And what, exactly, is preventing anyone from getting "noticed early on by corporate supporters"? At the time the article was written, Obama had raised over $600 million. How much did the corporations contribute? I noticed that the article didn't say. It did say that Obama got "over $740,000" from Goldman Sachs. So, how much corporate money did Obama have at that time? How much did he get all told? What was the percentage?
Come back to me when you have some actual numbers about CORPORATE donations, m'kay?
Oh really? Then, explain how Obama went from biracial kid from broken home being raised by his grandparents to "community organizer"/lawyer to senator to president.
So many people here miss something very important. Almost anything, whether it is public or private, can be used as evidence in a trial, whether civil or criminal, if it is properly subpoenaed and collected.
Your diary, your Facebook postings, the contents of your computer and cell phone, and your mail, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it is properly subpoenaed and collected.
There is no story here. It has been like this for centuries. The court can order access to almost everything considered private.
The question in your comment may not be very convincing but consider the following:
"Mr. Jones, you testified that Mr. Smith has never been to Las Vegas, and he has never met you. However, Mr. Smith's facebook page indicates that on April 15th he was in fact in Las Vegas, meeting with you and there is a picture of you and Mr. Smith in front of the fountain of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas dated April 15. How is this possible? Remember, you're under oath."
Something else to consider: who is on trial? Is it Mr. Jones or is it Mr. Smith? The Facebook posting is evidence and the testimony of Mr. Jones is denying that the meeting took place. If it is Mr. Jones who is on trial for something that happened to Mr. Smith, then his denial may not carry much weight. But, if it is Mr. Smith who is on trial and is trying to use the supposed meeting with Mr. Jones as an alibi, then the testimony of Mr. Jones will carry more weight.
Things posted in a social network are somewhat equivalent of an unsigned typewritten text. The best you can assume is that this was written in a specific machine, not that it was written by its purported author.
Um, no, not quite. Social networking sites generally do not allow anonymous posting. The post came from an account, and that account is associated with a person.
If there is a Facebook account that purports to be for person A, and has a lot of information about person, with posts from A's computer and pictures taken by and of A and A's friends with communications that appear to be between A and A's friends, it would be for the jury to decide if that account was really A's account. A's friends would be called to testify as to whether they believed the account belonged to A. It would be trivial to show that an account on Facebook belongs to a specific person.
It would be the same as a type-written letter which has been matched to a specific machine, owned and in the sole possession of a specific person, said machine having only said person's finger prints on the machine and that friends of said person have received letters written on the same machine.
Public statements can be used as evidence, just as public pictures can be used as evidence.
The difference between testimony and what they are getting from Facebook is the difference between someone saying one was lifting bricks to pave one's patio when one said one could not work because of a back injury (that is testimony and requires the person to swear to tell the truth) and the defense showing a home video that was acquired by subpoena, one made of one paving one's patio. Or, written accounts of one's bad acts in one's own diary. Or, as happened here, a video of one and one's friends vandalizing homes and cars.
Evidence does not have to swear to tell the truth, people do. In this case, the person swearing to tell the truth is the person who gathered the evidence. But the evidence itself (Facebook postings, etc) speaks for itself.
I suggest you read your own fucking post, shithead. YOU said you didn't feel the need to prove your statement. That makes you a lazy, lying fuck. You don't want to do the work to provide proof? Fine, you are just talking out your ass. This is not religion and you are not a fucking preacher. You are just another shithead on a website demanding to have his anonymous word treated like the truth handed down from on high.
You proved you were lying when you refused to provide proof your statement is based on fact instead of your misinformed opinion.
Or, you meet their family and friends. Let me guess, he sprung out of a hole in the ground and didn't have any friends before he joined the environmental group.
And, I find your pissant whining and calling the bitches victims insufferable, so why don't you shut the fuck up, bitch. They are not victims of anything but themselves. I have no doubt that if you are not an female, you are an honorary bitch. You seem to think that women shouldn't have any personal responsibility for their lives and actions. Well, you are wrong. If women want to be equal, then they get to be fucking equal and take the same fucking responsibility men have had to take for the last hundred thousand years or so.
Exactly how long did they know these guys? A week? A month? How well did they know these guys? I think we can assume not very well. Remember, we are talking about lovers and a wife. We are not talking about Jimmy Knuckles and the crew coming over on Saturday. We are talking about living together.
You make a claim and don't feel obligated to come up with proof of it? It would take half an hour to find "comparatively easy to find data on damages caused by environmentalists"?
Congratulations you are a pathetic, lying asshole.
You're claiming that people say women (in particular) need to be protected from such a behavior. Nobody said that, I certainly never did.
Then exactly what is the problem? Why, exactly, is there an article about men who are undercover cops having consensual sex with willing women in the group they are investigating? Why, exactly, is it repugnant? Because the men acted like everyone else in the group thus maintaining their cover?
The people who are making this into a gender equality issue is the women who are complaining that it was abuse when they had consensual sex with the officers while the officers were under cover and the reporter who are framing it as such.
And, if you really want to get in to it
"Everybody knew it was a very promiscuous lifestyle," said the former officer, who first revealed his life as an undercover agent to the Observer last year. "You cannot not be promiscuous in those groups. Otherwise you'll stand out straightaway."
Sounds like these women were having sex with many of the men in the groups and if the officers didn't have sex with them, then the officers' covers would have been blown. I am sure the women in the group would have liked that.
I hate to break it to you, but these women were not abused, they were not forced to have sex with anyone, and they are not victims. They are women who have consensual sex with many men. How many of the men in those groups are there because the women are so easy and the sex so free? Would you care to wager?
Oh, so your argument boils down to "Think of the children!!!"
Really? Is that the best you can do? The mothers should have thought of the children before marrying and/or having kids with men who are hiding such a massive secret as a second life as a police officer. In fact, the mother's should have thought about the children before being involved in criminal activity.
I do know for a fact that neo-nazis are responsible for far more violent crime than environmentalists.
Really? And your source is for that is? Where is your proof, your evidence? Your feelings and intuition are not evidence of anything.
You think you are being trolled because I will not accept your words as fact. You mistake being trolled for being required to provide proof of your statements.
Your assumptions and opinions are worthless. Only verifiable evidence from non-biased sources matter.
As near as I can see, there is no difference between muckrakers and yellow journalists. Perhaps I should have used that term, yellow journalists, instead.
I find it amusing that you believe the story of those who stand to benefit from you believing the story. Do you believe that all the people in prisons and jails who claim to be innocent should be released? Do you believe that every person who has been arrested and claims to be innocent should have their charges dropped and be allowed to walk free?
Most people consider it morally wrong to sleep with someone after having lied to them on such a fundamental thing.
Yet people do it all the time. Gold-diggers, cads, players, whatever you want to call them, men and women do it all the time. It has happened to people I know and to myself. In fact, it was not that long ago that getting a woman drunk for the purpose of having sex with her was common place and not consider rape.
... straw man...
That word you use, I do not think it means what you think it means. I am taking your comments to their logical, but extreme, conclusion and/or using false dichotomy to mock the absurd idea that women are not responsible for vetting those they chose to date.
I have never heard...I don't think
Arguing from ignorance I see.
He probably slept with those women because he could
You mean a guy was offered a chance to have sex with a willing woman and did? OMG! Call the press! This is big news! He may even have felt a need to have sex with them to maintain his cover, especially if the women often had sex with different members of the group. You do know it is not unheard of for people to date and have sex with people they know from groups.
If one is a liberal, one believes in equality of the sexes. Either women are equals to men with all the personal responsibility to vet their partners as men, or they do not have that responsibility, in which case they are not the equals of men and thus need to be protected not just from men but from themselves. You can't have it both ways and trying to claim both, which is what so many are doing, is hypocrisy. So which is it? Do women need to be protected from "bad" men and their own bad judgement? Or, are women the equal to men and have the same personal responsibilities of men?
When the woman finds out this deception she might very well want to divorce, get alimony, child support etc. Who is going to pay these things?
The cop who married her.
And, how is this any different from a guy who marries a woman for money, or for sex, or because she is pregnant and then cheats on her and abuses her? How is this different than a man who marries a woman to get a housekeeper and tax break and doesn't lover her, cheats on her, and/or abuses her?
And, again, you are saying that these poor, little, foolish female protesters are too stupid to make their own decisions. If they are too stupid to know whom to date, have sex with, and marry then they are too stupid to have the right to date whomever they wish, marry whomever they wish, go out on their own, or even vote.
You must choose between being a responsible adult and being an ignorant fool who must be looked after. Either the women take responsibility for whom they date, fuck, and marry or they need to turn their lives over to some third party.
So, even though you don't know, you have made a pronouncement, and that pronouncement is against a statement that may very well be based on FACTS.
You may be right that a tiny minority of the "tens of thousands of animal rights and environmental groups" may be violent and most neo-nazi groups may be violent but that tiny minority may be larger than all the neo-nazi groups. And, that is based just as much fact as your statement because you admit you don't know.
You are the only laughable thing about your post because you spew out your opinion and then admit it is based on ignorance.
Slashdot Mirror
And what, exactly, is preventing anyone from getting "noticed early on by corporate supporters"? At the time the article was written, Obama had raised over $600 million. How much did the corporations contribute? I noticed that the article didn't say. It did say that Obama got "over $740,000" from Goldman Sachs. So, how much corporate money did Obama have at that time? How much did he get all told? What was the percentage? Come back to me when you have some actual numbers about CORPORATE donations, m'kay?
He is an ass and he is wrong and his own president is proof he is wrong and you bitch at me? Go fuck yourself.
Oh really? Then, explain how Obama went from biracial kid from broken home being raised by his grandparents to "community organizer"/lawyer to senator to president.
Or, you can admit that you are wrong and STFU.
Exactly. One's right to privacy ends where another right to justice begins.
So many people here miss something very important. Almost anything, whether it is public or private, can be used as evidence in a trial, whether civil or criminal, if it is properly subpoenaed and collected.
Your diary, your Facebook postings, the contents of your computer and cell phone, and your mail, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it is properly subpoenaed and collected.
There is no story here. It has been like this for centuries. The court can order access to almost everything considered private.
And, your private diary can be used as evidence if it is subpoenaed.
The question in your comment may not be very convincing but consider the following:
"Mr. Jones, you testified that Mr. Smith has never been to Las Vegas, and he has never met you. However, Mr. Smith's facebook page indicates that on April 15th he was in fact in Las Vegas, meeting with you and there is a picture of you and Mr. Smith in front of the fountain of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas dated April 15. How is this possible? Remember, you're under oath."
Something else to consider: who is on trial? Is it Mr. Jones or is it Mr. Smith? The Facebook posting is evidence and the testimony of Mr. Jones is denying that the meeting took place. If it is Mr. Jones who is on trial for something that happened to Mr. Smith, then his denial may not carry much weight. But, if it is Mr. Smith who is on trial and is trying to use the supposed meeting with Mr. Jones as an alibi, then the testimony of Mr. Jones will carry more weight.
Things posted in a social network are somewhat equivalent of an unsigned typewritten text. The best you can assume is that this was written in a specific machine, not that it was written by its purported author.
Um, no, not quite. Social networking sites generally do not allow anonymous posting. The post came from an account, and that account is associated with a person.
If there is a Facebook account that purports to be for person A, and has a lot of information about person, with posts from A's computer and pictures taken by and of A and A's friends with communications that appear to be between A and A's friends, it would be for the jury to decide if that account was really A's account. A's friends would be called to testify as to whether they believed the account belonged to A. It would be trivial to show that an account on Facebook belongs to a specific person.
It would be the same as a type-written letter which has been matched to a specific machine, owned and in the sole possession of a specific person, said machine having only said person's finger prints on the machine and that friends of said person have received letters written on the same machine.
Public statements can be used as evidence, just as public pictures can be used as evidence.
The difference between testimony and what they are getting from Facebook is the difference between someone saying one was lifting bricks to pave one's patio when one said one could not work because of a back injury (that is testimony and requires the person to swear to tell the truth) and the defense showing a home video that was acquired by subpoena, one made of one paving one's patio. Or, written accounts of one's bad acts in one's own diary. Or, as happened here, a video of one and one's friends vandalizing homes and cars.
Evidence does not have to swear to tell the truth, people do. In this case, the person swearing to tell the truth is the person who gathered the evidence. But the evidence itself (Facebook postings, etc) speaks for itself.
No one cares about your lousy opinions, especially about politics.
This isn't news, it is blogspam.
I suggest you read your own fucking post, shithead. YOU said you didn't feel the need to prove your statement. That makes you a lazy, lying fuck. You don't want to do the work to provide proof? Fine, you are just talking out your ass. This is not religion and you are not a fucking preacher. You are just another shithead on a website demanding to have his anonymous word treated like the truth handed down from on high.
You proved you were lying when you refused to provide proof your statement is based on fact instead of your misinformed opinion.
Or, you do a basic background check
Or, you meet their family and friends. Let me guess, he sprung out of a hole in the ground and didn't have any friends before he joined the environmental group.
And, I find your pissant whining and calling the bitches victims insufferable, so why don't you shut the fuck up, bitch. They are not victims of anything but themselves. I have no doubt that if you are not an female, you are an honorary bitch. You seem to think that women shouldn't have any personal responsibility for their lives and actions. Well, you are wrong. If women want to be equal, then they get to be fucking equal and take the same fucking responsibility men have had to take for the last hundred thousand years or so.
Exactly how long did they know these guys? A week? A month? How well did they know these guys? I think we can assume not very well. Remember, we are talking about lovers and a wife. We are not talking about Jimmy Knuckles and the crew coming over on Saturday. We are talking about living together.
Yeah, a woman can't possibly know the man she marries and has kids with. Why, that would be impossible. It is insane to suggest such a thing.
You make a claim and don't feel obligated to come up with proof of it?
It would take half an hour to find "comparatively easy to find data on damages caused by environmentalists"?
Congratulations you are a pathetic, lying asshole.
Then exactly what is the problem? Why, exactly, is there an article about men who are undercover cops having consensual sex with willing women in the group they are investigating? Why, exactly, is it repugnant? Because the men acted like everyone else in the group thus maintaining their cover?
The people who are making this into a gender equality issue is the women who are complaining that it was abuse when they had consensual sex with the officers while the officers were under cover and the reporter who are framing it as such.
And, if you really want to get in to it
Sounds like these women were having sex with many of the men in the groups and if the officers didn't have sex with them, then the officers' covers would have been blown. I am sure the women in the group would have liked that.
I hate to break it to you, but these women were not abused, they were not forced to have sex with anyone, and they are not victims. They are women who have consensual sex with many men. How many of the men in those groups are there because the women are so easy and the sex so free? Would you care to wager?
Oh, so your argument boils down to "Think of the children!!!"
Really? Is that the best you can do? The mothers should have thought of the children before marrying and/or having kids with men who are hiding such a massive secret as a second life as a police officer. In fact, the mother's should have thought about the children before being involved in criminal activity.
That assumes the water, and thus the steam, becomes radioactive.
No? Then, I don't believe it.
I seem to remember a similar claim from the late 1980s and the fallout from the claims.
Really? And your source is for that is? Where is your proof, your evidence? Your feelings and intuition are not evidence of anything.
You think you are being trolled because I will not accept your words as fact. You mistake being trolled for being required to provide proof of your statements.
Your assumptions and opinions are worthless. Only verifiable evidence from non-biased sources matter.
As near as I can see, there is no difference between muckrakers and yellow journalists. Perhaps I should have used that term, yellow journalists, instead.
I find it amusing that you believe the story of those who stand to benefit from you believing the story. Do you believe that all the people in prisons and jails who claim to be innocent should be released? Do you believe that every person who has been arrested and claims to be innocent should have their charges dropped and be allowed to walk free?
That is a question for the divorce court to decide. You have your opinion, and it matters about as anyone else's opinion and often less.
Yet people do it all the time. Gold-diggers, cads, players, whatever you want to call them, men and women do it all the time. It has happened to people I know and to myself. In fact, it was not that long ago that getting a woman drunk for the purpose of having sex with her was common place and not consider rape.
That word you use, I do not think it means what you think it means. I am taking your comments to their logical, but extreme, conclusion and/or using false dichotomy to mock the absurd idea that women are not responsible for vetting those they chose to date.
Arguing from ignorance I see.
You mean a guy was offered a chance to have sex with a willing woman and did? OMG! Call the press! This is big news! He may even have felt a need to have sex with them to maintain his cover, especially if the women often had sex with different members of the group. You do know it is not unheard of for people to date and have sex with people they know from groups.
If one is a liberal, one believes in equality of the sexes. Either women are equals to men with all the personal responsibility to vet their partners as men, or they do not have that responsibility, in which case they are not the equals of men and thus need to be protected not just from men but from themselves. You can't have it both ways and trying to claim both, which is what so many are doing, is hypocrisy. So which is it? Do women need to be protected from "bad" men and their own bad judgement? Or, are women the equal to men and have the same personal responsibilities of men?
The cop who married her.
And, how is this any different from a guy who marries a woman for money, or for sex, or because she is pregnant and then cheats on her and abuses her? How is this different than a man who marries a woman to get a housekeeper and tax break and doesn't lover her, cheats on her, and/or abuses her?
And, again, you are saying that these poor, little, foolish female protesters are too stupid to make their own decisions. If they are too stupid to know whom to date, have sex with, and marry then they are too stupid to have the right to date whomever they wish, marry whomever they wish, go out on their own, or even vote.
You must choose between being a responsible adult and being an ignorant fool who must be looked after. Either the women take responsibility for whom they date, fuck, and marry or they need to turn their lives over to some third party.
So, even though you don't know, you have made a pronouncement, and that pronouncement is against a statement that may very well be based on FACTS.
You may be right that a tiny minority of the "tens of thousands of animal rights and environmental groups" may be violent and most neo-nazi groups may be violent but that tiny minority may be larger than all the neo-nazi groups. And, that is based just as much fact as your statement because you admit you don't know.
You are the only laughable thing about your post because you spew out your opinion and then admit it is based on ignorance.