Slashdot Mirror

Most transparent..Ahhahaha..Most..hehheahhaaa..Most transparent Admi...cough choke...ROFLMAO! oh, Fuck It, I can't even say it without laughing.

I'm glad you clarified that as laughter. I was reading it from the perspective that you were typing it while your boyfriend was giving it to you up the ass, again.

Most transparent..Ahhahaha..Most..hehheahhaaa..Most transparent Admi...cough choke...ROFLMAO! oh, Fuck It, I can't even say it without laughing.

what are we better than? the truth?

the GOP is the party of stupid. who said that?

the GOP said that:

http://thehill.com/video/in-th...

you haven't noticed a connection between incredibly ignorant, antiscience statements and the GOP? oh i'm sure you can find a democrat who said something stupid. and i can find ten republicans for every one odd democrat

do you want to bet on that?

let me get started:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rep...

http://www.scientificamerican....

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08...

that's off the top of my head

how many more do you want?

The G.O.P. is the party of stupid

The G.O.P. even introduced the term

http://thehill.com/video/in-th...

But among Jindal's most provocative suggestions was the demand that the GOP needed to "stop insulting the intelligence of voters" — and display more intelligence itself. Jindal's comments seemed targeted squarely at conservative candidates in Senate races whose comments on rape and abortion appeared to torpedo their electoral chances.

"We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments," Jindal said.

The Louisiana governor also warned that Republicans were too associated with "big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes."

"We must not be the party that simply protects the well-off so they can keep their toys," Jindal said. "We have to be the party that shows all Americans how they can thrive."

it's a good strategy: identify something rich people need and want, then wrangle the idiots with fearmongering into supporting that agenda, even if it hurts the poor idiots. they're idiots, they can't even understand they're hurting themselves. so you have people without adequate healthcare for example, screaming low iq fears about obamacare

this doesn't mean there are no intelligent conservative people, they do exist. stupid liberals also exist

but it's just that if you meet a stupid person, they are more likely to be a conservative, because their simplistic dimwitted way of thinking about the world matches conservative ideology more closely

http://www.livescience.com/181...

There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.

The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found.

Oh, right, children are owned, so you get to force them to do what you want.

But why not guide them to guide themselves. Let each kid learn in his idiosyncratic way, with a wide variety of tools to choose from?

Yeah, let's not forget the laugher that Obama sent in 2012, which the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected 99-0.

Yes, the GP may have been wrong about not actually submitting a budget in six years. In actuality, submitting budgets that can't even get a single vote from your own party is basically the same thing as not submitting one.

So, now you have strong evidence that the people you talk to are not representative of America as a whole.

I would not put it that way. I'd say we have strong evidence that opinion polling can easily result in confusing or apparently contradictory results. The first sentence of the linked blog post has an air of mild surprise about it, and not surprisingly - when polled, 75% of Americans disagree that their government is trustworthy all or most of the time, yet they view most departments favourably? That makes little sense.

Something else doesn't make much sense. This result can easily be read as "people approve of what the NSA is doing". That must be what favourable means, right? Yet this very same polling agency has found a year ago that a majority of Americans oppose NSA practices. It's possible things have changed in the span of 2014, but other polls frequently return contradictory results too. This one by the Washington Post says, in the same set of questions, most people think monitoring all online activity to prevent terrorism isn't worth it, but monitoring all phone calls is. Why the difference?

At any rate, it's certainly true that the civil liberties wing of western societies has done a really appalling job of explaining to people why this sort of behaviour by governments is so risky, and Americans don't have recent local experience to fall back on. Unlike, say, people in former Soviet bloc countries, or Germans.

Small issue with your correct: he was instructed by Rep Darrell Issa to only focus on Tea Party groups.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-th...

That report was a fraud from the start.

You mean his EOs to delay/change/alter the ACA? When Congress attempted to pass "into law" his EO on the delay, he announce he would veto it? It *is* good to be king. Note the 2nd paragraph here - delay that it was a bill to do what the Administration had already announced. Enforcing the law is the Executive branch's job, not changing it.

Using teams, such as Obamacare, as part of a justification for an argument shows the way someone leans. Rather than use that, use the Actual name, it makes reading the statement a better view, than seeing it as nothing but a Flamebait comment. So regardless of his INTENT, he showed his disdain for Obama and the democratic party..... Just saying.

Or, maybe not.

MIT, the organization whose access was used to download the documents, declined to press civil charge and according to the report on MIT's involvement "MIT never requested that a criminal prosecution be brought against Aaron
Swartz." (page 13) and "MIT did inform the prosecution that it was not seeking punishment for Swartz, and it did inform the defense that it was not seeking any civil remedy from him." (page 14)

JSTOR, the organization whose documents were copied, declined to press civil charges. A quote in the MIT report attributed to JSTOR said "The criminal investigation and today’s indictment of Mr. Swartz has been directed by the United States Attorney’s Office. It was the government’s decision whether to prosecute, not JSTOR’s. As noted previously, our interest was in securing the content. Once this was achieved, we had no interest in this becoming an ongoing legal matter." (page 84)

When the two parties who were affected choose not to proceed with civil charges and don't press for criminal charges, is calling for criminal charges that carried a possible 50 years of imprisonment and a $1 million dollar fine, and which a former White House counsel called "overcharging" and "overzealous" really necessary? Consider that several Senators, including both Republicans and Democrats, questioned or criticized the prosecution using words or phrases like scapegoat, outrageous, and way out of line. How often does THAT happen anymore?

While starting completely new ones. Hooray!

Indeed, Hooray! (I'm glad you get it - so few kneejerk anti-American morons do.) The US is at its best when it is saving innocent people, like Libyans and Yhazdis, from genocide. It returns us to what is best about this country.

*cough* bullshit *cough*

Yes indeed! Your quote IS bullshit! I'm glad you noticed! You can't claim a policy failed by arbitrarily changing the yardstick. We've never measured by U6. No time to start now.

Hooray though, we added 300,000 jobs in the last quarter. The economy did that in most years of the 1960s, when the population of the United States was significantly less than today. Success!

Yet again, you are completely correct! This is an amazing Success! The economy in the 1960s was aided by the fact that most of the rest of the world was still recovering from WW2, and half of it was under the ideological sway of Communist regimes fundamentally opposed to economic reality. Further, the U.S. had many more controls in place in those days to reduce economic inequality, since people still had a long memory of what Republicans did to cause the Great Depression. Tax rates on corporations in the 1960s reached as high as 90%, with fewer loopholes. This allowed many states to give a free college education to anyone who had the grades to get accepted, no matter what their economic background. All which provided massive demand for U.S. employment.

Alas, we ended all that. Self-defeating "trickle-down" is now more or less a religion (except Jesus and his miracles can't be actually disproven, like all these bullshit Republican economic theories have), so now we're stuck with people voting in Republicans on grandiose promises that this-time-it'll-work-for-sure, the inevitable economic crash, Democrats voted in to fix it, and then Republicans again to punish the Democrats for fixing the Republican mess, because this-time-it'll-work-for-sure.

end 2 wars

While starting completely new ones. Hooray!

bring unemployment below 8%

*cough* bullshit *cough*

Hooray though, we added 300,000 jobs in the last quarter. The economy did that in most years of the 1960s, when the population of the United States was significantly less than today. Success!

As part of the agreement, Mr. Obama announced that the United States would emit 26 percent to 28 percent less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. That is double the pace of reduction it targeted for the period from 2005 to 2020.

China’s pledge to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, if not sooner, is even more remarkable. To reach that goal, Mr. Xi pledged that so-called clean energy sources, like solar power and windmills, would account for 20 percent of China’s total energy production by 2030.

This is a good deal?! China already pumps out 25% of the world's CO2 compared to the US's 16%.

A fair deal would have had China pledging to reduce their emissions, not continue raising them!

Probably that cardshark Obama tried his "don't call my bluff!" threat again. That would explain it.

States ditch electronic voting machines yay!

The Democratic challenger Schauer has pulled within the margin of error of most polls in the last few weeks. Gov. Snyder and the Republican legislature have run roughshod over Detroit and much of the state and along with a visit by President Obama, his opposition is motivated. It may come down to the weather on Tuesday.

Detroit sunk itself - the logical endpoint of Democratic policies as the city finally ran out of other people's money to spend.

yeah, right, and here comes our rescuer:

Rand Paul courts the black vote
http://thehill.com/homenews/se...

Why do you say "There is no evidence for that" when there absolutely is evidence for that?

A shattering new study by two political science professors has found that ordinary Americans have virtually no impact whatsoever on the making of national policy in our country.

Please, inform yourself before making such confident claims to others.

As with most of the Republican "outrages of the day", this isn't new. In 2012 a Republican PAC called Americans for Limited Growth was doing the same thing:

‘Vote history audit’ shows whether your neighbors voted

As usual, now that Democrats are doing it too, it's the worst thing ever.

we can not and must not allow things in or out of the infected area! ... but so reluctant to help other people with the same objective, containment.

Because according to the CDC and the World Health Organization that does NOT help the effected areas, but makes it worse for them, which (even according to TFA!) merely causes a slight delay in importing cases to other countries. It is harmful in the end, which is why all major expert organizations are advising against that policy.

You are aware that experts at both the CDC and the World Health Organization are saying that is likely to make the outbreak worse, and they both recommend against travel restrictions?

So here we have every top medical organization, vs one random slashdot poster. Hmm. Dunning-Kruger much?

you should ask them if they refudiate their party platform.

If you want to pass yourself off as a critical thinker, you probably shouldn't use refudiate in your sentences.

It is not Islam-specific. The equivocal attitude the US displayed during the Kargil conflict — when India was clearly the injured party — is not entirely unlike the attitude displayed this year towards Ukraine (where what few Muslims reside, all strongly resent the invader).

Though Obama (as Clinton back in 1999) talks the talk of supporting the invaded victim, the US would only help with "non-lethal" supplies — and only after a significant delay.

But in the mind of libertarian nutball Cody Wilson

Instead of calling people names, why don't you and yours simply campaign to abolish the Second Amendment altogether? If we read the First the same way we are told to read the Second, our freedom of speech too would be limited to "petitioning the government" — and only for "redress of grievances". Oh, and only after a "cool-down" period.

"Assault firearms" my foot — you can't even carry a freaking sword or brass-knuckles in many parts of the country nowadays. If only the British kept those blades away from Patrick Henry and his "nutball" cohorts!

What makes you think that the second amendment can be used anywhere in the USA to overturn the militia? Try dreaming in technicolor.

But in the mind of libertarian nutball Cody Wilson

Instead of calling people names, why don't you and yours simply campaign to abolish the Second Amendment altogether? If we read the First the same way we are told to read the Second, our freedom of speech too would be limited to "petitioning the government" — and only for "redress of grievances". Oh, and only after a "cool-down" period.

"Assault firearms" my foot — you can't even carry a freaking sword or brass-knuckles in many parts of the country nowadays. If only the British kept those blades away from Patrick Henry and his "nutball" cohorts!

Get it through your thick paranoid skulls... Regulation IS NOT CONFISCATION.

But in the mind of libertarian nutball Cody Wilson

Instead of calling people names, why don't you and yours simply campaign to abolish the Second Amendment altogether? If we read the First the same way we are told to read the Second, our freedom of speech too would be limited to "petitioning the government" — and only for "redress of grievances". Oh, and only after a "cool-down" period.

"Assault firearms" my foot — you can't even carry a freaking sword or brass-knuckles in many parts of the country nowadays. If only the British kept those blades away from Patrick Henry and his "nutball" cohorts!

But recently both Google and Apple have thrown down the gauntlet with respect to requests by the DoJ. Microsoft could very well be taking a different tack

No they did the same thing. Though of course that didn't stop the conspiracy nutjobs from postulating that this was confirmation that MS was in bed with the NSA and this whole action was just a showpiece for misdirection (though oddly not when Apple or Google did it).

It's not as cut and dried as you make it sound. But this may be a step in the right direction. I suspect it will be lobbied into oblivion, though.

"War on Women" is a Democrat campaign scam - the Obama administration itself (and the Democrats in congress too) have been caught paying their female staffers less than their male staffers.

As for Issa's wealth... and whether it's "bad", let's see here:

Issa built his own wealth by starting and running businesses BEFORE going to Washington

The Kennedys (beloved by Democrats) all inherited their vast fortunes from their prohibition-era alchohol smuggler patriarch (whether you like that law or not, Joe senior was a criminal and the family fortune was built on crime dollars). This would be like somebody today building a financial empire on drug money, then after drug legalization pretending that the money was "clean" without regard to all the crime and dead bodies that contributed to the stash.

former Senator John Kerry (now SecState) got rich by marrying a rich widow.

Senator John McCain got rich by marrying a girl rich with inherited wealth

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) inherited a MOUNTAIN of money from a so-called "robber-baron" and then, in one of the planet's most hypocritical acts, struts around pontificating against the wealthy (while hanging-onto that inherited wealth and all the power it bought him).

Politics is an expensive game, so more and more of the members go there already wealthy, but most politicians who go to Washington NOT rich, (and spend MILLIONS on campaigns for jobs that pay $174K per year) somehow amazingly end-up quite wealthy after only several years. There are many ways this happens; members of congress, for one example, are exempt from "insider trading" laws (they can hear things about companies and markets, even in closed-door meetings, and then call their investors and place orders). Many of them sit on comittees where they direct taxpayer funds... and direct those funds to companies run by their relatives, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is an example, Former Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) and congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) (Who both have rich husbands who are investors - remember that insider trading exemption??).

Just do a search on "IRS lies to congress". PLENTY of citations there. Here's just a few.

Just to be pedantic, organizations don't lie, people do, though I know there is a great tendency to personify organizations. The IRS didn't lie to Congress, people in the IRS lied to Congress. Likewise, the NSA didn't lie in (fill in an occurrence here), people belonging to the NSA lied. At times, multiple high-ranking personnel of such organization, even the heads, may have even ordered such lies to occur. Labeling these situations as "ThreeLetterAgency lied" is designed to imply that all personnel of such agencies therefore also lie, and that is not true, but it make for great ad hominem attacks, and is widely used here on Slashdot.

Just do a search on "IRS lies to congress". PLENTY of citations there. Here's just a few.

The problem is that government is being used to choke out the competition, especially at a local level: http://www.wired.com/2013/07/w...

Comcast uses government regulation as a shield to block competition. So yes, the libertarian solution would be to remove these blocks and open up the options.

And you are naive to think that anyone in government, especially Democrats, will regulate Comcast. Obama has been in bed with Comcast for a while http://thehill.com/policy/tech.... And Comcast owns NBC, which owns MSNBC--the Fox News of the Democrat party.

Sorry to bust your Government/Democrats good Republicans/libertarians bad bubble.

A Russian GRU officer had already taken credit for shooting down the plane on Twitter before it was realized the AN-26 he just shot down was a 777:

http://thehill.com/policy/inte...

Think of it more as Google Federal.
'Microsoft, Google spar over federal contract" (04/11/11)
https://thehill.com/policy/tec...
ie getting beyond FISMA and into enterprise - reps with military, intelligence, gov contractor like skills to move iPhone and iPad into US agencies.

Snowden said he wrote emails that he can't produce despite taking almost two million documents. You can't explain that away since you are directly challenging him.

Ok, I'll stipulate that he claims he wrote them.

All this while intending to make the claim that he was a "whistle blower" on the US? And he forget the whistle he claims to have blown, repeatedly, while there? That doesn't wash.

I honestly and sincerely don't even see it as related. He may not even anticipated that someone would challenge. He was seeking to establish beyond credible doubt that the NSA was doing XYZ. That is "the story" he was looking to tell. That someone would try to argue that a big part of the story would be "hey, can you prove you tried to tell someone inside, first" possibly didn't even enter into his mind.

In the big picture, it doesn't even matter. What matters is what the NSA was doing, not how vigorously Snowden tried to change it from within first.

Regardless of how important this particular detail is to you, its at best a tangential detail to the main story.

Its just a small minded distraction to try and divert attention from the main story. Like obsessing over Julian Assange's significant personal flaws instead of focusing on the actual wiki leaks leaks.

Maybe because they don't exist?

That doesn't fly within this thread of the sub-argument.

You'd stipulated they DID exist and contained the NSA's response that they were legal. You can't now argue that maybe they didn't exist, at least not within this sub-thread.

Or they discuss classified programs that are still classified?

They could redact them. Even if they were just "walls of black ink", they would establish that they existed.

I expect that the NSA has done that in the proper forums for discussing classified matters: in meetings with the administration, in closed sessions of Congress, and before the courts in closed hearings.

You are contorting like an acrobat. You are arguing that "if they exist, the NSA is rightfully keeping them secret, therefore we should assume Snowden is lying about their existence, and that they don't exist". That's not even coherent.

Seems to me then, its perfectly reasonable to accept Snowden's claim they exist.

Which "general consensus" is that?

Lets see:
the 5 member Privacy and Civil liberties Oversight Board created by Congress ruled them illegal.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled them illegal.

United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled them illegal.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar...

http://www.wired.com/2013/12/b...

And even the NSA itself, has ADMITTED substantial wrongdoing.

http://thehill.com/policy/tech...

"The one on Slashdot?"

Yeah, sure, the one on slashdot too. ::eyeroll::

I don't know what makes you think that Republicans believe in pretty much any of the things you are asserting.

Go ahead and state your claim, and we'll see. So far you've earned 0 points for argument by farting upwind.

I'm up one citation on you, here's another: those officials resigned without charge, seems all them "tough on crime" Republican AGs just couldn't be assed do to jack shit. Bush's AG couldn't be bothered with it either. 3-0, suckah, show me where Republicans gave a damn about gay prison rape of boys or men.

Trillions on war in Iraq? Afghanistan? Ring any bells? Do I have to provide links to both the budgeted and non-budgeted costs of these wars? Fine then, Iraq alone totaled $823 billion up to 2011. All in all we're going to pay 4 trillion for Bush's little expedition. Damn Obummer for cutting them short!

War on drugs? Wow, where do I start? After decades of "winning" the "war on drugs" the GOP just reversed course last convention. So yeah, any day now, we'll be getting magic brownies at the local starbucks. It'll remain to be seen if they'll stay on this course, or if they'll turn their hypocrisy drive to maximum thrust and change direction again once they are in charge and are no longer using it as a states rights plank to beat Obama for refusing to stop enforcing federal law over states' legalization efforts. (I'm sure Boehner's got federal decriminalization on the agenda... somewhere.. right? Right? ... Bueller?)

While I'm on a roll, tell me, "as a Republican", which of these sentences you believe are true:

1) Unions force companies to sign contracts they can't afford.
2) Bankers force homeowners to sign contracts they can't afford.

Question 2:

Who deported more illegal immigrants? GWB or Obama? Go ahead, take your time. While you stick some plugs in to stop the smoke leaking out your ears, peruse the various tea party talking head blogs whining about how the Republicans are lenient on immigration, that might help you guess.

Lightning Round!

Who was the Republican bitch that thinks we're doing enough to deal with wrongly imprisoned innocent people, and that we should be happy to be paying our tax dollars to feed and shelter these people and paying even more tax dollars when the Republican prosecutors fighting to keep them in jail finally run out of appeals and the innocent get a huge check cut from the government? Did you answer Republican Joan Huffman? Quote: "Texas has done a really good job to do what we can to compensate exonerees". Ka-Ching! Of course, how can handing out OUR tax money give someone back those lost years of freedom and gay rape? At least the prosecutor feels terrible. Surely between feeling sad and an appointment by Republican Rick Perry he has been punished enough for obstruction of justice in a case where holding the wrong man prisoner for years allowed the criminal to kill again?

Is this, as a Democrat, actually an issue for you?

What's that? Speak up sonny, all that "with us or against us!!!1!" shouting's got my ears ringing. You saying something about how Bush should be allowed to use executive orders to stick electrodes wherever the fuck he wants and damn Congress's Constitutional mandate to regulate the armed forces?

The politicization of the IRS should be the biggest scandal ever. How many other institutions are being used to pursue a political agenda instead of their true function?

Maybe because the politicization of the IRS is a fake scandal that even Newsmax and Fox News aren't covering anymore?

Seriously, it turned out that the IRS was actually covering Liberal Groups more than the Tea Party groups, something we would have known earlier except the GOP intentionally limited the audit to GOP groups. Oh, and the IRS is required by law to "harass" (read: investigate) Non-Profits in order to prevent the very thing that the GOP is freaking out about -- rich people like the Koch Brothers using fake non profits as a political machine. Note that the GOP isn't freaking out about people doing this, they're freaking out that they might be caught.

In other words, the real scandal is that the IRS somehow DIDN'T notice the Koch Brothers are breaking several dozen federal laws by astroturfing tea party "chartiies" in order to push anti-science, anti-climate change, and anti-worker agendas across the entire US.

All of this is due to the guy handling most of the GOP's fake scandals, Darrel Issa. He's got his thumbs in pretty much every fake scandal plaguing the Obama administration, in something that has come to be known as the Paula Jones Technique - make up fake scandals or inflate existing ones in hopes that your opponent (in this case, President Obama's Administration) can't do anything but react to the scandals.

You seem to be conflating two categories as being equivalent.

You seem to be bending over backwards to excuse felony abuse of power.

Dozens of conservative groups *were* approved for 501(c) status during that same period

The "BOLO" list was specifically going for groups that had "Tea Party" in the name, or "9/12" or "patriots" in the name.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/308131-ig-liberal-groups-not-targeted-like-tea-party

So yeah, not 100% of all conservative groups were targeted. However, 100% of the targeted groups were successfully blocked from fund raising during the two years before a Presidential election.

The TEA Party groups were politically active groups attempting to obtain a 501(c) tax-exempt status, which (by law) requires that the group is *NOT* politically active.

Then how the hell is it possible that OFA got 501(c) status?

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/so-how-did-obamas-organizing-for-action-get-irs501c4-approval-so-quickly/

Various liberal, politically active groups *also* got stalled by the *exact same* IRS approval process because *they* hit the *exact same* roadblock.

Actually, no. This is what political experts call a "lie", concocted after this became public knowledge.

Even before the election, Tea Party people were contacting their Congressmen and asking for help with the IRS. Show me even one single liberal who contacted his/her Congressman to get help with the IRS. Show me even one liberal group where the IRS demanded a list of all the people attending meetings, a list of prayers said at the meetings, or any of the other abusive things the IRS demanded of Tea Party groups. You can't because there aren't any.

For 27 months, not one single new group with "Tea Party" in the name (or "patriot" or "9/12") was approved. In that time, one single liberal group was rejected. (And note that it was simply rejected, not stalled and harassed and delayed.)

Graham warns of Republican impeachment push over Gitmo

Congress tried to build in a safeguard against Obama making unilateral decisions on releasing terrorist detainees by including language in the National Defense Authorization Act requiring the administration to alert Congress of such moves at least 30 days in advance.

Obama did not follow that law when he swapped five senior Taliban commanders for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services panel, said Obama had a plausible legal argument for ignoring the law.

“The White House did not comply with the requirement of the 30-day provision. However, the White House said it had power under Article II of the Constitution to do what it did,” Levin said. “I’m not a court that’s going to decide whether or not under Article II the commander in chief has the power to move this quickly even though Congress said you’ve got to give 30 days notice.”

So in order for Obama to close Guantanamo, not only does he have to determine that the concentration camp is bullshit, but he also has to determine that Congress's impertinence on the matter is also bullshit.

" I have to fire 40% of the workforce."
Why? why is that you only option?

If you were correct, then there would be no jobs.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congr...

http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdo...
"In a recent review of the literature, Professor Richard Freeman of Harvard, a widely respected labor economist, wrote: "At the level of the minimum wage in the late 1980s, moderate legislated increases did not reduce employment and were, if anything, associated with higher employment in some locales."

and so on. YOU are the bitch of the corporate spin machine.

Pretty much. I'm sure people are going to froth at the mouth and all the rest until you post stories like this.

So, their solution to a badly drafted, overly broad and ridiculously vague piece of legislation is... more legislation? And further, each state wants to introduce its own flavour of law into the picture?

What a nightmare. Instead of having to deal with one bad piece of federal legislation, you now have 1 federal and potentially 50 state laws to worry about. The only ones rubbing their hands in glee are patent lawyers.

The only real solution is patent reform, and the stalling members of the Senate ought to lose their jobs.

One of the main sticking points for members so far has been a proposal to make it easier for the losing party in a meritless patent lawsuit to pay the winner’s court fees.

*rolls eyes*

In the meantime, the rest of the country has to deal with the consequences.

6092 patent lawsuits were filed in 2013, a 12.4% increase over 2012.
Of the top ten filers of patent lawsuits in 2013, every single one was a patent troll.
The most litigious patent owner was notorious troll ArrivalStar, which filed 137 lawsuits.
Patent cases clustered in a handful of federal district courts, with 1495 filed in the Eastern District of Texas and 1336 in the District of Delaware (including 900 before a single Eastern District of Texas judge).

... it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

You seem to have skipped some things there. (Was it an "accident"?) Lets add a bit more, shall we?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

The Minnesota lawmaker told the St. Paul CBS affiliate that he "was very well aware of" the classified government programs that gathered personal data on telephone and Internet users.

“I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism,” Franken said, adding that "this is not about spying on the American people."

Franken also defended the program as striking the right balance between national security and the right to privacy, echoing recent assurances from the White House.

“There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know,” Franken said.

The senator also said it was appropriate for the Justice Department to investigate Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old defense contractor who has claimed responsibility for the leak.

It seems you may not really understand Franken's position as well as you think. Or do you actually understand it, and want to confuse people so they don't realize what Franken has actually been up to?

... it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

Yes, I did read it, and better than you apparently. You seem to have skipped some things there. Lets add a bit more, shall we?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

The Minnesota lawmaker told the St. Paul CBS affiliate that he "was very well aware of" the classified government programs that gathered personal data on telephone and Internet users.

“I have a high level of confidence that this is used to protect us and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism,” Franken said, adding that "this is not about spying on the American people."

Franken also defended the program as striking the right balance between national security and the right to privacy, echoing recent assurances from the White House.

“There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that is not appropriate for the bad guys to know,” Franken said.

The senator also said it was appropriate for the Justice Department to investigate Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old defense contractor who has claimed responsibility for the leak.

It seems you may not really understand Franken's position as well as you think.

It looks like our moderation tonight is "progressive," just not fair or honest.

Or maybe you are spamming that link and people who bothered to read it are down voting it as deceptive?

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

But I guess haters gotta hate, or whatever slang you want to use.

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

But he is a strong defender of the NSA. Are we still here to praise him? Or can we criticize him without being mod bombed?

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

But he is a strong defender of the NSA. Are we still here to praise him? Or can we criticize him without being mod bombed?

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

You keep posting that link with an irrational seeming fervor, and it doesn't seem like that's something Franken would do so I checked it out. Have you even read it?

"Sen. Franken voted against reauthorizing the FISA Act because of the lack of transparency after he cosponsored and voted for three separate amendments that would have improved the bill on transparency and privacy," Franken press aide Alexandra Fetissoff said.

In the interview on Tuesday, Franken says he does think the government programs should be more open, even if there was a reason for some government secrets.

“I don't believe that the American people should have to take the government's word for it," Franken said. "I think there should be enough transparency so that the American people understand what's happening.”

It seems like he's saying not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He's hardly defending the NSA vacuum everything position.

It is illegal for felons to vote in many states, including Minnesota at the time. (Really? You couldn't figure that out?)

you piece of NSA excusing shit?

Pardon me, were you speaking about Al Franken?

Franken defends NSA surveillance

It appears to be the case that intelligent commentary is as rare as fair moderation on this topic.

That's not all he did. He is also a big defender of the NSA. Still a fan of Franken?

...is the only person in the Senate who seems to have not been bought and sold by lobbyists.

But he is a strong defender of the NSA. Are we still here to praise him? Or can we criticize him without being mod bombed?