First, it's flatly unconstitutional, via the 14th Amendment:
Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Raising the "debt ceiling" isn't making for new spending, it's paying for spending already passed by Congress. Secondly, Obama is perfectly aware of this. Which means this is nothing more than the latest dance in corrupt neoliberal theater between the two parties.
You're projecting. If this is just about "proper channels", then why aren't military and CIA officials being prosecuted for the crimes revealed by Manning? Why is it that only the whistleblowers are facing prosecution, not those who committed torture and war crimes?
Nevermind that prison doctors said - repeatedly - that Manning was not suicidal. But you haven't let facts get in the way of your homophobic, authoritarian storyline so far, why stop now?
Yes, except for the three meals a day, regulation cot, freshly laundered clothes, shower, toilet, heating and air conditioning, material to read, contact with family, mental health counseling, religious counseling, legal counsel and lack of torture devices, it's almost identical to a medieval dungeon with torture devices.
Yes, except for the constant sleep deprivation - being woken up once an hour by guards - the "suicide smock" he was forced to wear - when prison doctors said he was not suicidal - taking his glasses away, sleeping with a light on, and staying in solitary confinement long past the 120 days the UCMJ said he was supposed to be tried, or the unlawful command influence where Obama pronounced him guilty.
It is, actually. Lamo had his own run-in with law enforcement in 2003, meaning he knew perfectly well that the government would be gunning for Manning's ass.
You're committing dumfuckery. Revealing mass corruption and lawbreaking isn't treason, it's acting as a whisteblower. You know, something to be comended. Then there's the slight fact that the Pentagon has never been able to name a single instance of harm resulting from Manning's alleged leaks, so see a doctor about your broken priorities.
Ego, or weak-sauce tautology? If it was ego, Manning would have been publicly running to some state-owned Russian newspaper, not anonymously handing the cables over to Wikileaks.
You didn't do it for conscience reasons, you did it for other reasons,
Again, anonymous release of mass corruption and criminality from the United States government and it's allies. How was it not done out of conscience?
While it seems to be taken as an article of faith on/. that extreme government crimes were revealed, I've yet to have anyone point them out to me.
So, your attention to detail has been as selective as your storyline.
That cable was released by WikiLeaks in May, 2011, and, as McClatchy put it at the time, "provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." The U.S. then lied and claimed the civilians were killed by the airstrike. Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama adminstration was seeking [to extend the Iraq war beyond the December 2011 deadline established by GWB].
The only thing that seems to get referred to is the "collateral murder" video which if you watch unedited clearly shows the opposite: There was no crime, the soldiers engaged per the rules of war (which are quite different from regular civilian laws).
What "rules of war" allow you first attack unarmed civilians in a country that's not yours, and then do your best to kill anyone attempting to rescue the dying? When other people do that we call it terrorism.
That cable was released by WikiLeaks in May, 2011, and, as McClatchy put it at the time, "provides evidence that U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi." The U.S. then lied and claimed the civilians were killed by the airstrike. Although this incident had been previously documented by the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the high-profile release of the cable by WikiLeaks generated substantial attention (and disgust) in Iraq, which made it politically unpalatable for the Iraqi government to grant the legal immunity the Obama adminstration was seeking [to extend the Iraq war beyond the December 2011 deadline established by GWB].
The grim truth is that when lefties come to power, they tend to be even worse nastyballs than the rightwingers they replace. See GWB and O'Bumma
Only if you think "left" and "right" are mere extensions of party labels, rather than being based on policies and actions. Of course Obama is a right winger. You don't see "lefties" attempting to claim that gun control is a conservative issue just because Republicans like Mike Bloomberg support it, do you?
You're definitely making shit up. Otherwise, if it was actually about the law, you'd be demanding mass RICO prosecutions for torture and warrantless wiretapping. If it was about military rules and procedures, you'd be demanding Manning's release because the UCMJ requires trials to take place within 120 days and forbids unlawful command influence.
The problem with you hacks is your selective Concern over the law. Makes you easy to spot.
I would have turned him in, too. Violating a security clearance IS a major felony, regardless of motivation, and releasing classified information without authority is just flat-out wrong.
Felony? How about violating a major treaty? The UN Convention Against Torture - signed by that hippie Ronald Reagan - requires prosecution of those who commit torture. A law that Obama has spent 4 years violating by protecting Bushco torturers from prosecution. Then there's the warrantless wiretapping, lying us into 2 wars, violations of the War Powers Act.
You "but he broke the laaaaaw" guys are all a bunch of fucking hacks. You complain about how Manning broke the law, while ignoring the lawbreaking that Manning revealed. You bleat about how Manning violated the UCMJ, ignoring that the UCMJ prohibits unlawful command influence and requires that trials should take place within 120 days. Manning was held for several times that number before ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.
So many of you fancy yourselves hackers or part of the hacker culture and saying what Lamo did was traitorous, without even reading a single word of his explanation
Lamo had his own run-in with law enforcement for hacking. Of course he knew what would happen to Manning. You'd think that Lamo was just insulting anyone with a level of intelligence above Terry Shiavo with such an excuse, but it looks like some people bought it after all.
So you would have put intelligence sources at risk?
So you think repeating a Big Lie eventually makes it true? The Pentagon has never been able to name a single case where the cables resulted in any risk or any harm to any intelligence "source".
You're saying you could have read 200,000 Cables over the course of a few days?
As if Ellisburg read all 120,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers.
Since you wouldn't know and wouldn't be able to determine how many lives are put at risk, what is the responsible thing to do here?
Where's your Concern over all the lives ended by the War of Terror launched by Bush and continued by Obama?
Hi, there. I lived in China about half of my life. I assure you that isn't the case
Then I assure you that you didn't glance at prison populations. The United States has more prisoners than China, both per-capita and in raw numbers.
If you are rich, China is great.
Just like in Amurica. If you are rich, and especially if you're a rich banker or defense contractor, the rule of law simply doesn't apply to you. That's for us plebes....
Or, colloquially, what's good for the goose is good or the gander.
Colloquially: you're a dumbfucker. On what planet is leaking evidence of mass criminality, corruption and war crimes equivalent to leaking the identity of a whistleblower? Until you have a video showing Manning gunning down unarmed civilians - and then gunning down people trying to rescue the dying civilians - you can cram that false equivalency right up your dumb ass.
why the fuck people are dying over cartoons and silly videos
Nobody's fucking dying over cartoons and silly videos. They're pissed that their lands and people have been bombed for 10+ years, suffered a torture regime under the previous president, a civilian-slaughtering drone war under the current president, and watched as western governments have spent more than 50 years talking about supporting freedom and democracy while supporting dictators and overthrowing democratically elected governments.
Look at what the U.S. has spent the last ten years doing in the name of one day, and think about what your reaction would be if you suffered the population equivalent of a 911 every few weeks, either directly at the hands of the U.S. or as the result of instability brought by the U.S.
If he was in a Red state, he effectively voted for Obama; in a Blue state, he effectively voted for Romney. In either state, if it wasn't close to being a swing state, it really didn't matter, his vote wouldn't have affected the results anyway.
Too bad math doesn't work that way. A vote for X is a vote for X, not a vote for Y. Anything else is just whining from partisan purists upset that their candidate didn't earn enough votes.
Wow, yet another "crazy Mooslims" story. Meanwhile, the United States government has just re-upped warrantless wiretapping and indefinite military detention of Americans. And a recent document release shows the collusion between the banks and the highest levels of government in crushing the Occupy movement.
Meanwhile, both sides of the coin, I mean aisle, are thankful for the media/public fixation on the Sandy Hook shootings. Democrats, because focusing liberal rage on mass shootings distracts from FISA and the NDAA and cuts to Social Security onto the issue of gun control, which will go nowhere. Republicans, because it will get the NRA and the teabaggers all poutraged about "taking their guns away" rather than the Fascism of the combination of government and corporate power. But hey, I guess it's a change from threatening Iran with armageddon over the nuclear weapons program our own government admits they don't have.
But hey, lets forget about Bush's worldwide torture regime, forget about Obama's drone wars and violation of the War Powers Act, and focus on what those Crazy Mooslims are doing this week. Nevermind when those corrupt theocratic governments are to our left on fundamental civil liberties.
No, for the willfully obtuse, that's not saying that the U.S. == theocratic third would countries. It's saying we should not throw stones in fucking glass houses until we've taken steps to ensure our own shit does not stink. Stop the fucking shrieking about their molehills from on top your mountain.
Yeah, an apartheid state. Greater rights for immigrants fresh off the plane from Russia than for natives who have lived there for 10 generations. Restricted travel. Racial profiling. At the whims of the military. Starving the population, I'm sorry, "putting them on a diet". Holding thousands in jail with little or no charges.
Israel has Palestinians as members of the Knesset
You mean it has Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, not a small distinction. Palestinians living in the ghetto of Gaza have no representation.
The Guardian is a propaganda mouthpiece for Jihadis - always has been. Your citing the Guardian is like someone during the Cold War citing Pravda to illustrate that everything in the USSR is hunky dory
Obvious deflection is obvious. And lazy. No counter-argument, no citation showing the Guardian's article to be wrong...just ad homs. Because that's all you've got.
Also, all the Pali parties - be it Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, PFLP - claim all of Israel as Palestine.
And the Likud charter lays claim to all of the West Bank, which Israel has no right to.
which in turn comes from a Sahih Bukhari hadith, that has references to the last Jews being wiped out.
And if you listen to right wing Israelis, you'll find references to complete "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians from their remaining lands.
Regardless of what one thinks about Israel, if one entertains Arab (note that Palestinian never historically existed - before 1967, they were always referred to as Arabs, and historically, they were always administered as a part of either Egypt, Syria or Trans-Jordan.
Irrelevant. That there wasn't a Palestinian nation does nothing whatsoever to change the fact that there was a Palestinian area or Palestinian people. You wouldn't argue there wasn't a Greek area or Greek people when it was ruled by the Romans or the Turks, would you? Of course not, because then you'd be a political hack.
I call bullshit. Citation required for "millions" dead caused directly by the US.
3 million in Vietnam. Another million in Iraq. Any more dumb questions?
What do you mean by "wiping our ass"?
Need remedial current events much? Bush and then Obama, along with enthusiastic help from Congress and the courts, have been wiping their ass with the Constitution for some time now. Warrantless wiretapping? Indefinite detention? Starting a war in Libya without Congressional authorization?
Your nonsense. All of your examples are from before the end of WWII, before the fourth Geneva conventions, and some territory disputes from long gone empires (Prussia and Ottomans). Not one apples-to-apples modern comparison of Israel's 1967 land grab, following a war it started with a sneak attack on Egypt.
The USA would have to give back a large chunk of territory to Mexico.
And if this were the year 1912 (64 years past the concession), you'd have a great point. But we're a hundred years past that point, so you don't. Whereas there are still Palestinians who have keys to the houses they were forced out of in 1948 (64 years ago), much less 1967 (45 years).
Acquisition of territory by force has happened all through history, is continuing to happen, and will continue to happen for the forseeable future. The supposed illegitimacy of this practice is used as a tool to demonize Israel, but it's completely ignored when anyone else does it.
Demonize Israel? Bitch please. Everyone knows that America was built on apartheid and land theft of the native population. Some of us even know that this happened over a hundred years ago - as opposed to Israel's apartheid and land theft, which is happening right now.
What's the alternative? If Israel evacuated the West Bank today, it would have rockets landing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tomorrow.
Drivel. The two recent rocket barrages - first in 2008 and the second in 2012 - followed a cease fire violated by Israel and the Israeli assassination of the Hamas official who was....busy trying to negotiate a cease fire.
The best Israel can do is keep a lid on the violence and make sure it only proceeds at a low-level.
Snort. You say that like you're from some alternate universe where Israel isn't and always has been the primary, secondary, and tertiary aggressor:
For example, in 2011, the projectiles fired by the Israeli military into Gaza have been responsible for the death of 108 Palestinians, of which 15 where women or children, and the injury of 468 Palestinians, of which 143 where women or children. The methods by which these causalities were inflicted by Israeli projectiles breaks down as follows: 57 percent, or 310, were caused by Israeli aircraft missile fire; 28 percent, or 150, where from Israeli live ammunition; 11 percent, or 59, were from Israeli tank shells; while another 3 percent, or 18, were from Israeli mortar fire.
Through September 2012, Israeli weaponry caused 55 Palestinian deaths and 257 injuries. Among these 312 casualties, 61, or roughly 20 percent, were children and 28 were female. 209 of these casualties came as a result of Israeli Air Force missiles, 69 from live ammunition fire, and 18 from tank shells. It is important to note that these figures do not represent a totality of Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza but rather only Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza which cause casualties. The total number of Israeli projectiles fired into Gaza is bound to be significantly larger.
Meanwhile,, you have a greater chance of being killed by a bus in Israel than by a qassam rocket. No, not just car accidents, but car accidents involving buses. Even the IDF admits that "Qassams are more a psychological than physical threat".
Eventually, it may find a real peace partner in the Palestinians.
Israel has no interest in peace, it has an interest in solidifying it's control over it's acquired territory and waiting out the clock. If they delay and deny p
Translation: the "the other guy started it" defense works, but only as long as it's in Israel's favor. As soon as it works against Israel, it no longer applies. Funny how often that happens...like the "ancestral homeland" argument that applies to the Hebrews but not the Canaanites. Or the "it's been too long" argument, that applies to Palestinians robbed of their land in 1948 (much less 1967), but not when it was Israel going after Swiss Banks for Jewish possessions stolen in the 1930's.
Huh, almost like you're a bunch of political hacks, or something....
Oh please! Stop comparing Romania and other relatively small states against the US. Pull up a map of the world and compare the size of Europe against the size of the US.
Please, leave off the "but Amurica is ruuural" argument that was weak sauce a decade ago. It doesn't explain why Norway has better access with a lower population density than the United States. It might explain why you get shitty access in Jerkwater, Wyoming, but then how do you explain the shitty access in New York City and San Francisco - two of the more densely populated cities in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
First, it's flatly unconstitutional, via the 14th Amendment:
Raising the "debt ceiling" isn't making for new spending, it's paying for spending already passed by Congress. Secondly, Obama is perfectly aware of this. Which means this is nothing more than the latest dance in corrupt neoliberal theater between the two parties.
You're projecting. If this is just about "proper channels", then why aren't military and CIA officials being prosecuted for the crimes revealed by Manning? Why is it that only the whistleblowers are facing prosecution, not those who committed torture and war crimes?
Idiots.
Nevermind that prison doctors said - repeatedly - that Manning was not suicidal. But you haven't let facts get in the way of your homophobic, authoritarian storyline so far, why stop now?
Yes, except for the constant sleep deprivation - being woken up once an hour by guards - the "suicide smock" he was forced to wear - when prison doctors said he was not suicidal - taking his glasses away, sleeping with a light on, and staying in solitary confinement long past the 120 days the UCMJ said he was supposed to be tried, or the unlawful command influence where Obama pronounced him guilty.
You Nazi sack of shitstain.
It is, actually. Lamo had his own run-in with law enforcement in 2003, meaning he knew perfectly well that the government would be gunning for Manning's ass.
You're committing dumfuckery. Revealing mass corruption and lawbreaking isn't treason, it's acting as a whisteblower. You know, something to be comended. Then there's the slight fact that the Pentagon has never been able to name a single instance of harm resulting from Manning's alleged leaks, so see a doctor about your broken priorities.
Ego, or weak-sauce tautology? If it was ego, Manning would have been publicly running to some state-owned Russian newspaper, not anonymously handing the cables over to Wikileaks.
Again, anonymous release of mass corruption and criminality from the United States government and it's allies. How was it not done out of conscience?
So, your attention to detail has been as selective as your storyline.
What "rules of war" allow you first attack unarmed civilians in a country that's not yours, and then do your best to kill anyone attempting to rescue the dying? When other people do that we call it terrorism.
You are quite the prolific Concern Troll in this story, elucido. I hope somebody is at least paying you for it.
That's willful ignorance:
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/
Only if you think "left" and "right" are mere extensions of party labels, rather than being based on policies and actions. Of course Obama is a right winger. You don't see "lefties" attempting to claim that gun control is a conservative issue just because Republicans like Mike Bloomberg support it, do you?
You're definitely making shit up. Otherwise, if it was actually about the law, you'd be demanding mass RICO prosecutions for torture and warrantless wiretapping. If it was about military rules and procedures, you'd be demanding Manning's release because the UCMJ requires trials to take place within 120 days and forbids unlawful command influence.
The problem with you hacks is your selective Concern over the law. Makes you easy to spot.
Felony? How about violating a major treaty? The UN Convention Against Torture - signed by that hippie Ronald Reagan - requires prosecution of those who commit torture. A law that Obama has spent 4 years violating by protecting Bushco torturers from prosecution. Then there's the warrantless wiretapping, lying us into 2 wars, violations of the War Powers Act.
You "but he broke the laaaaaw" guys are all a bunch of fucking hacks. You complain about how Manning broke the law, while ignoring the lawbreaking that Manning revealed. You bleat about how Manning violated the UCMJ, ignoring that the UCMJ prohibits unlawful command influence and requires that trials should take place within 120 days. Manning was held for several times that number before ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.
Lamo had his own run-in with law enforcement for hacking. Of course he knew what would happen to Manning. You'd think that Lamo was just insulting anyone with a level of intelligence above Terry Shiavo with such an excuse, but it looks like some people bought it after all.
So you think repeating a Big Lie eventually makes it true? The Pentagon has never been able to name a single case where the cables resulted in any risk or any harm to any intelligence "source".
As if Ellisburg read all 120,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers.
Where's your Concern over all the lives ended by the War of Terror launched by Bush and continued by Obama?
Then I assure you that you didn't glance at prison populations. The United States has more prisoners than China, both per-capita and in raw numbers.
Just like in Amurica. If you are rich, and especially if you're a rich banker or defense contractor, the rule of law simply doesn't apply to you. That's for us plebes....
Colloquially: you're a dumbfucker. On what planet is leaking evidence of mass criminality, corruption and war crimes equivalent to leaking the identity of a whistleblower? Until you have a video showing Manning gunning down unarmed civilians - and then gunning down people trying to rescue the dying civilians - you can cram that false equivalency right up your dumb ass.
Nobody's fucking dying over cartoons and silly videos. They're pissed that their lands and people have been bombed for 10+ years, suffered a torture regime under the previous president, a civilian-slaughtering drone war under the current president, and watched as western governments have spent more than 50 years talking about supporting freedom and democracy while supporting dictators and overthrowing democratically elected governments.
Look at what the U.S. has spent the last ten years doing in the name of one day, and think about what your reaction would be if you suffered the population equivalent of a 911 every few weeks, either directly at the hands of the U.S. or as the result of instability brought by the U.S.
Too bad then that he never said his candidate was Ron Paul or that he had a chance of being elected.
Too bad math doesn't work that way. A vote for X is a vote for X, not a vote for Y. Anything else is just whining from partisan purists upset that their candidate didn't earn enough votes.
Wow, yet another "crazy Mooslims" story. Meanwhile, the United States government has just re-upped warrantless wiretapping and indefinite military detention of Americans. And a recent document release shows the collusion between the banks and the highest levels of government in crushing the Occupy movement.
Meanwhile, both sides of the coin, I mean aisle, are thankful for the media/public fixation on the Sandy Hook shootings. Democrats, because focusing liberal rage on mass shootings distracts from FISA and the NDAA and cuts to Social Security onto the issue of gun control, which will go nowhere. Republicans, because it will get the NRA and the teabaggers all poutraged about "taking their guns away" rather than the Fascism of the combination of government and corporate power. But hey, I guess it's a change from threatening Iran with armageddon over the nuclear weapons program our own government admits they don't have.
But hey, lets forget about Bush's worldwide torture regime, forget about Obama's drone wars and violation of the War Powers Act, and focus on what those Crazy Mooslims are doing this week. Nevermind when those corrupt theocratic governments are to our left on fundamental civil liberties.
No, for the willfully obtuse, that's not saying that the U.S. == theocratic third would countries. It's saying we should not throw stones in fucking glass houses until we've taken steps to ensure our own shit does not stink. Stop the fucking shrieking about their molehills from on top your mountain.
Yeah, an apartheid state. Greater rights for immigrants fresh off the plane from Russia than for natives who have lived there for 10 generations. Restricted travel. Racial profiling. At the whims of the military. Starving the population, I'm sorry, "putting them on a diet". Holding thousands in jail with little or no charges.
You mean it has Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, not a small distinction. Palestinians living in the ghetto of Gaza have no representation.
Obvious deflection is obvious. And lazy. No counter-argument, no citation showing the Guardian's article to be wrong...just ad homs. Because that's all you've got.
And the Likud charter lays claim to all of the West Bank, which Israel has no right to.
And if you listen to right wing Israelis, you'll find references to complete "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians from their remaining lands.
Irrelevant. That there wasn't a Palestinian nation does nothing whatsoever to change the fact that there was a Palestinian area or Palestinian people. You wouldn't argue there wasn't a Greek area or Greek people when it was ruled by the Romans or the Turks, would you? Of course not, because then you'd be a political hack.
3 million in Vietnam. Another million in Iraq. Any more dumb questions?
Need remedial current events much? Bush and then Obama, along with enthusiastic help from Congress and the courts, have been wiping their ass with the Constitution for some time now. Warrantless wiretapping? Indefinite detention? Starting a war in Libya without Congressional authorization?
Your nonsense. All of your examples are from before the end of WWII, before the fourth Geneva conventions, and some territory disputes from long gone empires (Prussia and Ottomans). Not one apples-to-apples modern comparison of Israel's 1967 land grab, following a war it started with a sneak attack on Egypt.
And if this were the year 1912 (64 years past the concession), you'd have a great point. But we're a hundred years past that point, so you don't. Whereas there are still Palestinians who have keys to the houses they were forced out of in 1948 (64 years ago), much less 1967 (45 years).
Demonize Israel? Bitch please. Everyone knows that America was built on apartheid and land theft of the native population. Some of us even know that this happened over a hundred years ago - as opposed to Israel's apartheid and land theft, which is happening right now.
Drivel. The two recent rocket barrages - first in 2008 and the second in 2012 - followed a cease fire violated by Israel and the Israeli assassination of the Hamas official who was....busy trying to negotiate a cease fire.
Snort. You say that like you're from some alternate universe where Israel isn't and always has been the primary, secondary, and tertiary aggressor:
Meanwhile,, you have a greater chance of being killed by a bus in Israel than by a qassam rocket. No, not just car accidents, but car accidents involving buses. Even the IDF admits that "Qassams are more a psychological than physical threat".
Israel has no interest in peace, it has an interest in solidifying it's control over it's acquired territory and waiting out the clock. If they delay and deny p
Translation: the "the other guy started it" defense works, but only as long as it's in Israel's favor. As soon as it works against Israel, it no longer applies. Funny how often that happens...like the "ancestral homeland" argument that applies to the Hebrews but not the Canaanites. Or the "it's been too long" argument, that applies to Palestinians robbed of their land in 1948 (much less 1967), but not when it was Israel going after Swiss Banks for Jewish possessions stolen in the 1930's.
Huh, almost like you're a bunch of political hacks, or something....
Please, leave off the "but Amurica is ruuural" argument that was weak sauce a decade ago. It doesn't explain why Norway has better access with a lower population density than the United States. It might explain why you get shitty access in Jerkwater, Wyoming, but then how do you explain the shitty access in New York City and San Francisco - two of the more densely populated cities in the world.