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Florida Congressman Wants Blogging Critic Fined, Jailed
vvaduva writes "Florida Rep. Alan Grayson wants to see one of his critics go directly to jail, all over her use of the word 'my' on her blog. In a four-page letter sent to [US Attorney General Eric] Holder, Grayson accuses blogger Angie Langley of lying to federal elections officials and requests that she be fined and imprisoned for five years. Her lie, according to Grayson, is that she claims to be one of his constituents. Langley, Grayson says, is misrepresenting herself by using the term 'my' in the Web site's name."
As explained below, Ms. Langley and the Committee falsely represented to the Federal Election Commission that the Committee "supports or opposes more than one candidate." In fact, however, the committee name corresponds to a website that attacks me and only me, while soliciting contributions to be used against only me. Moreover, Ms. Langley has falsely depicted herself as a constituent, in order to further this scheme.
Although you may claim it's just another stupid technicality that Florida Rep. Alan Grayson clings to in order to shut down a website that is probably too painfully close to the truth for his comfort, there is another complaint other than the use of the word 'my.' Now, if you visit the about us page on the committee in question's site you can find:
Central Floridians formed My Congressman Is Nuts PAC as a response to the outrage and embarrassment within Central Florida over Alan Grayson's liberal positions and childish approach in Washington, D.C. We could no longer sit by and accept his inappropriate behavior and leftist big government agenda. He does not represent the values of Central Florida.
Emphasis mine. Now a key part to the argument is that since it is a PAC with pac registration, it receives taxation status benefits from the government making it subject to the law of United States Code Title 18 Section 1001.
I mean, he might have a case here if that US code applies to PACs. I'm not sure. Were I in his shoes, I would have instead taken the angle of attack related to the title line of the site which is "Alan Grayson is Nuts" and proven that I am not legally insane. Actually, I wouldn't have done anything. As Barbara Streisand might have pointed out that before this news I had never heard of nor visited My Congressman Is Nuts but now I have scanned the entire site out of curiosity.
My work here is dung.
So... two people acting like children, one takes it way too far?
Color me surprised. Not that it doesn't belong here, but this is less tech story and more a human story.
According to the article, the blogger criticized the congressman for his "childish approach" towards governing.
Well, he sure showed her!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Where political speech can land you in jail.
I've always been bothered by the idea that voters who elect representative officials are limited to talking to just those officials on matters that have national scale and scope... in other words, just about everything the federal government does.
I mean, why shouldn't I as a citizen of the state of Abstraction be able to ask the Senator from the state of Facts to vote for a proposal that is in the best interests of the American people?
g=
Is lying, in a political context, a crime? If the Vice President lies about wmd in Iraq, is that a crime? If Monsanto lies about their political contributions, is that a crime? If a blogger lies about her relationship with a Congressman, is that crime?
Best Slashdot Co
I think you've confused him with Barney Frank.
He can also be a jackass. Jail for a website?
If only congress had people like him who were standing up on the right side of the issues. This and other comments (health care == Holocaust??) show he's a nut.
*sarcasm* Thanks Florida.
Also, she should sue him for civil rights violations; specifically, her first amendment rights. This man has no place in government (TFA didn't say if he's a federal congresscritter or a state guy)
He apologized in October for calling a female adviser to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke a "whore."
She should sue for slander. Get this guy out of government and into the poorhouse!
Free Martian Whores!
I'm sorry, I must be dumb. Someone please explain to me, exactly WHAT law is she breaking? I read the complaint.
She can say (just about) whatever she wants as a private citizen--constituent or not, but if she's taking political contributions as a PAC, she needs to play by the already much-too-lose campaign finance laws.
That'd be true if it was slander. This is basically a political op-ed site, which is protected under the constitution. The slander against bloggers/websites has been tried before and found to be afforded the same protections as any print publication, which includes print publications by political opinion entities.
Methinks you posted in the wrong submission thread.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
So if she can go to jail for using that particular name on a site, can I go to jail for having a MySpace page? What about MyYahoo? MyWay?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
I know brother, Thankfully it is not nearly the level of Bias on MS "Text my blackberry please" NBC.
Media should be Ashamed, They always yelled about people receiving Republican marching orders of some sort, While they have been doing it. thou dost protest too much, methinks I would love to get me some of those marching orders from the Republicans because that would mean they actually are not in shambles and chaotic.
Whenever an elected official does something silly like this, remember that we elected these people. We've no one but ourselves (and/or our idiot neighbors) to blame.
Why? Should anything the New York Times reports on a Republican also be assumed to be false? Don't be so intellectually lazy.
Interestingly, TFA is from Fox News, which pretty much NEVER fails to note the party of a political official in a scandal, regardless of the party they are in, including this one.
Right, Fox News just lies about what party the scandal-ridden politicians belong to.
Seriously, after they repeatedly represented scandal-ridden Republicans as Democrats, and misrepresented footage from previous events as being from more recent ones (tea parties, Palin book signings) to make crowds look larger than they actually were, I don't know how anyone can hold up Fox News as a paragon of journalistic integrity anymore. And please don't trot out the old tired argument that "everyone else is just as bad or worse". The fact is Fox News routinely does this sort of thing, and acting like they're in any way "fair and balanced" is just absurd.
As opposed to material that should be read unquestioningly?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
And when there was the story a little while back about the Republican who raped his daughters and was trying to censor news about it where Slashdot didn't mention his political affiliation, that was a clear example of Evil Liberal Bias too, right?
If this is what you mean when you're talking about "liberal bias" then it's no wonder everyone looks at you like you're a paranoid lunatic.
What about Glenn Beck? My cable system bills him as a talk radio host.
Once in a while I tune in and see how long it takes him to say something stupid or confused. I am never disappointed.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If you prefer, this and this predate the Fox story by several days.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yay. I'm with you on this one. At the moment Rep Alan Grayson is a champion of truth, justice, etc etc. All the qualities you'd actually LIKE to see in a congressional representative. So I was a bit surprised when I read the headline. Then I clicked the link and realized it went to foxnews.com. Fox News has been trying to paint Rep. Grayson as a nutjob for a LONG time. He gets in the way of their agenda.
First line FTFA
My, my, my. Florida Rep. Alan Grayson wants to see one of his critics go directly to jail -- all over her use of the word "my."
A bit sensionalist don't ya think. I bet halfway through the article it talks about how he wants to kill babies and eat their brains. Well I chuckled, closed the link, and moved on.
Nothing to see here folks.
I am pretty sure the FCC is headed that way. Congress would just as likely modify their Congressional Incumbents Protection Act (McCain/Feingold) to keep any criticism of a sitting Congressman. Why not, its not like they care what you think until its time to vote.
It all comes down to arrogance not seen since the late 1700s in France. The "ruling" class while "elected" has no problem in engineering a system by which they cannot be criticized (see McCain/Feingold) but will change laws to prevent people from voting against them (redistricting - Voter Rights Act - not prosecuting thugs at election sites - philly).
Grayson is an embarrassment to his district, but like voters in Louisiana proved, money in the freezer does not mean your guilty, just stupid. Remember all Congressmen and bad except yours.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The fact that she's a wingnut, either right or left, doesn't enter into it. Even Rush deserves freedom of sppech (and to be ridiculed for his speech).
Many of my views are liberal/progressive, many are conservative, most are pretty libertarian, but this guy needs to be voted out. IMO nobody that wants any form of censorship should be in government.
Free Martian Whores!
Everything has a bias to it. Slashdot has a libertarian leaning bias, Dailykos has a left bias and Fox News is right leaning. It is the reader's job to look critically at what other people say and decide for themselves regardless of the political slant. As for leaving off the D-fla next to his name, I'd say that you could look at it two ways: 1) a party shouldn't be singled out in media or 2) party affiliation is irrelevant; the conduct of a particular congress critter is what is important. Mostly I'd say that 2) is most correct as much of the problem in politics is that people mindlessly vote along party lines eg. republicans/democrats as a whole are evillll instead of crosscritter X is specifically an arsehat. It's irrational.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
My, my, my!
Please enlighten us on what news source is not biased? Every professional news source is in the news management business as opposed to the news reporting business.
When are you liberals going to learn ... the republican party is the political wing of Fox News.
Actually, Fox News does occassionally omit the partisian labels, and even switches them (http://mediamatters.org/blog/200906240026 - assumedly this is inadvertant, although folks more suspicious than I tend to infer malacious intent). That doesn't make the omission here any better, of course.
It's fair to say there has been a severe lack of civility on both sides of the aisle, highlighted mostly on the Republican side, I think (Cheney telling Leahy to Go F__k himself, the rep who shouted "you lie" during the presidential address, etc), although Rep. Grayson clearly enjoys lowering the standards himself.
I know Fox makes it sounds like some DEMOCRAT wants a CONSERVATIVE web site taken down because they used the word "my", but thats simply not true.
The letter was written to claim that Ms Langley requested permission to create a non-partisan voter education committee for her district. However, the webpage that represents this committee is clearly not bipartisan and falsely claims to originate from the district in question. It is illegal and considered tax fraud to do this.
I really hope I don't find many more headline stories that are from Fox's falsification/opinionation version of news. I like slashdot.
priceless.
Why? Should anything the New York Times reports on a Republican also be assumed to be false? Don't be so intellectually lazy.
New York Times != Democratic equivalent of Fox News.
MSNBC might be a bit closer, but then again I can't think of who their equivalent of Glenn Beck is.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I suspect that a not-so-technically-savvy politician got pissed at the blog contents and then turned to his lawyer and said in a huff: "Find some way to shut that [bleeping] blog down! I don't care how you do it, just find a way."
The result is a bunch of silly lawsuit claims that have a slight chance of tying up the blog and blogger for a while.
Table-ized A.I.
Now I remember why I almost never read/watch Fox news. I was scratching my head wondering what the connection is between a domain name, and lieing to the Federal Elections Commission. Last time I checked, a DNS registration is not submitted to the FEC.
Reading that statement, I knew there had to be more to this story, but good luck getting it from Fox News. They must really think everyone is stupid (or maybe they just *don't* care about non-stupid people - we aren't in their demographic, I guess).
If I called Rep. Grayson "My least favourite douchebag", would that get me in trouble? Or perhaps "My personal definition of an asshat"?
I wonder what got into the people of Florida to elect such a pathetic waste of oxygen. Clearly this guy isn't qualified to run a fast food joint, much less make decisions affecting the lives of thousands of people. Maybe everybody will get lucky and he'll drown from looking up too long during a rainstorm.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Langley criticizes Grayson on her Web site for his "inappropriate behavior" and "childish approach" toward governing, and claims he "does not represent the values of central Florida." Grayson has pretty much made her case for her with this inappropriate and childish attack on her web site. The term "Streisand Effect" also comes to mind. I hope mycongressmanisnuts.com carries advertising, 'cause this dick move is going to drive a metric shitload of traffic to the site!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And OF COURSE, /. forgets to add "D-Fla" to the Reps name.
Anyone think, even for a second, if Grayson was "R-Fla" that it would have been missed?
Yeah, didn't think so.
This is what conservatives and libertarians mean when we are talking about "liberal bias" in the media. Those soft, subtle things used to quietly tweak the story to emphasize or de-emphasize precisely the point of view the writer wants his or her readers to end up with after reading the story.
Interestingly, TFA is from Fox News, which pretty much NEVER fails to note the party of a political official in a scandal, regardless of the party they are in, including this one.
Nice omission there /.
Are you fucking kidding me? Fox 'News' can be relied on to mislabel a Republican involved in a scandal with a D almost every time the story breaks.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The PAC consists of three members. She isn't in the district, but the other two are in the district meaning she is in the minority.
So now stopping someone from lying about what their PAC is for, to get tax exempt money, is censorship? I'm with you on freedom of speech, but Grayson isn't aruging against the mean words on the site, it's the fact that she's breaking campaign finance laws.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Grayson is a joke. Ignore him and maybe he'll go away.
I've tried to ignore him, yet it's difficult when you actually live in central FL and you hear about him in the news on a weekly basis. I'm not even a republican, yet I cringe every time I hear him being interviewed- he's got an enormous ego and an even bigger mouth. He's the most annoying kind of politician- one who believes he's a populist yet no one actually likes him. Out of all of the reasonable people that democrats had running in the 2008 election for my district, we somehow ended up with a guy who can't debate without personally insulting people, refers to those who disagree with the current healthcare legislation "murderers", called a woman a "whore" on national television, etc... there's nothing professional about him. No surprise that he's trying to get some blog critical of him shut down.
Alan Grayson like a liberal Jack Thompson, only he still has power. He's a disgrace to my district, and frankly, I'm embarrassed that my neighbors in central FL were either stupid or ill-informed enough to elect him.
Yes, I said MY district.
Come get me, Mr. Grayson.
Sigs are for losers
>>When has Fox ever falsified anything?
Just reading the question that you posed makes my skin crawl.
From memory, Fox was recently outed for falsifying crowd scenes at teabagger rallies - they substituted crowd scenes from a previous large rally for one that was sparsely attended. I believe they did that twice, two different times in the space of a couple weeks.
With regards to the name, if someone is ticked at him and searching for or just typing in a dissenting statement hoping to find a site, they will always use 'My' instead of 'Your'.
How many people do you know that have gone to a help site and looked for 'my (something) is broken'.
(probably a lot, then they call us in a panic, I know, we all know...)
I haven't even looked into the other allegation, but as ianal, it would probably get too messy for me anyhow.
Besides, that guy is a total wackjob anyhow. His public statements have already proven that his entire political career, and possible himself, should be shoved into a deep dark rubber room and heavily medicated.
Here you go.
At first glance it appears that a Democratic congressman is suing a blogger for using "my" in the name of her website because she really isn't his constituent. Is this all there is to this story? Bear in mind, the only source I've found is Fox News which isn't exactly balanced reporting (if any of them are). From the story: "In a four-page letter sent to Holder, Grayson accuses Langley of lying to federal elections and requests that she be fined and imprisoned for five years." So what I can tell Langley had been questioned by some sort of official. Grayson says she lied. So her crime might be she lied to some officials about where she lived which isn't a high crime but is a crime.
Here's what I think went down: Grayson gets attacked on her site. He investigates the site to know whether it is by a PAC or an independent blogger. If it's a PAC there are various disclosures that must be done. Officials question Langley. Grayson thinks she lied about her constituency at least (and maybe other things like her independence). So he asks for legal action. Fox is spinning it to be more sensational than it is for ratings.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee
"In the United States, a Political Action Committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a matter of state and federal law. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, an organization becomes a "political committee" by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1,000 for the purpose of influencing a federal election."
This appears to be EXACLY what they're doing, but don't let the facts hit you in the ass. Sorry, no matter how you try to twist it, its still a political OP-ED site just like the other million of them out there trying to influence so many other votes one way or the other. This is just targetted at a specific congressman instead of a specific bill.
Why?
Because they admit they intentionally deceive their viewers, and they fund and promote anti-democrat political protests.
Should anything the New York Times reports on a Republican also be assumed to be false?
Only if you can show any evidence that they intentionally deceive their readers, and have funded anti-republican protests. I await your citations.
Did you RTFA? The reason why Grayson is pissed is because the blogger set up a PAC to effectively find her own re-election, i.e. breaking a ton of tax laws.
Did you miss the part about the four page letter to the attorney general?
Way to engage in ad hominem rather than address the point -- you know, the screen capture of Fox identifying Sanford as a democrat, or the side by side video clips proving footage was used out of turn.
Innocent until proven guilty....
The representative can go after her all he likes, it's for a court to decide if she's innocent or guilty of lying in the use of PAC funds and whether or not the use of 'my' in the name of her site deems fraud.
I can't say whether her use of PAC funds were used properly, but I would certainly agree with her stance that your congressman is your congressman for your state regardless of which district your from. I could see much better use of taxpayer monies than persuing this blogger.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Come get me, Mr. Grayson.
Really. With powerful nutbags like Grayson ready to ignore the 1st amendment and lock you up, who needs enemies?
As for the liberals ready to point out how this maniac is typical of the right side of the isle, lets not forget the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five/Keating Five, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson/William Jefferson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rostenkowski/Dan Rostenkowski, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich/Rod Blagojevich, need I go on about how equally smelly the democrats are? Both sides are losers in my opinion.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Which news source would you prefer then? Just because you do not like Fox News does not mean that they do not report legitimate news. Sure, the article was a bit sensationalist but all news services are about sensationalism and all are biased. We just don't like when news services are biased differently than we are.
Any example you can give of Republican malfeasance can easily be matched by a similar Democratic one.
You simply choose to have selective blindness as to which malfeasance you remember.
When you just throw up your hands and say they're all like that you basically let the problem continue.
You do the same thing by pretending one side is altruistic while the other is Satan. Actually, you do far worse - you encourage the side you have a blind spot for to escalate behavior.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So.... Apparently the site is dead on with this "childish" claim?
You got modded a troll, what a shame. Your statement is correct. Fox News is anything but fair and balanced...well unless you are a republican. If Fox news says anything nice about a liberal then it's probably that the liberal just resigned office - and even then...
BTW - for the 323,325 commenters - yes democrats have their own media sources - CNN. CNN went from the really good news start up, to a liberal news group, to the liberal insanity group (and I'm a democrat). It's gotten to the point that watching CNN makes me want to puke, though in all honesty watching Fox News makes me puke...
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
It looks somewhat legit, though that bias was a bit obvious -- the guy is a Democrat.
If he had been a Republican, would Fox have said anything?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Yes, because Keith Olbermann has said the liberal equivalent of the WHACKED OUT CRAZY PARANOID SHIT that Beck regularly spews on the TV.
Try again with this, Fox News has no liberal counterpart. We try to find symmetry in all things, there is no symmetry here. MSNBC(former home of Michael Savage, Alan Keyes, Curtis Sliwa and Don Imus, and current home of former Republican House member Joe Scaroborough) wasn't founded with the same ideological basis that Fox was. There are a total of three shows that have an out right liberal bias. Olbermann, Schultz and Maddow. They still have Joe Scarborough, they still have a pretty lousy track record of bias in their news reporting.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I take it you missed the part where this Representative is a Democrat? lol
Thankfully it is not nearly the level of Bias on MS "Text my blackberry please" NBC.
I'm not sure what you mean by "thankfully" - you're saying you want MSNBC to start promoting political protests like Fox News does?!?!?! This sort of thing is bad for *everyone*.
Don't feel too bad. You've got Grayson? I'VE got Michelle Bachmann! How on earth that crazed mental defective got elected again by my neighbors just boggles my mind. Yay for gerrymandered districts! :(
I'm all for you on freedom of speech but, when you dig into this it isn't about censorship or freedom of speech but about how her PAC is formed. She is claiming on the site that she is representing her views of her congress critter, and the site is all about Grayson who isn't. The PAC also is only working on raising money to remove him from office while the PAC was formed under a more general license. Meaning that Angie Langley can bypass campaign financing laws and collect more money then the law would allow. There are a lot of laws on the books now about PACs and there will probable be even more, and some of them are on the books because of massive abuses done by PACs. (They don't have too account for every dollar they get, unlimited donation.) On the flipside as a PAC you have signed away some of your rights to Free Speech to get the tax exempt status. From what I can see from digging into it, Angie Langley, is basicly running a generalized PAC, while specifically targeting Grayson and representing herself as one of his constituents to Federal Elections. So basically committing election fraud with a slice of corruption. Just the kind of thing that people don't like. Anyway, just reading more into it sense the headline is so wonderfully catchy.
No, but to suggest that a given reporting firm is in the tank for one political party or the other is to give News organizations too much credit for being proactive.
During the 2000 campaign, for instance, the Media reported much more favorably for George W. Bush than it did Al Gore. There's a lazy bias in the media. Quick and easy stories that can be out the door to keep up with the ever changing 24 hour news cycle.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Add a slash to the URL, so that it's MyCongressmanIsNuts.com/Grayson. Repeat 434 times, once for each congressman.
Fixed that for ya.
What excellent non-US news organizations don't have to worry about people buying/reading their products or receiving funding and/or keeping their jobs under the current administration? I'm not trying to be snide, I'd actually be interested in knowing if such environments exist and how they are established and operate in order to avoid these problems.
In the American system, we have Congresspeople who represent a particular State.
Those other bozo's are called Representatives, who represent the PEOPLE, no matter
where they reside. Using MY in the case of a representative, ie; Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla,
would be correct.
Grayson actually represents all the people, without regard to their origin, be it Guam, Puerto Rico
or Ohio. He needs to re-take Gov 101.
Ask Representative Grayson what would happen if everyone moved to California. Would
he get to represent the non-existant people in 'his' district? No he would not. He would
have to move to California and run again for election. It is in the constitution. Look
for it. It may take some skillful reading.
Slashdot has a libertarian leaning bias
Geeks, intelligence, porn, what did you expect?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Maybe you should learn a bit more rational debate and a lot less rhetoric, it will get you a lot further in life.
Welcome to the Internet.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The AP and Reuters are pretty unbiased, mostly because they tend to omit anything that would involve opinion of any kind. They aren't the most in-depth or interesting reads, but if you're looking for just-the-facts reporting they are usually pretty good. Basically, the wire services will tell you what happened. Period. End of story. They won't tell you much if anything about why it happened, how it happened, who will benefit from it happening, who didn't want it to happen, and so on, but if all you want to know is what happened, they're a pretty good place to start.
The trouble is, if you're looking for all the stuff the wire reports leave out, the people who are most willing to talk to a reporter about that issue are those with an axe to grind about it. If they're academics, then their careers are staked on particular sets of theories, so any answer they give will ensure that the universe changes to conform to their theory. If they're a think tank or non-profit, they will attempt to match the views of their donors. If they're a politician or one of his aides, then they're going to be going with whatever will improve their chances of reelection. If they're a business, they'll go with whatever will make them the most cash. And so on.
I am officially gone from
Everyone hates him because he's so popular. --Greg
... for never hearing about the Streisand effect. I've never heard of the guy before.
So, in my opinion Alan Grayson *is* nuts, just for a different reason :-)
see a Text Widget
that's easy: Olbermann.
Show me the batshit insane crying clip and I'll believe you.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Keith Olbermann...
I like him as a sports guy though.
Ah, Republicans hate it when a Dem starts giving back what they've been shoveling for years now...
Sorry, no matter how you try to twist it, its still a political OP-ED site
I think the line is when you start trying to raise money. From the PAC's site:
To be successful, we need your help. Please join our effort by making a contribution today! Through paid advertising and grassroots activities, we will hold Alan Grayson accountable for his votes and actions.
Since when does an "op-ed site" have paid advertising against a particular candidate? If all they were doing is pushing an opinion, by all means go right ahead. But if you want to accept donations "for the purpose of influencing a federal election" you need to play by the rules everyone else plays by.
E pluribus unum
Yay. I'm with you on this one. At the moment Rep Alan Grayson is a champion of truth, justice, etc etc. All the qualities you'd actually LIKE to see in a congressional representative. So I was a bit surprised when I read the headline. Then I clicked the link and realized it went to foxnews.com. Fox News has been trying to paint Rep. Grayson as a nutjob for a LONG time. He gets in the way of their agenda.
First line FTFA
My, my, my. Florida Rep. Alan Grayson wants to see one of his critics go directly to jail -- all over her use of the word "my."
A bit sensionalist don't ya think. I bet halfway through the article it talks about how he wants to kill babies and eat their brains. Well I chuckled, closed the link, and moved on.
Nothing to see here folks.
Yeah, well, then you read the four page document to Eric Holder, and you find out that she actually organized a PAC with the FEC and is soliciting money to use against him and only him, in violation of the terms under which her PAC was established... so... yeah, not like Fox News would totally gloss over the huge pointy teeth on the rabbit, but rather just point and laugh at Tim saying, "you're crazy!!!"
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
It isn't ad-hominem if it's true.
However, your point is correct. Fox did make a mistake with the party affiliation in the highlighted instance. They also corrected the mistake in the next broadcast and several times over the following day.
Hardly a case for "lying" and "repeatedly representing Republicans as Democrats". Indeed, the few mistakes Fox has made, have been called out by it's OWN people often before anyone else has had a chance to digest it.
Unlike, say, most of the rest of the media, who are SO bad at it that sites like NewsBusters have made a regular topic out of it: Name That Party.
I don't claim that Fox News is perfect. FAR FROM IT. But at the same time, to try and use a massively biased leftwing troll site to provide "evidence" of some "vast Republican Conspiracy" in collusion with Fox news is just nuts.
Also, I realize that we all tend to see the world through the lens of ourselves. Being bias-free is nigh-on impossible. But where there are serial examples of obvious bias bordering on gross journalistic malfeasance it's appropriate to call it out.
I apologize if I came across a bit rudely, it's been a rough week at work. (and it's only Tuesday. Ugh.)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Really? I generally consider myself a pretty rightwing libertarian, but CNN is the only news network I can stomach watching. Fox News is a undeniably republican cesspool and MSNBC generally seem to be democrat shills.
I won't deny CNN is crap, but generally they seem too busy jizzing themselves over all of their fancy multi-touch screens, worthless charts, and random morons' 'tweets' to actually display a bias.
Seriously though, what is up with that twitter shit on network news, it's almost like they are actively trying to drive me away from the TV and just use the internet (which is what I generally do anyways).
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Someone forgot to mention Grayson's party affiliation. "Democrat" for those still wondering. "Republican" would have been part of the headline had it been so.
Do you have ESP?
Maybe we can take this a step further and say "24 hour news makes me want to puke." Really, my life is not *that* boring that I need to know every detail about somebody who did that one thing that was kind of interesting that one time....
+1 Disagree
It isn't ad-hominem if it's true.
Yes it is.
I take it you missed the part where this Representative is a Democrat?
No. I was responding to an earlier post about republicans, and adding this fool to the list of bad dems.
lol
Indeed.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) "Concision means you have to be able to say things between two commercials. Now that’s a structural property of our media—a very important structural property which imposes conformism in a very deep way, because if you have to meet the condition of concision, you can only either repeat conventional platitudes or else sound like you are from Neptune That is, if you say anything that’s not conventional, it’s going to sound very strange." -- Noam Chomsky
I'll be damned if a Congressman who Godwinned the Health Care Bill debate has a lower UID than me!!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Yeah, because Media Matters is a bastion of impartiality who never take anything out of context and never blow anything out or proportion.
You haven't paid attention to the small print in the bottom of most of the election ads have you? Guess what most of those ads are being funded by? Guess what they have now a days? WEBSITES! Every single one of them has a "Please donate to our cause!" button somewhere on them, or instructions on how to donate to them. I'd direct your attention to the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee
---->8----
Categorization of PACs
* See also List of political action committees.
Federal law allows for two types of PACs, connected and non-connected.
- Connected PACs
Most of the 4,600 active, registered PACs are "Connected PACs", which are established by businesses, labor unions, trade groups and health organizations. These PACs receive and raise money from a "restricted class," generally consisting of managers and shareholders in the case of a corporation and members in the case of a union or other interest group. As of January 2009 there are 1,598 registered corporate PACs, 272 connected to labor unions and 995 connected to trade organizations. [1]
- Non-Connected PACs
Groups with an ideological mission, single-issue groups and members of Congress and other political leaders may form "non-connected PACs". These organizations may accept funds from any individual, business PAC or organization. As of January 2009 there are 1,594 non-connected PACs, the fastest-growing category.[2]
- Leadership PAC
A leadership PAC in U.S. politics is a political action committee that can be established by a member of Congress to support other candidates. Under FEC rules, Leadership PACs are non-connected PACs, meaning, they can accept donations from any individual, business or other PACs. While Leadership PAC funds cannot be spent to directly support their sponsor's own campaign (such as mail or ads), they may fund travel, office expenses, consultants, polling and other non-campaign expenses. They can also be used to make contributions to the campaigns of other candidates.[3][4][5]
---->8----
If you notice, as long as its not a Leadership PAC, and they aren't funding one of their own for election, what they're doing is NOT against FEC regulations.
Also: Thank you for raising your point in a way that doesn't make you seem like a jackass, like the previous replier did.
Separately, I think the Constitution should have a provision that states that no one in Congress (or any federal position for that matter) should have any legal recourse against anything stated about them other than their own explanation or response. A person whom voluntarily steps into public service, should not only NOT have a MORE privileged status than the common citizenry, they should have a LESS privileged status.
However currently, there are no such laws.
Shouldn't the title of this article be "Florida woman attempts to fraudulently raise campaign funding"?
There is a difference between bias, and pandering.
Yes there is bias everywhere, but that doesn't mean you don't take action to minimize it, instead Fox news holds it up with intentional lies.
FOX news is the worst, by far.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It all says libertarian..except for the middle bit.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hah! Yeah right, dude.
The only "intellectual laziness" that I see is you trying to proffer the false equivalence of Fox News and NYT. The underpinnings of such an equivalence can not be supported, so to promulgate it is untenable.
If you were less intellectually lazy, you would realize that.
Slashdot has a libertarian leaning bias
Not really. Slashdot is a pretty diverse bunch. There are right wing wingnuts, left wing wingnuts, libertarian wingnuts, socialist wingnuts, and moderate folks of all stripes. It's a tech site, people come for the tech but techies come in all colors. DailyCos is set up as a leftist site so of course it will be left-leaning, Fox is owned by a right wing wingnut and his views are of course its views.
The Libertarians just seem to shout louder; you should have seen all the Ron Paul yard signs here last primary election, if elections were won by yard signs he'd have been the Republican candidate.
Free Martian Whores!
Yes, exactly; they are. I'm glad we see eye-to-eye.
Correction: Dailykos has a moderate right bias, and Fox has a right-of-Mussolini bias. We don't have an active left wing in this country.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
No, basically everything he's said is about right. You're just too fucking stupid to see it, evidenced by the fact that you're dumb enough to take a fox news story at face value. Here, let me spell it out for your dumb fucking ass: The 'My' part is only relevant because the site in question is operated by a PAC group which has to file papers with the FEC. On said papers the PAC *LIED* and claimed to be a constituent of Alan Grayson. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of your gibbering nonsense, you stupid fucking redneck.
Falsifying crowds? You really should be careful when you speak about that because both branches of the ruling party do it... and it became rather prevalent this past summer when the SEIU was bussed in to the town hall meetings. Instead of being true town hall meetings, restricted to those who live in that district (or state, in the case of a Senator), we find all kinds of people coming in from all over the place taking up the seats that SHOULD have been occupied by the constituents.
OCO is Loco
Which news source would you prefer then? Just because you do not like Fox News does not mean that they do not report legitimate news. Sure, the article was a bit sensationalist but all news services are about sensationalism and all are biased. We just don't like when news services are biased differently than we are.
What news do they actually report?
It looks to me like they stage rallies rather than just report on them, and then embellish them with footage taken from previous rallies.
They have people like Glenn Beck report that the economy is in the toilet and that we should buy gold. This while taking money from the gold brokers.
This kind of behavior doesn't sound like journalism to me.
As for me I'm going to stick with my own highly biased liberal rag, The Economist.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
He's a congressman in my country's federal legislative branch of government. When I'm talking to a worldwide audience like the internet, he's mine too, even though I don't live in his state and can't vote for him.
Notice that the story, complete with the completely false, yellow journalism, headline, is only being run by Fox News. I saw the story on Google News earlier, and wanted to read the actual facts. However, so far no reputable news organization has bothered to report it. Something to keep in mind.
What seems to be the actual story is that the Congressman sent a rather routine notice to the FEC about a likely violation of PAC status and election law. All the "trying to send to prison" bit is just a deceptive way of saying that, well yes, laws do have legal force (including ultimately penalties).
Buy Text Processing in Python
You haven't paid attention to the small print in the bottom of most of the election ads have you?
I lived in Florida during the 2008 election. For your information, I have seen more of that small print than I ever cared to. Don't assume the person you are talking to is uninformed unless they have demonstrated their ignorance.
Guess what they have now a days? WEBSITES!
A PAC is not some informal group of politically minded people, it is a legal entity that accepts donations for political purposes, which may or may not have a website. The fact this was a website is only relevant insofar as the vehicle for the message, as well as for receiving donations. If they had printed flyers with the same content the PAC would still be in violation.
If you notice, as long as its not a Leadership PAC, and they aren't funding one of their own for election, what they're doing is NOT against FEC regulations.
If you are reading Wikipedia for your information on this matter you may be slightly over your head. The documentation from the FEC is fairly clear. When you register a PAC you have to declare some basic information, such as if you are only supporting or opposing a single candidate, multiple candidates, if they are affiliated with some other group, etc. When "Mycongressmanisnuts.com" registered as a PAC, they reported the purpose of the committee was to "supports/opposes more than one Federal candidate". Emphasis mine. Thus far the only action the committee has taken is to attack Grayson, which by itself is fine by me (the guy is an idiot). They should have checked the box marked "This committee supports/opposes only one candidate" as that is how they have operated.
Keep in mind we have these rules to help shut down dishonesty like the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth".
Also: Thank you for raising your point in a way that doesn't make you seem like a jackass, like the previous replier did.
There is enough idiocy out there already. (Just look at what we're discussing here)
E pluribus unum
The linked article is by Fox News, the media arm of the Republican party. That alone should make you question every word of the article.
If you don't question every word of every article, why bother to read them at all? Just because Fox News is decidedly Neo-Con, doesn't mean that every other news outlet is automatically trustworthy. Everyone who's ever used print to communicate has 'intentionally deceived their readers' by some definition or another. Your brain is supposed to be in the 'on' position when you deal with important topics. Personally I have found that most people are smarter than you seem to be giving them credit for...
Assume one exists. Are the people working to provide also immune to peer pressure, pride, greed, etc?
Its better to assume everything you read is wrong, until you are convinced otherwise. Scrutiny, folks. Its the only way.
I really do respect Rep. Grayson however I do believe he is wrong on this one. He should back down.
All of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go Inside the Monkeysphere. - I think that's basically what you were saying.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Im so sorry, I feel your pain Ive got Ben Nelson, who did quiet some damage to the healthcare bill. I do have to say that your Rep, is quiet a bit more insane then my Sen., mines just greedy.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
Can I sue Microsoft too? They seem to always claim it's 'My Computer'.
SIGLOST && SIGUNUSED && SIGQUIT
Karma to burn, baby! But I'm not off-topic - how'd you think I got the 'funny' that used to be there?
> party affiliation is irrelevant; the conduct of a particular congress critter is what is important
If the particular congress critter could exhibit an ability to think and vote for himself, or his constituents, rather than his party, I might agree with you.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Threatening to jail constituents for criticizing you? What exactly is the message you are trying to send -- which horrific evil figure of the past and present are you trying to resemble? Are you shooting for Stalin, or are you trying for something a little fresher, like Ahmadinejad?
Dont forget the poll that added up to 120% http://www.mediaite.com/tv/when-120-makes-sense-fox-friends-defends-poll-display/
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
It's called freedom of speech and Grayson is a fool. He is just showing one of the main problems with Washington this year. The Dems can't accept any criticism of any kind. They try to ridicule it (Palin, Tea Parties) or counter attack with everything they have (Fox News). The most thin skinned bunch that has been there in my 53 years of life. If they weren't trying to destroy the country it would be funny.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
If you want better candidates, register for one of the parties and participate in the primaries. Most candidates are forced into extreme positions just to obtain the candidacy, the more of us who participate to mitigate that, the better.
While I also used to register as independent, it's not enough to protest the dysfunction of the parties. We really need to start participating earlier. Pick the party who has the worst candidates, register, and try to get better candidates. Ignore the party lines, you are just trying to improve the candidate slate for everyone. Republicans and Democrats are both pretty bad, but it's what we have to live with, try to register to get a good candidate on one side or another, so we have a choice between candidates that are not too extreme.
Until we change the winner takes all voting system, we will have basically only two parties. We're stuck with them. The party system is not a great way to choose candidates; a very small sliver of people, mostly extremists, control the candidate slate. One solution is to participate. Otherwise all candidates end up beholden to party extremist groups in order to get the candidacy.
To everyone who thinks that this case really is about her 'blog' (I hesitate to call it a blog -- it's really just a poor homepage that looks like it was ripped out of the 90s) or the use of 'my': you fail. You did exactly what Fox News wanted, you took their word for granted without question and didn't dig any further to find the real story. You will keep repeating the misrepresented version of the story until it becomes "truth" to enough people that the actual truth doesn't matter.
Please, take a look at yourself in the mirror and realize, "yes, I am part of the problem."
To those who went a little further and think it's a free speech issue: I'm with you 100% on the whole free speech thing, but this isn't the issue here. Lose the knee-jerk reactions and calls for impeachment. IMHO, If someone is going to organize a PAC whose stated goal and only reason for existence is to influence an election, they'd damn well better follow the exact letter of the law. I'd much rather this wasn't used to go after some 2-bit organization like Langley's, but it's too dangerous of a precedent to set to *not* go after this sort of clear electoral fraud.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Thank you Timothy, for rolling out the red carpet for all the batshit crazy
commenters by promoting a foxnews fabrication on Slashdot. I've been
lurking for years but you got me mad enough to post now.
Check your F-ing sources. Get a second and a third source. Foxnews
does not get the benefit of the doubt, not on Slashdot.
What were you THINKING??
Howdy neighbor!
I didn't vote for her, I only moved here last February. I look forward to voting against her.
Rhetoric was not just part of Obama's campaign. Rhetoric was his entire campaign...
Really? All rhetoric? No policy? Not, say, on Net Neutrality?
Not to say that some of the rhetoric wasn't impressive on its own. The speech on race that he gave in response to the Reverend Wright controversy showed some pretty strong insights.
It's not because people knew or particularly cared about his policy plans
Maybe you didn't. Personally, I got on board precisely because I thought some policy positions like the one above demonstrated some insights I didn't see elsewhere, or at least that he spent some time talking to the right people.
I'm perfectly willing to believe that a lot if not most people vote on rhetoric and symbolism -- what a candidate means to them, how it fits into whatever political narrative they've internalized. That's almost certainly true no matter which election or candidates we're talking about. But that's a really different statement from yours, which appears to be that there was no policy substance to the Obama campaign, and I don't think that statement is particularly defensible.
Tweet, tweet.
Just because Fox News is decidedly Neo-Con, doesn't mean that every other news outlet is automatically trustworthy.
Ahh.. the wonderful Republican tactic of changing the topic... "OK, *my* source isn't trustworthy - but that doesn't mean that yours is!"
Here's the thing: it doesn't mean they aren't.
Hows about instead of saying "oh, yours is *probably* untrustworthy too!", you actually show me how they are funding and promoting political protests?
Oh, that's right - you can't. If you can't show *evidence*, then don't make the claim.
Were you around for the debate on social security privatization? If you listened to them back then you'd have thought that the GOP was aiming to put America's seniors into concentration camps.
Can you point to or even recollect any instances of that kind of hyperbolic concern?
Genuine question, I'd like to get a bead on this if I can, as it's probably a comparable question to the health care reform issues.
Tweet, tweet.
Oh please. Just shut the fuck up. I've counted 3 instances where a senator or representative was caught with his pants down - either it was for soliciting gays sex in a bathroom, engaging in sexual innuendo with male underage pages, and a guy with a mistress. Those are the most salacious ones, and the only ones I remember. You know what they have in common? Fox News claimed EVERY time that these people were democrats, for at least 24 hours. Multiple times. The official retraction, if any came at all, was at least a day late. If, however, the person in question was a democrat - like, say, one of the presidential candidates, they got it right. It got to the point where I could predict that Fox News was going to lie about the political affiliation. And no, they didn't change it on their own accord.
You, and everyone who claims that Fox News is anything but an entertainment channel catering to a very specific audience is lying, pure and simple. Your little strawman about media matters is cute and all, but it doesn't address the reality that Fox News plain lies.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
"The AP and Reuters are pretty unbiased, mostly because they tend to omit anything that would involve opinion of any kind."
Yet another person that doesn't understand the concept of bias. Lack of opinion does not mean lack of bias. Facts themselves are biased. What is reported, how it is reported and what is not reported will result in bias.
In simple terms, ALL REPORTING IS BIASED. The best you can hope for is accuracy in what they report and to be able to determine any systemic bias.
I never said he didn't have policy. In fact, he was quite clear about what his proposed policy was. It's why I didn't vote for him, despite his awesome rhetorical powers. But you and I are not the people he was campaigning to. You and I were already sold one way or another. There was nothing he could do to win my vote short of changing his policy, and there was nothing he could do to lose your vote short of changing his policy. He was campaigning for people in places like Virginia, Iowa, and Colorado---folks who were used to voting Republican but who were tired of all the Republicans' shenanigans. That's where the rhetoric came in. The Republicans had made asses of themselves (take that remark any way you please), and Obama was Different. So they voted for him. But now that he's aggressively doing all the stuff he plainly said he was going to do, suddenly his approval rating is plummeting, like people are surprised at what he's doing. To quote Agent Kay, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
If you trust Media Matters to do all your fact checking you will never hear about any of the other mistakes that Fox or any other network makes. It isn't uncommon for news programs to make typos, pull the wrong image or video clip, cut and paste part of a press release incorrectly, or even just not have any content to run at all. But when one of these mistakes happens to mismatch the wrong image with the wrong name it is somehow a huge scandal with a hidden motive.
Come back when you have actual evidence of malice, like, oh I don't know, forged military service records about a certain former president or something.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I hope you're not joking, because it's called the BBC. In fact, your (rhetorical?) question just about defines why they're so good; that is, they don't need to worry about a market or getting their budget, and they're disconnected from the government.
I'm from the US, but even I know how ridiculously awesome the Beeb is. Fun fact - each party says the BBC is biased towards the other party. That's as close to non-biased as it comes.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
*sigh* I didn't really want to get into this...
If it had been a (R) every news organization would have already covered it ... in spades ...
Looks like coverage to me.
But let's see, what else was covered today? Top stories -- health reform (impacts millions of lives), crash at Jamaica airport, H1N1 supply information, a captive soldier... y'know, important stuff?
Even if you're focusing on internal congressional politics, this is probably a more interesting story.
And hey, big surprise, this story isn't on the front page of foxnews.com now, and isn't "above the fold" (even on this 1200 vertical pixel screen) in their "politics" section. So while I'm sure they love taking shots at Democrats (hey, find me a Fox article critical of Republicans -- it's not hard to find a "liberal media" article, even on MSNBC, that's critical of Democrats) -- even Fox doesn't see it as that important, compared to all the other stuff going on. Maybe it'll actually matter if he succeeds...
Can you imagine what would happen to a (R) if they called someone a WHORE on TV?
Probably the same thing that happened to John McCain when he called this a "Christian nation", which is both offensive and demonstrably wrong. Or the same thing that happened to Ted "series of tubes" Stevens when he showed gross incompetence at grasping the most basic concepts of the Internet, such as e-mail.
Yes, I realize Ted Stevens was eventually prosecuted -- for actual corruption.
When 15 people show up for "Liberal" protest, the news reports "Dozens", when 5000 conservatives do the same thing, "some" showed up.
Yes, in a country of three hundred million, five thousand is "some". Would "dozens" have made you happier?
And if you're referring to the "TEA Parties" which "weren't covered" by the "mainstream media", let's keep a few facts in mind:
I'd dismantle the rest of your argument, but...
FOX NEWS is balance, when you have a "tingly feeling running down your leg" as fare on the other channels.
...it pretty much devolved into name-calling.
Tell me again how "balanced" Beck is when he blames a gang beating on the rise of atheism -- or when he wants California out of the union. I mean, Bill O'Reilly is a real gem, too, running a segment about how reporters should stop harassing people, leave celebrities alone, etc, right before he goes into a segment of footage of his reporters doing the exact same thing, with no segue... but hey, Beck makes O'Reilly look like a genius saint by comparison.
Whatever bias the "liberal media" might have -- and it doesn't, it just actually is fair and balanced, so liberals think it's too conservative, and conservatives think it's too liberal, but let's pretend it has a liberal bias and I just can't see it -- that hypothetical bias is entirely dwarfed by the kind of unfiltered bullshit, bigotry, and ignorance that so frequently comes
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"Fox aggressively promoted [indybay.org] these events. "Fair and balanced" my ass."
Sure. And the other media never covered every single Cindy Shehan event.
Look, I'm not saying Fox is "fair" or even "balanced", but neither are the other people. The problem is, that the other news organizations continue to shrivel and dry up because people do get sick of it.
And then we "slashdotters" get upset when more people watch "Dancing with the Stars" than know who Obama's VP is. Not that I blame them, but come on, Joe Biden? He makes Sarah Palin look like a freakin genius.
"Think about it. "War on Christmas"? Atheists should "just shut up", and you're "tired of hearing it"? Are these really people you want to be associated with?"
Athiests should shut up about religion. They are "ANTI" religion, and thus should stay away from it. Or at least protest in front of a mosque, or two. In fact, I dare them to make fun of Mohammad or Allah in the same way.
If your war is against religion, why not pick on the one religion whose adherents are causing many (most?) of the problems today?
Is it because they aren't really scared of Christians? I'm sure that you'll say something like but most "americans" or whatever are "Christians" or whatever, but that is just bullshit excuse for picking on one, rather than all.
And I'm not a Christian, and even I can see the atheists have hatred for them that rises above their "no god" stance.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Democrats are every bit as emotional and idiotic as Republicans.
Republicans remove social freedoms.
Democrats remove economic freedoms.
When one gets too bad, switch to the other. Rinse, repeat.
The fear of "throwing away your vote" has created a two-party system where both parties are pretty similar. Nothing will change until it gets a lot worse, bad enough for a third party to swing enough votes to really matter.
I lost my sig.
Look, I'm not saying Fox is "fair" or even "balanced", but neither are the other people.
No one is perfectly fair. The point is that Fox is actually biased to the point of lunacy.
come on, Joe Biden? He makes Sarah Palin look like a freakin genius.
I'm curious for some details about this, because some of the things Palin has said makes me question whether anyone can make her look like a genius.
Athiests should shut up about religion.
Why?
They are "ANTI" religion,
No, they aren't.
Atheism is defined as simply the lack of a religion. There is a word for anti religion -- antitheism.
While we're at it, it also doesn't mean the positive affirmation that there is no god -- only the lack of belief in a god. Many people you'd probably consider to be "agnostic" would identify themselves as atheist.
and thus should stay away from it.
Well, since everyone likes to scream "think of the children"...
Suppose I was anti-child-abuse. Should I stay away from children, or child abusers? Or should I speak up and get something done about it?
Oh wait, that's not entirely a metaphor. The Catholic Church really did molest children.
Or at least protest in front of a mosque, or two. In fact, I dare them to make fun of Mohammad or Allah in the same way.
Dude, it's been done.
If your war is against religion, why not pick on the one religion whose adherents are causing many (most?) of the problems today?
Mostly because the countries in which atheists are actually allowed to speak out are also mostly populated by Christians. In other words, just ask the Atheist Experience -- most of their callers are Christians. In the US in particular, there's a disturbingly high percentage of the population which believes in creationism, and another disturbingly high percentage who believe in the Rapture.
But you're again mistakenly assuming something's been "picked". If you actually bother to look, you'll find Muslim apostates who speak out against Islam, but there's a more fundamental problem with your argument: Atheism is not a movement, it is the simple lack of belief. That's a bit like suggesting that all people who don't collect stamps should pick a particular stamp to use...
Is it because they aren't really scared of Christians?
I, personally, am terrified of Christians, when I think about it, because they have the nuke codes, and because they follow a bronze-age doomsday cult. For many people in this country, including too many in government, a nuclear apocalypse would be a good thing -- it would be the Rapture.
That's a worst-case scenario. In the mean time, they are steadily trying to erode the rights of non-Christians, and atheists in particular. Every attempt to push back is met by the Christian majority suddenly pretending to be victimized, as Fox does with the "war on Christmas" -- take "under God" in the pledge. Can you imagine what that's like for an atheist kid? If not, just imagine it said "under Allah" instead. Are you still ok with it? Keep in mind, it's not even traditional -- it was added less than a century ago.
I'm sure that you'll say something like but most "americans" or whatever are "Christians" or whatever, but that is just bullshit excuse for picking on one, rather than all.
Ok, piece by piece...
It's bullshit to pick on one, rather than all? Weren't you just encouraging picking on Islam, rather than Christianity? Wasn't that kind of suggesting "picking on one"?
Next, you repeat your assumption that there's some collecti
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Looks like mod bombing is all you have left now that you've lost the argument.
After the level of absurdity that you just expressed in your previous post, I can’t really call this an “argument”. More like a “delusional fantasy”, and it’s quite pointless to argue with an advocate of such a position.
As I’ve already posted, and used all my mod points on other discussions yesterday, the only thing I really have left is just laughing, but this isn’t funny.
Hey, by the way... maybe those moderations don’t mean what you think they mean. It’s entirely possible to say something that is true and still be flamebait. Or troll. There isn’t a “Wrong” mod, and if anything comes close, it’s “Overrated”. Flamebait and troll are categorizations of style, not substance.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Facts themselves are biased.
Is this Stephen Colbert's "Reality has a well-known liberal bias" territory? Or are we instead talking about some important area of the news that isn't being covered by anybody? Or is it that you (or people you agree with) have dug up dirt on somebody important and the biased reporting world won't cover the story? I'm very confused at this point as to exactly what behavior you're referring to.
The kind of coverage I'm talking about is seen in local newspapers every day. It reads something like this:
"John Smith was convicted of first degree burglary in Podunk Superior Court, and sentenced to 12 months in prison. Merchandise from the home of Mr and Mrs Jones which had been recovered from Smith's apartment were returned to them, including a prized 1956 recording of Charlie Parker."
The story in question was probably submitted by the courtroom reporter who has nothing more interesting to cover that day, and has the choice between reporting on John Smith's burglary case or reporting on nothing at all.
I am officially gone from
SS is a large slow moving program. A policy at any one instant could make it insolvent in the long term if one extends that into the future without adaptation. Reality is, things do not work like this-- as the bad times approach more people wake up and start trying to fix it. So policies change as the situation becomes more apparent to more people. The process is slow; however, strong measures to fix things DO HAPPEN. In the USA, its a regular pattern of neglect, realization, and expensive quick fixes- somewhat mirroring the boom bust economy. Y2K was a problem; the big problem areas were fixed by billions of dollars of panicked fixes so it never became a serious problem.
The SS system has current payers support the currently retired with a BUFFER of money and the backing power of the government. Sometimes the buffer will empty; in which case, the government will create a secondary buffer until:
A) Government goes broke/stops buffering it (not likely, especially when the boomers will be a MASSIVE voting block)
B) Government avoids monetary problems by lowering benefits.
C) Revenue starts to exceed demand (boomers die) and buffers are refilled.
A ponzi scheme is an IMPOSSIBLE trap that can easily be misapplied to any buffering problem, including any insurance schemes (public or private.) Its especially easy to start drawing parallels when the buffer is going to empty. You are incorrectly applying it to SS.
Social Security WORKS and did for a century before any issues; which started due to poor management combined with an unusual increase in long living old people. Continual growth is not required; right now our economic system is based upon this, not SS. True the fall of this flavor of economics is inevitable therefore making it far more like a ponzi scheme; especially our monetary policy.
Its UNTRUE that SS will fail. This is a plan to kill it by convincing people its inevitably going to end: "so why support it?" Lots of powerful financial corps want you to gamble your SS money -- err, correction, they want to gamble with YOUR savings (and without regulations.) They almost privatized it just a few years ago-- before the collapse, remember?
When SS is projected to go broke the boomers will be dropping like flies. The retirement age may be raised. Then revenue will exceed demand. The real issues:
1) Government steals from SS trust fund (the buffer) which it has been doing.
2) Government ranks up so much debt it's insolvent or unable to carry the debt of buffering the SS system even for a SHORT TIME SPAN. This is possible if current tends continue; but they likely will not. Again, the problem gets bigger as we approach it so we act (unfortunately, with half measures instead of stomaching a real solution..)
3) We finds ways to extend life even longer for the boomers and while refusing to raise retirement age. My neighbor retired at 60 - he is 92. He will spend almost 2/3 his age living off the rest of us; plus the 1st 16 years he was not contributing. He thought he'd die 30 years ago like his parents did.
4) Cost of living increases and wages stagnate; making SS become unaffordable without heavily taxing the rich, which will be even less possible because those circumstances increase their influence over government. This won't kill SS, but force it to become underfunded after government gives up on going into debt for it.
I could clean up my post, but you should get the gist of it.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
"Independents" can not win without corporate vetting. Even vetted parties -- the 2 major ones -- screw their own members who manage to get into office despite the corporations. Ron Paul comes to mind, they screwed him as much as they could, even giving lesser candidates entry into debates or more speaking time and he was within the corporate party! Dennis Kucinich was as well, but it was less obvious and his base wasn't as active or as large. These are within the system. Outside the system, they don't get any chance unless they are a funny billionaire who PAYS for time - if you bribe the media they'll talk about you somewhat evenhandedly.
Money talks. speech is not free and coverage especially is not free. You can speak all you want to small groups but you can't reach the public.
Its a SYSTEM. like a buggy program, it needs debugging. We need to stop the indirect bribery; unfortunately, we have to use the broken system to fix itself. This bootstrap won't work just short of a violent revolution - it has to be that close to the edge. We are nowhere near there today. Best we can do is get people woken up and worked up. Then we can start to do things like:
Mandatory equal airtime. FREE. a form of tax on the media. They use OUR airwaves and OUR intellectual property and even the private I.P. they used exists because of OUR laws.
Independent run debates (league of women voters used to do them)
Semi-non-profit media like newspapers. used to be that news divisions were a nice tax write off; besides a public service-- they have gone down since they became profit centered.
Public financing of campaigns. equality. Money is not a vote, its not democratic. think about it.
Politicians can't work again after leaving office. neither can their spouse. Maybe they should just go to jail; if they care so much for us then why won't they actually give something up for real??? At least stick them on SS pay for life and ban them from work or investment.
Run-Off Voting; any of them. ....lots of possible things to do-- but until people realize the system is busted... they'll keep using windows 95.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
And they (D's) are the only ones ever involved in vote scandals
Now that's a laugh. Ever hear of voter caging? That's an almost exclusively Republican crime.
I'm not intellectually lazy. "Lazy" is to attack the messenger rather than the message. I personally have as many problems with the Times as I do with Fox. They're both biased - intentionally or not - and it's the responsibility of the reader to judge the source and its references.
Jesus. *None* are perfect, *none* are 100% unbiased. I'm no Republican.
Obviously you believe more in the integrity of the media source you agree with, as do the equally head-in-the-sand on the other side of the spectrum. Shooting the messenger - dismissing a story without even considering the information it contains, because you often disagree with the source or even the source's motives - is very intellectually lazy.
Since when was crying off limits? Lemme guess, Hillary cried as a publicity stunt too? Gimme a break, let's argue the issues at hand and not decoy with this stupid stuff.
Wonder what the public key field is for?