Sure, anyone can get on the ballot. But they can't WIN THE DEMOCRAT NOMINATION without the backing of the party bosses. Obama had the backing of the party bosses, because he was involved in the Chicago Democrat machine.
Oh bullcrap. Any reasonable reading of the IRS evidence shows that it was going after both parts of the political spectrum equally. The law itself is very vague and clearly led to the situation
Both of these sentences are false. No liberal group had their reading material questioned, their applications put into a holding pattern for years, or the contents of their prayers analyzed. People who are claiming it was done to both sides equally are lying to cover up the fact that Obama was using the IRS to attack people who he disagreed with politically. NO OTHER PRESIDENT has done this. (Apparently Nixon considered this, but the head of the IRS refused to go along with it and that was as far as it went. Obama ACTUALLY DID IT.)
As far as the law itself, it's clear. The Democrats don't LIKE the law (or the Citizens United decision) and are deliberately misinterpreting it to their advantage, but what the law says is clear.
The Attorney General being held in contempt was an action by Dan Issa's group of monkey's. It was a completely partisan vote y a body whose openly avowed purpose was to do anything possible to prevent the re-election of the sitting president.
Darrell Issa was investigating why the Department of Justice SOLD AUTOMATIC WEAPONS TO MEXICAN NARCO-TERRORISTS. Holder refused to answer a legitimate subpoena, and thus was held in contempt. It's a pretty obvious chain of events.
By the way, nice superfluous apostrophe in the word "monkeys." I bet if you had gone to a charter school, you'd use apostrophes correctly. That whole sentence is a clusterfuck.
Also, you should be careful with your use of the word "monkeys." I don't particularly buy into this theory, but some people consider calling people of Arab or Hispanic descent "monkeys" to be an ethnic slur. Just a helpful hint.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the SCOTUS judges are absolutely immune from uproar... To put it another way, nothing they do WRT liberty will affect their income, social standing, property ownership, freedom, or cocktail party invitation stream.
What are you talking about? Obama represented a district in Chicago in the Illinois State Senate. If you think that Chicago politics have nothing to do with who gets the Democratic nomination to the State Senate from districts located in Chicago, you're out of your mind.
This is a stupid argument and you're a stupid person for making it.
There have been no updates on the journalist's files being seized illegally. No new information has come out about it since that story. Nothing has come out since the story to make it seem that it's a hoax.
"Googling for where that story came from" reveals that it was first reported at The Daily Caller. (So would clicking on the link in the Slashdot story, for that matter.) If, in your mind, the very fact that the story comes from a conservative outlet is reason to believe the opposite of the story is true, you're a hyperpartisan troll.
As I understand it from my time working with FOUO information, it really depends on what information you give to whom whether it can be considered espionage. In short, as I recall, you have to make sure that anyone you give the information to has a US-supporting reason to have it.
There are good reasons to mark something FOUO, but espionage isn't one of them. For example, say the Army wanted to buy a new gun, and two vendors, Company A and Company B, were competing for the contract. If the Army thought Company B might go out of business before they could make all the guns, they'd go with Company A. But they don't want "The Army doesn't trust us" to DRIVE Company B out of business, so the details of WHY the Army makes a specific purchasing decision are FOUO. (Of course, these results get shared with Company B.)
Anything marked FOUO is done for political or economic reasons. However, the policies governing FOUO were written with the knowledge that people would exploit the ability to keep things secret for political or economic reasons, which is why it's not a law with punishments attached. For that reason, possession of an FOUO document is NOT sufficient evidence of a crime being committed to justify confiscating a stack of documents during a search on an unrelated warrant. They are harassing this woman because they don't like what she wrote.
Also note that I didn't say "exploits". I said "problems". For instance, if a hypothetical electronic widget does not display a warning when a certain part is put in backwards, but it still won't work, the document describing that problem (and the new procedure to fix it) would likely be FOUO. In order to actually make use of such an issue, the enemy would need physical access to the device, in which case they could do worse than easily-found sabotage.
The example you gave would be classified. Any problem with a fielded weapon system that would cause it to work improperly in a way that puts American or Allied lives at risk should be classified.
The stack of documents taken had one labeled "For Official Use Only", which means it's considered sensitive information that should not be widespread. It's not important enough to classify as a secret, but it could be a contribution to a security risk. For example, a list of known problems with military equipment is usually FOUO, because an enemy could exploit the problem before it can be fixed.
The difference between "FOUO" and "Classified" (or Secret or Top Secret) is that it's illegal under espionage laws to release classified information. It's also illegal to possess classified documents. FOUO does not have the backing of law. (There are other descriptors where it's illegal to release them for non-espionage reasons. For example, it's illegal to release "Privacy Act Protected" information because it could be used to steal someone's identity.)
FOUO may or may not be exempt from a FOIA request (the document in question was apparently released under a FOIA request) but anything with a real classification will almost never be subject to a FOIA.
Also, a list of exploits of military equipment will ALWAYS be classified as Secret, at a minimum.
OK, fine. Fox relies on law enforcement. They also rely on the military to keep terrorists from blowing up buildings they own.
PBS and NPR are public broadcasters because they fund 20% of their operations with tax money. They are comparable to the BBC and NTT, which each charge a specific tax (the "license fee") to fund some portion of their operation. Fox's operation isn't funded with tax money, so they aren't a public broadcaster.
Here's the flaw with that logic. Look at this comment. Whose words is it? Mine, jmac_the_man, and as Slashdot puts it at the bottom of the screen, "Comments owned by the poster." But who is saying it? Slashdot is repeating these words to you (it's their servers, after all), and attributing them to me.
Now, it's implicit (and probably explicit too) in the Slashdot ToS (and the user's expectations) that Slashdot gets to repeat back anything I type into the comment box, and further, that they get to attribute it to me (as long as I don't post as Anonymous Coward.) I am authorizing Slashdot to use my identity to repeat my words back to the rest of their community. (I use the jmac_the_man handle in several other places on the internet, most of which are linked with my real name. It's not exactly my identity, but it's an OK proxy. Also, several people do use their real names.)
Now what if you tell Slashdot to post something, and then change your mind about it? Slashdot doesn't have a delete option, and thus, they get to keep repeating something to their community, using your identity, that you would rather they not repeat. You have given a third party, Slashdot, permission to speak on your behalf, and thus they get to do so.
The organizers of Comic Con aren't any different. If you give them permission to speak on your behalf, they get to speak on your behalf. If you don't like that, don't let them speak on your behalf.
America is an exception when it comes to public broadcast fees. You don't pay for public broadcasting
That's actually false. PBS (the main public TV broadcaster) and NPR (the main public radio broadcaster) each get about 20% of their budget in tax money, which comes from the Federal treasury. (They, in turn, get it from the Federal income tax, Federal borrowing, and generic fees paid to the Federal government.) PBS and NPR get the balance of their funding from donations.
It's my understanding that the British government charges a specific tax to cover the operations of the BBC. In the US, the "public" funding of public broadcasting comes primarily from the same taxes that pay for the military, salaries of government, and pretty much everything else.
In any case, Fox is a private broadcaster who makes their money off advertising sales. They're not a public broadcaster.
The House (Republican-controlled) voted on a measure to provide back pay yesterday. The Senate (Democrat-controlled) will probably shut it down like they did measures for the Park Service, the National Institutes of Health, and the Veterans Administration.
That segment refers to the Washington Monument itself, right? Obama is trying to close the grounds surrounding it, which were open. And the Lincoln Memorial, which again, wasn't closed in the 1980s or 90s era shutdowns
If admins aren't allowed to check log files, what happens if you experience a hack? What if a new zero-day vulnerability is released during the shutdown? What if the server room AC goes out?
Essential employees are staying on the job. You are essential if your job protects life or property, i.e. the server room.
This is a stupid comment to make and you are a stupid person for making it. There's nothing wrong with the comment "binders full of women['s resumes]" when attempting to hire more women to work in government, which is the actual context. It just sounded vaguely naughty because the media was just starting to notice 50 Shades of Gray. It's horrible that enough people were dishonest enough to play along.
I have no idea why Amazon would feature those reviews without pointing out the context they were made in. I know full well why they aren't pointing out the context, though.
501c4 groups are allowed to conduct political activity, they're just not allowed to have their primary purpose be lobbying on behalf of a candidate.
Plenty of liberal groups, such as Organizing for Action, Obama's rebranding of his reelection campaign, exist to "educate the American people" about some issue or other and get 501c4 status. (OFA was personally approved by Lois Lerner, a key figure in the current scandal.)
Face it. The IRS was classifying liberals it agreed with as social welfare groups and conferring benefits upon them, while withholding that classification and those benefits from conservatives it disagreed with. This is the worst abuse of power in the history of the IRS.
The agencies SAY the accounts are subject to FOIA, but the AP went a step further and found that the secret accounts were not having e-mails turned over in response to actual FOIA requests. That is kind of the point TFA.
OK, so which party to the conversation between a Republican Senator and his political staff authorized a liberal hack to come in and record them for the purpose of attacking them? Who plays the part of Joe in your analogy?
The parent of my original post claimed that because the Progress Kentucky guy could hear the conversation, he was allowed to record it. (OK, fine, "authorize himself to record" it.) That's false and a dangerous precedent.
Yeah, except that he was trespassing. He wasn't allowed to be in the hallway he was in either. He snuck into the office suite and stood outside the door of the office that the meeting was in, because he was going to illegally record this meeting.
It's no different than walking by your neighbors, hearing them having an argument and recording it.
I don't know where you're from, but if it's not illegal to sneak onto your neighbors' property to record them having an argument, let me know where it is so I can stay the hell away.
It's not a one PERSON notification law, it's a one PARTY notification law. If you're not a PARTY TO THE CONVERSATION, i.e. not being talked to, you're not allowed to record the conversation.
Otherwise, you could just tell some troll on Slashdot that you were going to record someone, and then go do it, and privacy laws would never protect anyone.
1. Fox went to court in Florida to defend the "right" to lie as news. They are the only news network to do so in the history of reporting.
Ironically, you're lying.
You're referring to the case New World Communications vs. Akre. WTVT is a local station in Tampa Bay owned by New World Communications (which is owned by News Corporation and thus is a Fox owned and operated station.) You note that WTVT isn't Fox News Channel, because you called it "Fox" in a discussion about "Fox News." Nice slight of hand. Jane Akre was a WTVT reporter who wanted to air a piece critical of Monsanto without giving Monsanto a chance to respond, and the WTVT brass turned her down. WTVT claims that the original piece that Akre submitted was biased and misleading, and so produced a new piece including a response from Monsanto. She and her then-husband, Steve Wilson, eventually had their employment contracts terminated without cause.
Akre and Wilson then sued New World under a Florida whistleblower law. They alleged that airing a piece with Monsanto's response would constitute a violation of the an FCC policy authorized under the Communications Act of 1933, and that they were fired for threatening to expose this violation of law. On the facts of whether including Monsanto's response constituted lying, a jury would rule dismiss all of their claims. A jury, in fact, ruled that New World wasn't lying.
The jury awarded Akre money because she thought she was acting as a whistleblower, and New World appealed THAT part of the ruling. In their appeal, New World said that the Florida whistleblower statue required the whistleblower to be reporting a violation of law, not a violation of FCC policy. This is a wildly different argument than "defending the right to lie."
The appeals court ruled that because the thing that Akre was going to report to the FCC on wasn't a "law" as required by the Florida whistleblower law, she was not protected by the whistleblower law. Because she wasn't protected by the whistleblower law, the appeals court overturned Akre's jury award without considering the merits of the case. (They did, however, note that the original jury overturned all of Akre and Wilson's claims about WTVT lying.)
The other interesting part of this is that nowhere in the court documents does either side advance anything about a "right to lie." New World never argued that they had one, and Akre never argued that WTVT claimed that they did in any formal document. Four years after the appeal ruling, Akre filed a complaint with the FCC that WTVT shouldn't have their license renewed. She didn't even claim anything about a right to lie then.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, anyone can get on the ballot. But they can't WIN THE DEMOCRAT NOMINATION without the backing of the party bosses. Obama had the backing of the party bosses, because he was involved in the Chicago Democrat machine.
Oh bullcrap. Any reasonable reading of the IRS evidence shows that it was going after both parts of the political spectrum equally. The law itself is very vague and clearly led to the situation
Both of these sentences are false. No liberal group had their reading material questioned, their applications put into a holding pattern for years, or the contents of their prayers analyzed. People who are claiming it was done to both sides equally are lying to cover up the fact that Obama was using the IRS to attack people who he disagreed with politically. NO OTHER PRESIDENT has done this. (Apparently Nixon considered this, but the head of the IRS refused to go along with it and that was as far as it went. Obama ACTUALLY DID IT.)
As far as the law itself, it's clear. The Democrats don't LIKE the law (or the Citizens United decision) and are deliberately misinterpreting it to their advantage, but what the law says is clear.
The Attorney General being held in contempt was an action by Dan Issa's group of monkey's. It was a completely partisan vote y a body whose openly avowed purpose was to do anything possible to prevent the re-election of the sitting president.
Darrell Issa was investigating why the Department of Justice SOLD AUTOMATIC WEAPONS TO MEXICAN NARCO-TERRORISTS. Holder refused to answer a legitimate subpoena, and thus was held in contempt. It's a pretty obvious chain of events.
By the way, nice superfluous apostrophe in the word "monkeys." I bet if you had gone to a charter school, you'd use apostrophes correctly. That whole sentence is a clusterfuck.
Also, you should be careful with your use of the word "monkeys." I don't particularly buy into this theory, but some people consider calling people of Arab or Hispanic descent "monkeys" to be an ethnic slur. Just a helpful hint.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the SCOTUS judges are absolutely immune from uproar... To put it another way, nothing they do WRT liberty will affect their income, social standing, property ownership, freedom, or cocktail party invitation stream.
Tell that to John Roberts.
What are you talking about? Obama represented a district in Chicago in the Illinois State Senate. If you think that Chicago politics have nothing to do with who gets the Democratic nomination to the State Senate from districts located in Chicago, you're out of your mind.
There have been no updates on the journalist's files being seized illegally. No new information has come out about it since that story. Nothing has come out since the story to make it seem that it's a hoax.
"Googling for where that story came from" reveals that it was first reported at The Daily Caller. (So would clicking on the link in the Slashdot story, for that matter.) If, in your mind, the very fact that the story comes from a conservative outlet is reason to believe the opposite of the story is true, you're a hyperpartisan troll.
As I understand it from my time working with FOUO information, it really depends on what information you give to whom whether it can be considered espionage. In short, as I recall, you have to make sure that anyone you give the information to has a US-supporting reason to have it.
There are good reasons to mark something FOUO, but espionage isn't one of them. For example, say the Army wanted to buy a new gun, and two vendors, Company A and Company B, were competing for the contract. If the Army thought Company B might go out of business before they could make all the guns, they'd go with Company A. But they don't want "The Army doesn't trust us" to DRIVE Company B out of business, so the details of WHY the Army makes a specific purchasing decision are FOUO. (Of course, these results get shared with Company B.)
Anything marked FOUO is done for political or economic reasons. However, the policies governing FOUO were written with the knowledge that people would exploit the ability to keep things secret for political or economic reasons, which is why it's not a law with punishments attached. For that reason, possession of an FOUO document is NOT sufficient evidence of a crime being committed to justify confiscating a stack of documents during a search on an unrelated warrant. They are harassing this woman because they don't like what she wrote.
Also note that I didn't say "exploits". I said "problems". For instance, if a hypothetical electronic widget does not display a warning when a certain part is put in backwards, but it still won't work, the document describing that problem (and the new procedure to fix it) would likely be FOUO. In order to actually make use of such an issue, the enemy would need physical access to the device, in which case they could do worse than easily-found sabotage.
The example you gave would be classified. Any problem with a fielded weapon system that would cause it to work improperly in a way that puts American or Allied lives at risk should be classified.
The stack of documents taken had one labeled "For Official Use Only", which means it's considered sensitive information that should not be widespread. It's not important enough to classify as a secret, but it could be a contribution to a security risk. For example, a list of known problems with military equipment is usually FOUO, because an enemy could exploit the problem before it can be fixed.
The difference between "FOUO" and "Classified" (or Secret or Top Secret) is that it's illegal under espionage laws to release classified information. It's also illegal to possess classified documents. FOUO does not have the backing of law. (There are other descriptors where it's illegal to release them for non-espionage reasons. For example, it's illegal to release "Privacy Act Protected" information because it could be used to steal someone's identity.)
FOUO may or may not be exempt from a FOIA request (the document in question was apparently released under a FOIA request) but anything with a real classification will almost never be subject to a FOIA.
Also, a list of exploits of military equipment will ALWAYS be classified as Secret, at a minimum.
PBS and NPR are public broadcasters because they fund 20% of their operations with tax money. They are comparable to the BBC and NTT, which each charge a specific tax (the "license fee") to fund some portion of their operation. Fox's operation isn't funded with tax money, so they aren't a public broadcaster.
Now, it's implicit (and probably explicit too) in the Slashdot ToS (and the user's expectations) that Slashdot gets to repeat back anything I type into the comment box, and further, that they get to attribute it to me (as long as I don't post as Anonymous Coward.) I am authorizing Slashdot to use my identity to repeat my words back to the rest of their community. (I use the jmac_the_man handle in several other places on the internet, most of which are linked with my real name. It's not exactly my identity, but it's an OK proxy. Also, several people do use their real names.)
Now what if you tell Slashdot to post something, and then change your mind about it? Slashdot doesn't have a delete option, and thus, they get to keep repeating something to their community, using your identity, that you would rather they not repeat. You have given a third party, Slashdot, permission to speak on your behalf, and thus they get to do so.
The organizers of Comic Con aren't any different. If you give them permission to speak on your behalf, they get to speak on your behalf. If you don't like that, don't let them speak on your behalf.
America is an exception when it comes to public broadcast fees. You don't pay for public broadcasting
That's actually false. PBS (the main public TV broadcaster) and NPR (the main public radio broadcaster) each get about 20% of their budget in tax money, which comes from the Federal treasury. (They, in turn, get it from the Federal income tax, Federal borrowing, and generic fees paid to the Federal government.) PBS and NPR get the balance of their funding from donations.
It's my understanding that the British government charges a specific tax to cover the operations of the BBC. In the US, the "public" funding of public broadcasting comes primarily from the same taxes that pay for the military, salaries of government, and pretty much everything else.
In any case, Fox is a private broadcaster who makes their money off advertising sales. They're not a public broadcaster.
Interestingly, the government isn't allowed to use tax money to lobby the public. And that's exactly what putting up these shutdown notices is.
The House (Republican-controlled) voted on a measure to provide back pay yesterday. The Senate (Democrat-controlled) will probably shut it down like they did measures for the Park Service, the National Institutes of Health, and the Veterans Administration.
That segment refers to the Washington Monument itself, right? Obama is trying to close the grounds surrounding it, which were open. And the Lincoln Memorial, which again, wasn't closed in the 1980s or 90s era shutdowns
If admins aren't allowed to check log files, what happens if you experience a hack? What if a new zero-day vulnerability is released during the shutdown? What if the server room AC goes out?
Essential employees are staying on the job. You are essential if your job protects life or property, i.e. the server room.
I have no idea why Amazon would feature those reviews without pointing out the context they were made in. I know full well why they aren't pointing out the context, though.
only 1 republican in both house and senate, combined, voted for the bill.
I'm on board with you with the larger point, but this part is false. ABSOLUTELY ZERO Republicans voted for Obama care.
Plenty of liberal groups, such as Organizing for Action, Obama's rebranding of his reelection campaign, exist to "educate the American people" about some issue or other and get 501c4 status. (OFA was personally approved by Lois Lerner, a key figure in the current scandal.)
Face it. The IRS was classifying liberals it agreed with as social welfare groups and conferring benefits upon them, while withholding that classification and those benefits from conservatives it disagreed with. This is the worst abuse of power in the history of the IRS.
The agencies SAY the accounts are subject to FOIA, but the AP went a step further and found that the secret accounts were not having e-mails turned over in response to actual FOIA requests. That is kind of the point TFA.
The AP story says that there was only ONE e-mail from a secret account returned by FOIA. The Department is lying, and so are you.
The parent of my original post claimed that because the Progress Kentucky guy could hear the conversation, he was allowed to record it. (OK, fine, "authorize himself to record" it.) That's false and a dangerous precedent.
He heard a conversation through a closed door.
Yeah, except that he was trespassing. He wasn't allowed to be in the hallway he was in either. He snuck into the office suite and stood outside the door of the office that the meeting was in, because he was going to illegally record this meeting.
It's no different than walking by your neighbors, hearing them having an argument and recording it.
I don't know where you're from, but if it's not illegal to sneak onto your neighbors' property to record them having an argument, let me know where it is so I can stay the hell away.
Otherwise, you could just tell some troll on Slashdot that you were going to record someone, and then go do it, and privacy laws would never protect anyone.
1. Fox went to court in Florida to defend the "right" to lie as news. They are the only news network to do so in the history of reporting.
Ironically, you're lying.
You're referring to the case New World Communications vs. Akre. WTVT is a local station in Tampa Bay owned by New World Communications (which is owned by News Corporation and thus is a Fox owned and operated station.) You note that WTVT isn't Fox News Channel, because you called it "Fox" in a discussion about "Fox News." Nice slight of hand. Jane Akre was a WTVT reporter who wanted to air a piece critical of Monsanto without giving Monsanto a chance to respond, and the WTVT brass turned her down. WTVT claims that the original piece that Akre submitted was biased and misleading, and so produced a new piece including a response from Monsanto. She and her then-husband, Steve Wilson, eventually had their employment contracts terminated without cause.
Akre and Wilson then sued New World under a Florida whistleblower law. They alleged that airing a piece with Monsanto's response would constitute a violation of the an FCC policy authorized under the Communications Act of 1933, and that they were fired for threatening to expose this violation of law. On the facts of whether including Monsanto's response constituted lying, a jury would rule dismiss all of their claims. A jury, in fact, ruled that New World wasn't lying.
The jury awarded Akre money because she thought she was acting as a whistleblower, and New World appealed THAT part of the ruling. In their appeal, New World said that the Florida whistleblower statue required the whistleblower to be reporting a violation of law, not a violation of FCC policy. This is a wildly different argument than "defending the right to lie."
The appeals court ruled that because the thing that Akre was going to report to the FCC on wasn't a "law" as required by the Florida whistleblower law, she was not protected by the whistleblower law. Because she wasn't protected by the whistleblower law, the appeals court overturned Akre's jury award without considering the merits of the case. (They did, however, note that the original jury overturned all of Akre and Wilson's claims about WTVT lying.)
The other interesting part of this is that nowhere in the court documents does either side advance anything about a "right to lie." New World never argued that they had one, and Akre never argued that WTVT claimed that they did in any formal document. Four years after the appeal ruling, Akre filed a complaint with the FCC that WTVT shouldn't have their license renewed. She didn't even claim anything about a right to lie then.
This site has a good overview of what happened in the Akre case:
http://www.campaignfreedom.org/2009/11/03/fox-lies-videotape-debunking-an-internet-myth/
So does Akre's Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre
This story is an urban legend that was spread to attack Fox News, but it was completely false. Thank you for not spreading it further.
What holiday do you think they're celebrating?
You replied to this parent twice. Your second comment isn't any smarter than your first one was.