, let's be reasonable - on both sides.

At what point do you cross that line? Suspension of habeas corpus for non-citizens? Detaining American citizens without charge? Detaining Muslim Americans as they try to legally enter America after going abroad? Spying on Americans without warrants? Using National Security Letters to avoid what little oversight still exists?

In regards to this specific case, how is en masse monitoring of everyone's electricity consumption not an abuse of power? We're not talking about a cop seeing something suspicious from the road and using that as probable cause for a search. We're talking about monitoring the records of everyone with no probable cause or warrant and then using that as the basis for a search. Granted, Canada is not subject to the same laws as the United States, but this seems pretty damn abusive no matter where you are.

no WikiLeaks to post it to?

How about reporting it to the FBI.

1. FBI Prioritizes Copyright Over Missing Persons
2. Joe Biden's pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record
3. "The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is proud to make available, the FBI files."
4. COINTEL PRO
5. U.S. Lets $101 Million Verdict Stand Over FBI Frame in Mob Slaying Case
6. J. Edgar Hoover
7. Martin Luther King
8. Because of J. Edgar Hoover's and others' hostility to the Civil Rights Movement, agents of the U.S. FBI resorted to outright lying to smear civil rights workers and other opponents of lynching. For example, the FBI disseminated false information in the press about lynching victim Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered in 1965 in Alabama. The FBI said Liuzzo had been a member of the Communist Party, had abandoned her five children, and was involved in sexual relationships with African Americans in the movement.

Ad you were talking about reporting corruption to the FBI?

Falcon

No, the legal theory of "innocent until proven guilty" stems from ancient (pre-Roman) times, and is in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 11).
If you're interested http://www.talkleft.com/story/2003/01/12/153/23800
ps I'm Dutch ; ).

Radiant: we're a little short on staff -- think you could raise the penalty for jaywalking?

Congressman: can do!

This exact sort of thing is already happening in the U.S. except rather than keeping people in prison to make them work, the prison lobby wants to keep people in prison for the sake of needing to build more prisons. We've got both the prisons' investors and prison guard unions constantly lobbying for harsher punishments for lesser offenses. It's a scary to think that it's profitable for anyone to lock people up and throw away the key...

But you are incorrect that they did it for intel, since that is also not possible.

Where's the study or even a valid argument supporting this claim.

Ok. Studies and reports on them:

http://explore.georgetown.edu/news/?ID=20647
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/519416/
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/9/21/21847/9403
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-09/new-study-finds-torture-negatively-affects-memory

And further valid arguments supporting those claims:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30721458/print/1/displaymode/1098/
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/torture-is-more-than-just-harsh-tactics/
http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Dbq-Usefulness-Torture/132993

And at least one example of how this is a slippery slope that leads to nothing good:
  http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/arar/
If nothing else, please Please read about this person!

Do further googles (or wiki searches) for Maher Arar
Then just keep in mind there is NOTHING at all that happened nor will happen that would prevent you or anyone else you know from being in that persons shoes, by a random throw of the dice.

Sure that is an extreme case, but it is cases like that where I can honestly say I would support the usage. If anything, allowing these terrorists to come to a US Court sets a precedent where the usage of information gathered by torture becomes acceptable in a criminal investigation.

That is until they* come into your home at night, haul you and your wife/gf/S.O./whatever away to different prisons in another country and torture you for your terrorists connections for 9 months.
You are doing exactly everything required to qualify as a terrorist suspect under our current methods of determining who is or could be a terrorist, so it is not at all as far fetched as your extreme example is.

[*] They being all of the sociopaths that work their way into positions of power and dominance due to their personality requiring it, whom you are willingly and gladly giving permission to torture anyone and everyone (since that is our current definition of terrorist suspect)

I don't buy it. Conventional wisdom among who? Almost no one I know - and that's quite a few people - subscribes to the idea that the US government -- at any level -- should repress speech and opinion. My impression is that is just propaganda we hear from the government itself. Who do you consider "conventional"? Old USSR expatriates? Saudi Shaikhs? Colonel Gaddafi? Sonia herself? Seriously, who can you point to that supports the government should suppress free speech and opinion position such that you characterize it as "conventional"?

Umm, how about every Justice currently sitting on the Supreme Court? We're talking "conventional" in the sense of the mainstream of American jurisprudential opinion, not "saudi shaikhs." And I don't disagree with your view of the first amendment but you're not going to get that kind of radical view from anyone coming out of the Obama administration.

Are you suggesting I just say "well, she's only confused on about half the amendments and the commerce clause, so, "Hurray Obama"?

No, because that would be idiotic - she's not "confused" about ANY of the amendments; she just has a different view than you do of how best to interpret them. And her view is a lot closer to the political and juridical mainstream in this country than yours, sorry to say.

The fact that it isn't just the first amendment she screws up on. She screws up on the commerce clause; she screws up on the 2nd amendment (and badly, and even according to the most recent SCOTUS ruling); she screws up on the 4th amendment; she screws up on the 5th amendment.

No; she interprets these laws differently than you do. That's not a bad thing, especially since she has consistently shown she is open to persuasion given the facts of the instant case rather than ideologically driven. You want to see someone "screw up" the 4th amendment for example, look at General Hayden -- he clearly screwed up the fourth amendment. But Sotomayor clearly understands what it says; she just applies it in a different manner than you might.

That is why she's a constitutional nightmare. Add to that the fact that she thinks she's a "wise latina" (oh, brother) and that her POV is inherently better than that of a "white male."

Talk about screwing things up -- you're just repeating right wing talking points here and they're not even close to true. Read the full speech in context.

Sorry to do this but the concept of presumption of innocence goes a LOT further back than 1789.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2003/01/12/153/23800

See the commentary here: Anonymous Liberal, here talkleft and here: Glenn Greenwald (see update II).

Of course, this is also easily explained by the fact that reality has a liberal bias.

And the fact that Deborah Howell is a complete hack.

Possibly, but at least Biden gives the impression of understanding the constitution. It's not a lot if you want to lead a country, but a basic understanding of the law is kind of vital, I think.

Indeed it is. That's why Biden scares me more than Palin does.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/5/104254/995
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/4/12510/0071

Possibly, but at least Biden gives the impression of understanding the constitution. It's not a lot if you want to lead a country, but a basic understanding of the law is kind of vital, I think.

Indeed it is. That's why Biden scares me more than Palin does.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/5/104254/995
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/4/12510/0071

Palin is for strong social and economic government controls

Patently wrong. I am agaisnt those too, but very much for Plain.

You, like many people, do not realize that what makes libertarians so appealing as a group is that people can have many different ideas as to what is right, all in disagreement - but fundamentally it does not matter because they ALSO support local control over policy.

Plain has already said as much on abortion, of course she strongly opposes abortion but has also said it's up to local governments to make the choice they consider right for them.

6. If Roe v. Wade were overturned and states could once again prohibit abortion, in your view, to what extent should abortion be prohibited in Alaska?

Under this hypothetical scenario, it would not be up to the governor to unilaterally ban anything. It would be up to the people of Alaska to discuss and decide how we would like our society to reflect our values.

Now THAT is Libertarian.

Why bother with a graph when they just flip flop on the issues depending on whatever political gain they think they can get?

For example : As recently as Oct of 07 Obama was against telecom immunity in the FISA bill "Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it."

Then in June Obama supports telecom immunity

Or McCain ignoring New Orleans last time a hurricane hit, and this time he's in a nearby command center. They're both politicians, they do whatever they think will get them the most politican gain, regardless of past or future viewpoints.

Yahoo is not the government. It has no obligation to respect your right to free speech. In fact, you give Yahoo the right to delete anything you upload if it contravenes Yahoo's difficult-to-discern standards. When Yahoo deletes publicly displayed content (or when TalkLeft does, for that matter) it is not playing a "governmental role," as this writer asserts. Substitute "managerial role," and the writer has a point.

None of the AP writer's observations are shocking. It has long been understood that freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. The electronic equivalent of the press is a website. If you want to participate in a privately owned website, you play by the owner's rules, whether or not they seem fair to you.

TalkLeft

Interesting. Do you claim to speak for Barack Obama? How do you know what Barack Obama's stance is on this particular bill? Has he said yet? I mean, we know that he voted against immunity in the past, but that was before this new compromise bill.

I wouldn't go around claiming that I knew something about what the presumptive nominee for the DNC is thinking without actually knowing what his stance is.

Remember that, the next time they make you take off your shoes at the airport. Its nothing cabin door locks and a few air marshalls couldnt fix.

The "fix" here is not safety. The fix here is actually to make the public feel like Daddy is protecting all his little children.

People want an authority figure to do all the hard thinking for them and to tell them that they're safe now. Their simple minds see the long lines, the green-vinyl gloved hands gently (yet firmly) caressing their persons, the cool touch of the xray disrobing them, and the delays as simply more evidence that they're being taken care of, much as one would take care of a pet rabbit.

The recent report says the system has produced just six "hits" -- instances where crime-scene evidence matched ballistics data in the system. None of those has been used in a criminal trial, the report says.

As indicated by a couple of the replies to your post, one problem seems to be willful ignorance.

The real problem is the willful ignorance of the mainstream media. They were so obsessed with finding "fibs" and "exaggurations" with Al Gore in 2000 that they completely ignored it when Bush took credit for passing health care legislation in Texas that he actually, um, vetoed as governor.

But the press still seems to take Cheney seriously, even though he has much credibility as Baghdad Bob, after still insisting that Iraq was involved with 911 long after the nuttiest wingnuts dropped that line, and claimed in a 2004 debate that he had never seen John Edwards before, even thought they met on three separate occasions.

Although I see nothing wrong with your accusations against Bush, I do wonder why you feel the compelled to characterise his opponents in this manner.

Object to the substance, or lack thereof. For example, the Iraq war cassus belli proved to be fraudent.

The patriot act does indeed invade our privacy and does indeed impinge upon constitutional freedoms. Oh, and by the way, the USA firings are authorized by an obscure clause of PATRIOT act. You can add "protecting big tobbacco" to the list of unintended Patriot Act consequences. Don't dismiss the abuse of the PATRIOT act to damage the DOJ in order to protect big tobacco just because you don't like how it sounds.

Buddy, it sounds bad because it's criminal behavior. Grow up.

You can't be tried for a law that doesn't exist. IANAL, but if it wasn't against the law when you did it, you can't be arrested for it. Ignorance of the law is one thing, but ignorance of a non-existant law is quite another.

Tell that to this guy.

But what if they aren't being abused and never will be?

It's been the tendency for law enforcement to expand up to the maximum limits of any law or technology. See forfeiture laws for a good example. Or how about Patriot act abuses. Originally meant to stop terrorism, but currently being used for quick-and-easy drug busts.

It's not a question of if they will be abused, it's a question of when. That's why this is the time to put limits in place. Once the genie is out of the bottle, that's that.

By putting your life on the line, I was implying that they put their life on the line for others. I think that deserves a great deal of respect. I am by no means someone who holds a cop as someone higher than everyone else, and above the law, but that degree of unselfishness is worthy of my respect. I'm not saying that everyone who is a cop holds to the code of "To Protect and Serve", but those that do shouldn't be degraded to the level of those that don't.

May I ask if you have turned anyone in who has broken the code of your profession? Perhaps someone violating the internet usage code (browsing Slashdot during work hours may be applicable). Or maybe someone who isn't obeying the dress code. Perhaps someone who leaves work/gets to work a few minutes early or late. To say that any cop who hasn't obeyed the law should be fired and arrested would pretty much leave nobody around. Cops are human, too (excepting robocop), and that implies a degree of mistakes.

If you have tried to turn people in for what are considered minor offenses, who do you think gets the worst of it. I know that if I were to tell my boss that a co-worker was 10 minutes late for work, my co-worker may get reprimanded, but my boss gets the impression that they have a big mouth. I'm sure that the same would happen for a cop. If they get a reputation for tattling on their co-workers, it's going to be miserable for them. It's not right, but that's the way it is.

Finally, I don't know what you are talking about with cops never being in trouble. A google search for "Cop arrested for" gives quite a few relevant stories on the first page. They get away with some stuff, like non-cops, and they get caught for some stuff, like non-cops.

This probably has more to do with the hurricanes and winter storms.

No, it doesn't.

During Katrina, the Feds were criticised for *not* [...properly rendering...] aid.

Yes, they were. But none of these provisions would have helped them. Bush's choice to ignore what was happening in New Orleans was his own doing (or undoing). No law prevented him from making sure FEMA had not been mismanaged or from putting forward the focus and attention at the appropriate time to be sure FEMA was handling the crisis in New Orleans. His desire to nationalize the troops and then use not helping New Orleans as the consequence for any state government that wanted to retain its sovereignty will go down in history as one of the most callous moments of any president's tenure. Bush can go to hell for doing that. Hopefully he will at least go to prison.

Of a car? Hm, without a name, that specific case is pretty hard, due to the fact that the war on drugs have created plenty of such seizures, probably due to the fact that some percetage of seized assets belong to the cops. There's a pretty nice site here, usually with links to external news sources (when they havent expired): http://www.fear.org/list.html

The comments in this blog post provide plenty of links in the process of the seizures. Basically, the property itself is declared guilty of facilitating some crime, a shady tactic that sidesteps citizens' rights to due process because things are not citizens of this great country. http://talkleft.com/new_archives/014502.html

• Patriot Act Abuses Seen
  
• Critics cite PATRIOT Act abuse and misuse
  
• Abuse of the "Patriot Act"
  
• Patriot Act Abuses and Misuses Abound, ACLU Says
  
• More Signs of Patriot Act Abuse

spent ourselves into a massive deficit and added a bunch of laws that restrict our civil liberties (free speech zones?)

Your right about spending but that was only because the war cost Clinton used was never added to the budget. He closed down bases in American cities and pulled the economic revenue away from those cities to pay for his wars. It is one of the reasons we had the recesion that Clinton left us with. Yes, I've even heard the recesion being blamed on bush when it clearly started before he took office or made any policy changes that could have possibly ef fected the econemy. Oh well.

We have also had laws restricting our civil liberties under clinton too. DMCA, Safe zones when protesting medical facilities, Maybe this mighthelp a bit(this only goes to the 2003/2004 era and isn't inclusive of the his entire administration) And maybe this too might show a little more about civil liberties violations today.

I don't write this to make claim that clinton is a bad person (although i think he is about equal to the current president) just that his record is washed under the table while bushes record is negetive no matter what. It goes back to the original comment about how it is mostly spin and smokescreens.

. Don't forget that, had Congress not blocked the legislation, we would not have national health care at lower cost than we pay now

National healthcare is bad for america. The way it is now with a few adjustments needs to be the way it is. I'm sure you heard about all the greatness of foreign healthcare plans and think they are great. But problems like in canida were you go on a waiting list and if your still alive or your condition hasn't progressed to the point you need to be reclassified and get placed on another waiting list, you finaly get treatment and all is well. I'm not sure if thats the reason wealthy candians go on vacation to america and have proccedures done (even the government officials do it) or if it is because thier pay system to support the free helthcare makes it almost impossible to pay off school bills and such so they are have a shortage of doctors

Oh, how nice. "Not recently". How moral and upstanding!

The backpedaling and endless justifications for American torture practice and methods are just ... torture, really, for moral men to hear. This "not as bad as Hussein" angle is not just that; it's propaganda.

What the US is doing is not just "humiliation" ... it's TORTURE. And the only thing that's not stopping it is that there isn't a higher military power to invade the US to enact the necessary regime change.

Do not confuse the US "humilation of prisoners" with civil treatment by a moral society. Even the rules of war (to which the US professes to be a subscriber) prohibit the things that America now routinely does to prisoners taken in the Middle East. Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy!

That's a nice red herring, but the fact of the matter is that Fulton Armstrong had been a publically identifed intelligence officer for several years before Kerry let his name slip, along with Sen. Lugar (funny, though, how you don't mention him).

At first, I thought it was fairly amazing how an outfit that calls itself 'newsmax' could be so off base on this issue....but then I saw the big ad for the DVD 'The Religion of Evolution', as well as the ads on the side promising "super strength" and "'lost art' power-throwing secrets", and suddenly, it made a lot more sense.

What scares me is that approximately half the voting public agrees with him [...]

That's actually not true, for several reasons.

Firstly, most Americans don't vote, so it's hard to say whether they really agree with him.

Secondly, if you take the small number who voted for Bush, and actually ask them for their opinions on various issues, you find out something interesting: Bush supporters disagree with him on many major issues.

So the interesting question is: since most Bush voters are in favor of abortion, against the war in Iraq, in favor of reducing the deficit, and so on, why do they vote for Bush?

The answer is simple. It's also the single most important thing to understand about US politics, in my view. Here it is:

Most Americans who vote, don't vote on the basis of issues. Instead, they vote on the basis of which guy they like the most.

That's what the Democrats keep getting horribly, horribly wrong. They picked John Kerry, who nobody particularly liked as a person, even in his own party--a guy with the personality of a sack of wet sand, who spoke like a schoolteacher. They picked Al Gore, of the robotic demeanour and irritated sighs, and teamed him with Lieberman in case his displayed personality wasn't already enough to repel voters. They'll probably pick Hillary Clinton too.

What's even more odd is that once he had lost, Al Gore suddenly started displaying a personality and a sense of humor. So apparently the powers that control the DNC have this idea that pressing candidates into acting "presidential" (i.e. dull as all hell) is a good thing.

Meanwhile, the Republicans field a guy who has learned to convincingly fake a friendly Texas accent, and act dumber than he is. (e.g. the recent clowning when he couldn't get a door open.) It doesn't matter that he's from the exact same educated upper-class background as Kerry; he's learned to put on a persona that seems friendly and likeable to average people, and that's why he got elected.

Note that I'm not saying this is a good thing. It's actually pretty awful, because the best outcome is likely to be that White House policy is effectively random over time, depending on what the beliefs are of the guy who randomly happens to have the nicest personality. The worst possible outcome, of course, is that someone appears who is a raving fascist, but is a master showman who can appear to be a likeable man of the people. We all know how that turns out.

Uh... no.

Non-competes are not useless, and have been upheld in courts. But their scope and duration has to be well defined and not something the court views as "overreaching," or it is likely to be voided.

Translation: you can't have a noncompete that says, "never work for any of my competitors, their subsidiaries, or an organization that provides services to them, ever again." However, lots of places have non-competes that say, "You're not going to work for my competitors in X industry for a period of one year following the end of your employment with us." In many contexts, that kind of contract will be upheld.

By the way, assisted suicide is legal in some states.

I remember hearing (quick ref: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006987.html) that you *are* required to show ID on demand by a law enforcement officer. I know around here (in NY) you *will* be arrested if you refuse.

No you aren't. You are required to identify yourself, which is different.

I remember hearing (quick ref: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006987.html) that you *are* required to show ID on demand by a law enforcement officer. I know around here (in NY) you *will* be arrested if you refuse.

Thus, there is apparently no right to even *be* in a public place without ID/anonymously, much less travel.

Beware the anonymous coward who posts fake quotes which sound great to slashdot to get modded up and whip the readers into a partisan fervor. Rather, another user will correct them and get modded up instead. How do I know? This is what I have done, and I am that other user.

Maybe if we didn't let Bush hand out $BILLIONS to "establishments of religion", but instead subsidized more science education and production with the money, we'd see an actual return on that investment. We're talking about $2B for churches and only $6B for the National Science Foundation.

Were these e-tailers to move their internet operations to New Hampshire, a State with no sales tax (and no justification for ever participating in such a scheme) they'd be able to avoid this matter all together.

Were lawyers to think this through, they'd initiate a class-action lawsuit to protect people from illegally-collected sales tax, as the sale did not occur within the offended State. Were these State legislatures to actually do some creative thinking, they'd redefine the tax as a usage tax instead of a sales tax.

Usage tax would evade the constitutionality issues entirely. This would also place the burden of payment on the consumer. New York City went after the purchasers on cigarette tax evasion and their prosecution will probably be upheld on the basis of cigarette tax being a usage tax, not a sales tax.

You can go choke on your "shame". Everything you say in your post backs up what I said in mine. You want more evidence that LA Governor Blanco did her job, and Bush screwed up his (killing thousands across the Gulf Coast)? You got it.

You go off on the Republican defense "now's not the time for long criticism, now's the time for doing something to help". In a 10 paragraph Slashdot post. What have you done to help anyone in the destroyed Gulf Coast?

You "hope that something positive will come out of reviewing what went wrong", but you don't want to "review" what went wrong. It's totally obvious: 50 million Americans voted for Bush, let him take responsibility, let him fail, and now some of them, like you, are covering for his screwup.

"Plenty of time later"? The people in the media, and people like me posting when we take a break from our real work (including coordinating relief for Katrina victims), have time to criticize right now, when people are paying attention. White House spokesman Scott McClellan doesn't have anything else to do other than answer questions from he press - even if the answers are "we totally screwed up" - but he of course prefers to put them off to another day, which never comes. Next month, some other Republican smokescreen will come along, either another disaster or another PR stunt, and we won't be focused on this problem.

If we don't get rid of these criminals now, we never will. And people like you are to blame. You might not like the blame, but you've earned it.

I'm glad you're sickened. Maybe you'll need some help. And die when you didn't get it. After all, you've been paying $3TRILLION a year for Bush's "bloated bureaucracy". He's the "outsider president", right? He's been running the country with "emergency preparation" his top priority since 9/11/2001, right?

Calling the president a failure when he fails isn't partisan. He's everyone's president, even if half of us didn't want him. Defending him despite his failure is partisan. You're spouting the essential Republican hack job: accuse your enemy of exactly your own bad actions, when only you are doing them. You're a raving lunatic.

Yeah, after 9/11, everything changed. NOTHING CHANGED. You subhuman Republicans are stil talking shit about "bloated bureaucracies", as you build your own bureaucracy, bloated beyond belief.

BLOATED? Look at the bloated bodies floating in New Orleans. Then look at how Bush assumed total responsibility for responding to the disaster. Then rip out the burnt nerves in your brain that let you say that he's not responsible for those bloated corpses.

And then look in the mirror. Because your apologies for Bush, your votes for Bush, your inhuman lies and ghoulish unconcern at Bush's legacy of death and destruction, all make YOU responsible for this disaster, too.

In a catastrophe, bad things happen. All at once, everything DOES change. People who were wrong for years get a chance to do something right. But you and your demented zombie army can't even get right when a catastrophe destroys a major city in your country. You are disgusting.

Ah, you know what? I think we need more links:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. A rebuttal for some sense of "objectivity", whatever that means.

OMFG you mean you might actually get trumped up charges with falsified evidence ?

Yes, yes, you're absolutely right. Asshole.

I was under the impression that Helen Thomas is now barred from asking Bush questions.

Unfortunately the best link I could find on google was this one (it's friday night, I'm drunk, I can't very well do research.) I do believe I read it in a book somewhere. Thomas called Bush "the worst president in US history" and now the Bush people never call on her for questions. Or, that was what I read. I'm not sure if it is true.

I'm going to warn you that I'm very liberal. But I don't trust anything CBS, NBC, NY Times, whatever, says. Anything from any news outlet, be it print, television or web, I will probably still find a reason not to trust it.

In my opinion, the issue with the media is not left or right, liberal or conservative, corporate/commie conspiracy, or what have you. It is STUPIDITY and LAZINESS, plain and simple. Show me a news broadcast or a paper, and I will find a lot of things in it that I can point out as misleading, oversimplified, just plain wrong, etc. There are very few people in this world, left, right, or side-to-side, who actually GET things. Everybody will get something or the other wrong. Furthermore, these people are too LAZY to do any research.

I do read Daily Kos. I read it the same way I read NY times, CNN, whatever -- with a grain of salt. There are times when I disagree with the crap that gets posted there -- a lot of it is just crap. But there is reason in it aswell, some good insight, and a lot of stuff that I would not be exposed to if I had not read it. I just shrug off the far-fetched mumbo-jumbo and "me too!! bush sux0rs!!"* posts and see if I find something interests me. often times, something will. Other times, I'll learn about things that don't show up in the mainstream press until weeks later.

some of the comments are just rediculous. but, you know? a lot of people are rediculous. fox news, nytimes, cnn: rediculous. such shallow people you will see. what can you do?

*not that I don't think bush sucks. I just think that a lot of people are short-sighted and need to get their reasons straight.

Being a little serious, both (political) sides are getting to offer their opinions here. I read at -1 so I can see both sides of the discussion.
How many people read (& post to) slashdot because it is fun? This does not mean that one lies about one's views (except for trolls) but that one can say things here that might not be appreciated elsewhere. For example, I do not hate Republicans and I will vote for one if he/she is the best candidate. However, I believe Bush and his crew really are a danger to our country. If fact, I think the terrorists have already won; we are at war with ourselves. How many of the federal cases brought by the Bush administration have offered serious evidence? Remember that lawyer in Portland, Oregon who was held for 17 (?) days because they decided he was involved in the train bombings in Spain? This was completely unrelated to the fact that he defended some Muslims ... . ( His release; also here, here.)

Being a little serious, both (political) sides are getting to offer their opinions here. I read at -1 so I can see both sides of the discussion.
How many people read (& post to) slashdot because it is fun? This does not mean that one lies about one's views (except for trolls) but that one can say things here that might not be appreciated elsewhere. For example, I do not hate Republicans and I will vote for one if he/she is the best candidate. However, I believe Bush and his crew really are a danger to our country. If fact, I think the terrorists have already won; we are at war with ourselves. How many of the federal cases brought by the Bush administration have offered serious evidence? Remember that lawyer in Portland, Oregon who was held for 17 (?) days because they decided he was involved in the train bombings in Spain? This was completely unrelated to the fact that he defended some Muslims ... . ( His release; also here, here.)

I cant help thinking that it is in the same league as that of women wanting to marry death row convicts :=

Morbid fascination ??