You need a certain amount of your expected tax bill on account with the government else they can fine you. I think it amounts to 90% of your current year's tax bill or 100% of the previous year's bill. There are some exceptions but they are limited. The fine is something like a percentage of the underpaid amount or something like that.
There is also a $500 penalty if you knowingly do as you suggest and alter your W-4 to reduce the amount of withholding with no reasonable basis for doing so. Also, you can be charged with a crime for supplying false or fraudulent information on your Form W-4 or failing to offer information that could increase your withholding that can cost you $1000 and/or 1 year in prison.
So while, yes, in theory, you can alter your deductions to effectively have no withholding, it can also cost you a lot more in the end if you do so.
Doesn't the broken window fallacy fall apart when you do something that will cost you of your own free will? I mean getting felt up by a TSA agent is about as much of a waste of time as going to the movies in recent years (more or less). Is going to the movies a Broken Window Fallacy too?
I'm betting the fallacy requires someone else acting in order to cost you instead of you doing it yourself. Because then it isn't entertainment unless you hire them to break the windows- but that would be you doing it yourself too.
I'm not sure I would consider a state worker as the state advocating something. I can understand why the state wouldn't cover you unless you were in debt by medical expenses. But if you had no medical bills, then you wouldn't need coverage until you did. The kid has no fault in you being unemployed and unable to provide for him so covering him is a no brain'er.
Covering you without some extenuating circumstances however might encourage the likelihood of you continuing to need coverage. So I think what the state was actually encouraging was you to get a job and provide for yourself while they assisted the innocent child that followed your into that mess. I guess if you are the type who looks at the glass as half empty all the time, you could find the go into medical debt sentiment in that scenario. The interesting thing is, if you are 16k in debt with no job, you are also bankrupt and could discharge that debt pretty easily.
I hate to break this to you, but that is only part of the picture. That is how state and federal funds are appropriated not the entire school budgets. The fist paragraph even makes this clear in the second sentence. "This booklet presents charts and tables which describe how state and federal funds are distributed to North Carolina's Public Schools."
North Carolina, like most states, raise the bulk of their funding for schools at the local levels through property taxes and other similar sources. It does appear that if you include nutritional assistance programs (free and reduced lunch and breakfast), local funding in NC averages only about 24% of the schools budgets. But looking deeper into the page, it seems that about 33% or federal funding goes to nutritional support. This page sheds a little more detail on the role of local funding in NC.
I still don't see the massive drain from administration as the parent suggests in the NC budget. Here is a budget from the durham public schools which might clear some things up. It gave me a headache so I'm done reading for the day.
Weasel words and politicing, and slander in both cases in my books.
Yes, because we all know Hustler Magazine should have lost their battle against Jerry Falwell when they printed an interview claiming "Mom looked better than a Baptist whore with a $100 donation," that he decided to have sex with his mother since she had "showed all the other guys in town such a good time", and that they had intercourse regularly afterwards was a statement made by Falwell when describing his first time having sex.
Stop being the religious nutter who decries anyone who speaks ill of your fabled leaders of the truth. People say things for rhetorical effect and to challenge the resolve of their audience and some things are not factual but hyperbole. A few good recent examples of this free speech is the recent comments by politicians about the tea party (which anyone who has investigated them in the slightest know most of which is untrue) or even the comments made by Huckabee who was both taking something out of context and taken out of context in the course of using hyperbole.
I would consider tenure as a property right just as the parent.
It isn't something you can hold in your hand or put a lock on, but it is something you can own or possess by means of a contract. IT is really no different then you having a bank account with 20K sitting in it and nothing but a piece of paper saying it is yours. As long as the law and requirements allow it, you have it as a benefit you yourself.
This is no different then a retirement benefit a company gives you after working a certain amount of time. That has been considered property or an assess in many situations except that the school board and state are government entities so due process and just compensation are constitutionally required where as some company going out of business doesn't have that legal constraint.
There used to be a saying that went something like those who can will do, those who cannot will teach, those who cannot teach will coach and those who cannot coach will become politicians.
There is not a teacher shortage- there is an ability to pay teachers shortage. I know of plenty of teachers with state credentials who cannot find work because there either is not enough room in the schools or schools are pinching their budgets so tight that increasing class room size and decreasing teachers is a way to pay for it. These teachers have been on the substitution lists for years and actually hold other jobs waiting for an opening which is usually created by someone retiring unless a new school is built. Some of them have went into the charter/private schools arena in order to put their teaching credentials to use. It's probably no wonder why people claim the charter schools produce better students- they end up with not only picking and choosing the students but with the fresh and innovative new talent to teach them.
They only can write it to benefit one over another because of Keynesian economics. That is the entire problem- manipulating the economy instead of simply keeping products from harming people and the environment (people by extension) and preventing fraud.
I don't really care about the military-industrial complex so bark up another tree. The banking collapse was directly associated with Keynesian economics. It could have been avoided if congress would have acted in 2003 when the request to change regulation on and monitor GSEs in the mortgage industry was made.
The rich can be kept in check by regulation. The alternative to Keynesian economics is not complete lawlessness (although it can be if you refuse to look at any other options).
In that case, that person is off topic, too. But it's not really off topic, as this mentions the NSA metadata program.
It's possible we are all off topic. However, the NSA metadata program in the story was dealing specifically with the US on US citizens. That's where the references to the 4th amendment and privacy come into play.
Tu quoque is a fallacy, so it doesn't make much of a difference. People's arguments aren't invalid even if they appear to be hypocrites.
I do not think the claim was the argument is invalid, it was I don't want to hear it until you practice it yourself. A bit of a big difference if you look at it.
Yes, we should be dumb and stupid...great way to plan for the future.
Repeat after me, throwing money at something does not make it better, it just makes it more expensive. WE are constantly under-performing in test scores compared to other countries that spend a fraction of what we do on education. Not spending more does not equate to being dumb and stupid. Spending more with no or negative results could equal dumb and stupid though.
And 30-40 MILLION more people have health insurance available to them. Overall spending DECREASE since once it's fully in force and people are enrolled the number of ER visits goes way way down. Again, 'decade over decade' and you compare to just 'now'.
No they do not. Right now, the number of people who do not have health insurance available is actually greater then before as policies were canceled and some increased in costs to the point people claim they cannot afford them any more.
Even the government claims less then 6 million people signed up for the exchanges. The CBO claims that after Obamacare is fully implemented, 30 to 40 million people will not have coverage. Before the ACA, it was only 50 million who were uninsured. But right now, we have seen over 80 million policies canceled because of the ACA. So unless you are counting a large amount of people who had their policies canceled as the ones who are going to be getting insurance, the best you can claim is that 10-20 million will have access to insurance. But currently, it seems like only 6 million or so is able to be claimed if you discount anyone who was canceled from the number of people signing up for the exchanges. But that isn't the case in reality.
I know, that is not what you have been told by your handlers. But it actually is the cold hard truth of the matter.
I think the proper question is why aren't you getting off your lazy AC ass and actually doing something about it? If you don't like the government, you're quite free to persuade your neighbors to join you in replacing your representatives.
I think you will find this to be a common theme over the next several elections. Whether the politicians will stand and deliver is another story, but we can expect to see some different talking heads in the mix.
According to the wikipedia page you linked to, it was gotten rid of not because of the GOP but because the economy improved and most of the people who would participate was drafted into the army- all while under the same democrat president that started it.
But the country one resides in has nothing to do with whether or not your argument has any validity.
Actually, it does in this case because the article is about the US government and what it is doing to the US citizens. So if you are complaining about what someone does to a foreigner, then you are off topic.
"Everybody else is doing it!" is no excuse. Nice try.
You are absolutely right. Now excuse me, I have to light one up and tell the young'ns not to smoke ever- because it's bad for you. While I'm at it, I think I'll chug a 6 pack and have the talk about alcohol being bad too.
I'm not sure his point was that everyone was doing it so it was ok, I think it was more to clean up your own backyard first, then bitch about mine.
It's like a cop asking, can I search your car. If you say yes, he can. If you say no, then he needs to talk to a judge in most cases.
""The government can collect and store digital information about me."" does not run foul of the constitution because he was giving them permissions as long as they met his conditions.
And that is the problem with Keynesian economic. If the government can manipulates the economy, those in government can manipulate it to their advantage.
The only person proposing anything of the sort is completely in your own mind and nowhere near the reality everyone else lives in. I'm done with you. You are now became too silly to even be disguised as legitimate.
I understand all right, I just think you can't separate "my country right or wrong" from individuals who will use that to sucker people like you. You seem to worship King and not Country - utterly tragic when George Washington worked so hard to stop that sort of thing.
why don't you provide some examples of this. You will find them hard to find unless you are so delusional that you think comments about the rule of law are of this type. But then the entire world would see how oxymoronic you are.
The act matters more than the person. History has shown that if you can's get dirt on someone then very stupid lies are used instead - like calling the millionaire Charlie Chaplain a communist because his opposition to fascism was upsetting powerful people in politics.
Yeah, like Chaplin's problems had nothing to do with his creation- Monsieur Verdoux. It was all because of his parody making fun of Hitler and fascism. I suppose the fact he was awarded the International Peace Prize by the communist-led World Peace Council happened after the claims of being a communist were out.
Once again, you seem to be missing the important pieces of the information. The "act" that happened to matter the most here is the release of legitimate intelligence on other nations and the methods in which we acquired that information. For that, he is a traitor and deserves a traitor's end.
You most certainly have - you are treating your rulers as Kings that must never be questioned instead of people that have their power granted by the citizens and defined by the constitution. I thought you would have picked up enough general knowlege to get the reference and understand what I meant by it.
Sigh, you are full of it. I know exactly what the divine right of kings is and what you meant by it. It's like your other post where you pretend North and Poindexter ended up getting pardons when the ACLU actually helped overturn their convictions. You simply do not know what you are talking about.
Wishing Snowden dead for revealing the rulers as fallible human beings is a very strong symptom of that, as is some of your other Royalist rants here in the past. A "strong" leader without any of that messy judicary or elected representative stuff - isn't that what you've been going on about here for years?
You really need to stop making crap up. I said traitor's end, not wishing him dead. For all I care, he can rot in a prison in isolation for the rest of his life. and you have no clue if you think I been going on about that crap. Wake up and stop spreading your delusions.
They sold weapons containing such secrets instead. I'll bet some of those rockets ended up hitting targets in Israel. Also they didn't have their day in court - a Presidential pardon, effectively the Kings grace instead of an act of a Republic, spared them from that.Stop making shit up. Poindextor and North never got a pardon, they had their convictions vacated on appeals. And they got the help of the ACLU in doing so. There were a few administration officials who were pardoned by Bush after they were being charged for petty crap and most of them had their cases dropped due to the lack of evidence against them.
It's amusing that you think that selling weapons to a group that had killed over a hundred US Marines less than a year before is overshadowed by Snowden informing the people of excesses or rulers out of control instead of serving the country. It makes me think of you as a living joke licking spittle off your masters boots instead of any sort of real man. It makes it even funnier when I think back to your chestbeating rants and your insults where you question my own masculinity.
Perhaps if you would get your facts straight and look in the mirror, you would find reality is biting you in the ass. So lets see, we sell weapons to a country that sponsored a terrorist group that bombed a marine base verses telling every single country not only what information we have collected about them but how we collected it and who we collected it on. I would say what Snowden did is pretty serious in comparison.
I do not think you are paying attention. There is absolutely no excuse for the leaks pertaining to legitimate surveillance of foreign countries, terrorist organizations and so on. Sure, domestic spying, rat it out all you want. Informing about our spying on Mexico, China, Germany, Russia, terrorist cells in the middle east, suspected terrorist cells in Europe, exposing this from China, Russia, and a UK news organization, that is all beyond whistle blowing and deliberate attempts to harm the US. He is an absolute traitor and deserves a traitor's end.
I do not care if it disgusts you. You are ignoring relevant facts in order to maintain some fantasy about a knight in shinning armor that doesn't pan out in the real world. Not once in the 3 separate replies to the same post have you even bothered addressing the problem of Snowden giving foreign nations secrets about how we collect intelligence on them or what we know about them. You can sugar coat a turd all you want but it will still stink the place up. Snowden is just that turd.
I don't think you know what you are talking about. I have never taken the divine right of kings stand on anything. I do actually think these things through and apply logic and ration to them so you might find me not jumping onto the bandwagon a lot. The devil is in the details and in Snowden's case, he gave away information that went far beyond whistle blowing and actually aided foreign nations by not only disclosing intel we had on them, but the means and methods used to collect it. Anything positive he might have done was completely and irrefutably undone at that point.
Regardless of the case in TFA, anyone from Joe Simpleton to the NY Times can be charged with libel. The defference comes down to capacity to mount a defense.
If the first amendment means anything, the only difference in capacity to mount a defense that can be is the difference between your financial means and mine and the people we employ for the defense. Any difference in standards for implementation of a law or it's application is in violation of the entire free speech concept (let alone equal protection under the law and the 5th as you mentioned).
If the burden is knowingly false, then it should be the same for a news paper reporter, Joe Simpleton, you, me, your neighbor and everyone else in the country. When the burden shifts to a greater or lesser level because of someone's failure to be legally associated with some organization or profession, we have problems. If an evening news reporter can say X did Y while doing Z and be protected from libel, then you or I shall have the same opportunities to do the same with the same levels of protection. This portion of the case was about different standards being applied- one that would be involved if a person using their freedom of speech was associated with a news organization and one where they were not.
Now, once the case is reheard with the same rights and privileges for everyone, Crystal Cox may lose again. It completely appears that her statements may be false. The difference is that now everyone is on the same playing field and your right to say something is not less then my right due to some association or employment.
It is also worth noting that while I agree with the rest of what you said, laws such as false advertising are considered laws against fraud or defrauding the public not regulations on speech. I know that seems like an excuse, but I believe it is a distinction of importance. As for national security interests, I believe New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) took care of that with the publishing of the pentagon papers.
lol.. The press concept was specifically because it was a way, the best way I might add, to disseminate your "freedom of speech". The entire concept of the press in the constitution is about being able to put ideas and opinions out into the world in order to influence your surroundings and government. This is why there is only a comma separating the freedom of speech, or of the press instead of semicolons which is used in the same amendment in order to separate different concepts like religion.
Justice Black wrote in his concurring opinion for 403 U.S. 713 New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) in which Justice Douglas joined
"The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments, and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."
In this he echos the sentiment that the press is simply a way to disseminate or publish their information/sentiments. The only distinction between speech and the press that should be allowed is the distinction between the medium the speech was composed with and how many people saw it. No other legal distinction should be there and a media group verses ordinary person/citizen completely ignores the history, intend, and plain language of the Constitution.
The problem is not consequences, it is the establishments of sanctioned verses none sanctioned. Or to put it bluntly, separate laws governing speech depending on if you are associated with a specific organization or not and having stricter penalties when any association is not legally recognized.
It doesn't matter if it is the New York Times, or Joe Simpleton who printed 500 flyers at Kinko's, or in this case, a blogger with viewers, when the laws are different, then not only is the first amendment in violation, but the equal protection clause is too. The press is not just a News Corp, it is a term that literally means printing press and several of the founders used them personally in order to sway public opinion their way. The concept of the press in the constitution is simply to disseminate information which is why it is implicitly linked to free speech by a comma and not separated by a semi colon.
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You need a certain amount of your expected tax bill on account with the government else they can fine you. I think it amounts to 90% of your current year's tax bill or 100% of the previous year's bill. There are some exceptions but they are limited. The fine is something like a percentage of the underpaid amount or something like that.
There is also a $500 penalty if you knowingly do as you suggest and alter your W-4 to reduce the amount of withholding with no reasonable basis for doing so. Also, you can be charged with a crime for supplying false or fraudulent information on your Form W-4 or failing to offer information that could increase your withholding that can cost you $1000 and/or 1 year in prison.
So while, yes, in theory, you can alter your deductions to effectively have no withholding, it can also cost you a lot more in the end if you do so.
Doesn't the broken window fallacy fall apart when you do something that will cost you of your own free will? I mean getting felt up by a TSA agent is about as much of a waste of time as going to the movies in recent years (more or less). Is going to the movies a Broken Window Fallacy too?
I'm betting the fallacy requires someone else acting in order to cost you instead of you doing it yourself. Because then it isn't entertainment unless you hire them to break the windows- but that would be you doing it yourself too.
I'm not sure I would consider a state worker as the state advocating something. I can understand why the state wouldn't cover you unless you were in debt by medical expenses. But if you had no medical bills, then you wouldn't need coverage until you did. The kid has no fault in you being unemployed and unable to provide for him so covering him is a no brain'er.
Covering you without some extenuating circumstances however might encourage the likelihood of you continuing to need coverage. So I think what the state was actually encouraging was you to get a job and provide for yourself while they assisted the innocent child that followed your into that mess. I guess if you are the type who looks at the glass as half empty all the time, you could find the go into medical debt sentiment in that scenario. The interesting thing is, if you are 16k in debt with no job, you are also bankrupt and could discharge that debt pretty easily.
I hate to break this to you, but that is only part of the picture. That is how state and federal funds are appropriated not the entire school budgets. The fist paragraph even makes this clear in the second sentence. "This booklet presents charts
and tables which describe how state and federal funds are distributed to North Carolina's Public Schools."
North Carolina, like most states, raise the bulk of their funding for schools at the local levels through property taxes and other similar sources. It does appear that if you include nutritional assistance programs (free and reduced lunch and breakfast), local funding in NC averages only about 24% of the schools budgets. But looking deeper into the page, it seems that about 33% or federal funding goes to nutritional support. This page sheds a little more detail on the role of local funding in NC.
I still don't see the massive drain from administration as the parent suggests in the NC budget. Here is a budget from the durham public schools which might clear some things up. It gave me a headache so I'm done reading for the day.
Yes, because we all know Hustler Magazine should have lost their battle against Jerry Falwell when they printed an interview claiming "Mom looked better than a Baptist whore with a $100 donation," that he decided to have sex with his mother since she had "showed all the other guys in town such a good time", and that they had intercourse regularly afterwards was a statement made by Falwell when describing his first time having sex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
Stop being the religious nutter who decries anyone who speaks ill of your fabled leaders of the truth. People say things for rhetorical effect and to challenge the resolve of their audience and some things are not factual but hyperbole. A few good recent examples of this free speech is the recent comments by politicians about the tea party (which anyone who has investigated them in the slightest know most of which is untrue) or even the comments made by Huckabee who was both taking something out of context and taken out of context in the course of using hyperbole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
I would consider tenure as a property right just as the parent.
It isn't something you can hold in your hand or put a lock on, but it is something you can own or possess by means of a contract. IT is really no different then you having a bank account with 20K sitting in it and nothing but a piece of paper saying it is yours. As long as the law and requirements allow it, you have it as a benefit you yourself.
This is no different then a retirement benefit a company gives you after working a certain amount of time. That has been considered property or an assess in many situations except that the school board and state are government entities so due process and just compensation are constitutionally required where as some company going out of business doesn't have that legal constraint.
There used to be a saying that went something like those who can will do, those who cannot will teach, those who cannot teach will coach and those who cannot coach will become politicians.
There is not a teacher shortage- there is an ability to pay teachers shortage. I know of plenty of teachers with state credentials who cannot find work because there either is not enough room in the schools or schools are pinching their budgets so tight that increasing class room size and decreasing teachers is a way to pay for it. These teachers have been on the substitution lists for years and actually hold other jobs waiting for an opening which is usually created by someone retiring unless a new school is built. Some of them have went into the charter/private schools arena in order to put their teaching credentials to use. It's probably no wonder why people claim the charter schools produce better students- they end up with not only picking and choosing the students but with the fresh and innovative new talent to teach them.
They only can write it to benefit one over another because of Keynesian economics. That is the entire problem- manipulating the economy instead of simply keeping products from harming people and the environment (people by extension) and preventing fraud.
I don't really care about the military-industrial complex so bark up another tree. The banking collapse was directly associated with Keynesian economics. It could have been avoided if congress would have acted in 2003 when the request to change regulation on and monitor GSEs in the mortgage industry was made.
The rich can be kept in check by regulation. The alternative to Keynesian economics is not complete lawlessness (although it can be if you refuse to look at any other options).
It's possible we are all off topic. However, the NSA metadata program in the story was dealing specifically with the US on US citizens. That's where the references to the 4th amendment and privacy come into play.
I do not think the claim was the argument is invalid, it was I don't want to hear it until you practice it yourself. A bit of a big difference if you look at it.
Repeat after me, throwing money at something does not make it better, it just makes it more expensive. WE are constantly under-performing in test scores compared to other countries that spend a fraction of what we do on education. Not spending more does not equate to being dumb and stupid. Spending more with no or negative results could equal dumb and stupid though.
No they do not. Right now, the number of people who do not have health insurance available is actually greater then before as policies were canceled and some increased in costs to the point people claim they cannot afford them any more.
Even the government claims less then 6 million people signed up for the exchanges. The CBO claims that after Obamacare is fully implemented, 30 to 40 million people will not have coverage. Before the ACA, it was only 50 million who were uninsured. But right now, we have seen over 80 million policies canceled because of the ACA. So unless you are counting a large amount of people who had their policies canceled as the ones who are going to be getting insurance, the best you can claim is that 10-20 million will have access to insurance. But currently, it seems like only 6 million or so is able to be claimed if you discount anyone who was canceled from the number of people signing up for the exchanges. But that isn't the case in reality.
I know, that is not what you have been told by your handlers. But it actually is the cold hard truth of the matter.
I think you will find this to be a common theme over the next several elections. Whether the politicians will stand and deliver is another story, but we can expect to see some different talking heads in the mix.
According to the wikipedia page you linked to, it was gotten rid of not because of the GOP but because the economy improved and most of the people who would participate was drafted into the army- all while under the same democrat president that started it.
Are you sure you understood the question?
Actually, it does in this case because the article is about the US government and what it is doing to the US citizens. So if you are complaining about what someone does to a foreigner, then you are off topic.
You are absolutely right. Now excuse me, I have to light one up and tell the young'ns not to smoke ever- because it's bad for you. While I'm at it, I think I'll chug a 6 pack and have the talk about alcohol being bad too.
I'm not sure his point was that everyone was doing it so it was ok, I think it was more to clean up your own backyard first, then bitch about mine.
IF he volunteers it, they can.
It's like a cop asking, can I search your car. If you say yes, he can. If you say no, then he needs to talk to a judge in most cases.
""The government can collect and store digital information about me."" does not run foul of the constitution because he was giving them permissions as long as they met his conditions.
And that is the problem with Keynesian economic. If the government can manipulates the economy, those in government can manipulate it to their advantage.
The only person proposing anything of the sort is completely in your own mind and nowhere near the reality everyone else lives in. I'm done with you. You are now became too silly to even be disguised as legitimate.
why don't you provide some examples of this. You will find them hard to find unless you are so delusional that you think comments about the rule of law are of this type. But then the entire world would see how oxymoronic you are.
Yeah, like Chaplin's problems had nothing to do with his creation- Monsieur Verdoux. It was all because of his parody making fun of Hitler and fascism. I suppose the fact he was awarded the International Peace Prize by the communist-led World Peace Council happened after the claims of being a communist were out.
Once again, you seem to be missing the important pieces of the information. The "act" that happened to matter the most here is the release of legitimate intelligence on other nations and the methods in which we acquired that information. For that, he is a traitor and deserves a traitor's end.
Sigh, you are full of it. I know exactly what the divine right of kings is and what you meant by it. It's like your other post where you pretend North and Poindexter ended up getting pardons when the ACLU actually helped overturn their convictions. You simply do not know what you are talking about.
You really need to stop making crap up. I said traitor's end, not wishing him dead. For all I care, he can rot in a prison in isolation for the rest of his life. and you have no clue if you think I been going on about that crap. Wake up and stop spreading your delusions.
I do not think you are paying attention. There is absolutely no excuse for the leaks pertaining to legitimate surveillance of foreign countries, terrorist organizations and so on. Sure, domestic spying, rat it out all you want. Informing about our spying on Mexico, China, Germany, Russia, terrorist cells in the middle east, suspected terrorist cells in Europe, exposing this from China, Russia, and a UK news organization, that is all beyond whistle blowing and deliberate attempts to harm the US. He is an absolute traitor and deserves a traitor's end.
I do not care if it disgusts you. You are ignoring relevant facts in order to maintain some fantasy about a knight in shinning armor that doesn't pan out in the real world. Not once in the 3 separate replies to the same post have you even bothered addressing the problem of Snowden giving foreign nations secrets about how we collect intelligence on them or what we know about them. You can sugar coat a turd all you want but it will still stink the place up. Snowden is just that turd.
I don't think you know what you are talking about. I have never taken the divine right of kings stand on anything. I do actually think these things through and apply logic and ration to them so you might find me not jumping onto the bandwagon a lot. The devil is in the details and in Snowden's case, he gave away information that went far beyond whistle blowing and actually aided foreign nations by not only disclosing intel we had on them, but the means and methods used to collect it. Anything positive he might have done was completely and irrefutably undone at that point.
North and Poindexter didn't give away state secretes to foreign nations. They had their day(s) in court and that's the end of it.
Now if only Snowden would have his day in court.
If the first amendment means anything, the only difference in capacity to mount a defense that can be is the difference between your financial means and mine and the people we employ for the defense. Any difference in standards for implementation of a law or it's application is in violation of the entire free speech concept (let alone equal protection under the law and the 5th as you mentioned).
If the burden is knowingly false, then it should be the same for a news paper reporter, Joe Simpleton, you, me, your neighbor and everyone else in the country. When the burden shifts to a greater or lesser level because of someone's failure to be legally associated with some organization or profession, we have problems. If an evening news reporter can say X did Y while doing Z and be protected from libel, then you or I shall have the same opportunities to do the same with the same levels of protection. This portion of the case was about different standards being applied- one that would be involved if a person using their freedom of speech was associated with a news organization and one where they were not.
Now, once the case is reheard with the same rights and privileges for everyone, Crystal Cox may lose again. It completely appears that her statements may be false. The difference is that now everyone is on the same playing field and your right to say something is not less then my right due to some association or employment.
It is also worth noting that while I agree with the rest of what you said, laws such as false advertising are considered laws against fraud or defrauding the public not regulations on speech. I know that seems like an excuse, but I believe it is a distinction of importance. As for national security interests, I believe New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) took care of that with the publishing of the pentagon papers.
lol.. The press concept was specifically because it was a way, the best way I might add, to disseminate your "freedom of speech". The entire concept of the press in the constitution is about being able to put ideas and opinions out into the world in order to influence your surroundings and government. This is why there is only a comma separating the freedom of speech, or of the press instead of semicolons which is used in the same amendment in order to separate different concepts like religion.
Justice Black wrote in his concurring opinion for 403 U.S. 713 New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) in which Justice Douglas joined
"The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments, and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."
In this he echos the sentiment that the press is simply a way to disseminate or publish their information/sentiments. The only distinction between speech and the press that should be allowed is the distinction between the medium the speech was composed with and how many people saw it. No other legal distinction should be there and a media group verses ordinary person/citizen completely ignores the history, intend, and plain language of the Constitution.
The problem is not consequences, it is the establishments of sanctioned verses none sanctioned. Or to put it bluntly, separate laws governing speech depending on if you are associated with a specific organization or not and having stricter penalties when any association is not legally recognized.
It doesn't matter if it is the New York Times, or Joe Simpleton who printed 500 flyers at Kinko's, or in this case, a blogger with viewers, when the laws are different, then not only is the first amendment in violation, but the equal protection clause is too. The press is not just a News Corp, it is a term that literally means printing press and several of the founders used them personally in order to sway public opinion their way. The concept of the press in the constitution is simply to disseminate information which is why it is implicitly linked to free speech by a comma and not separated by a semi colon.