Will we be able to recover from Bush's restrictions of our basic Constitutional rights, or from his dramatically increasing the power of the Executive?
I'm curious, exactly what "restrictions" are you talking about? Apparently you can still criticize the government, so there must be something else. Can you still vote? Can you still run for office? Can you still publish or read what you want? Are there any restrictions on employment? Are you limited in the gods you can worship, or not worship? Can you still pick your friends? Is your choice of mates any different than under the laws of Jimmy Carter's time? Is there a government policy that has changed to prevent you from studying what you want in school? Can you still travel to the same places you used to? Do you still have a choice as to what political party to join or not join? What about food, is there a new banned food?
As to the power of the Executive, under the great Democratic President FDR, the same one who initiated the Social Security program and a host of other beneficial social welfare programs, the government: engaged in massive amounts of domestic surveillance, often without a court order; intercepted, opened, read, and censored mail; tried American citizens by Military Commission and executed them; engaged in wire tapping without court order; rounded up enemy aliens and American citizens and interned them in camps; seized or impounded a variety of properties; instituted the use of loyalty oaths; increased the US armed forces to approximately 12 million people (vs ~ 1.5M today and a country 2x); sent some conscientious objectors to jail and required others to serve in the armed forces; attacked a number of sovereign nations, including nations that never attacked us; prepared large stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction for use; after FDR's death, his former VP, now President Truman, dropped the Atomic bomb... twice; ended the conflict with next to no negotiation as the demand was for unconditional surrender.
You'll have to pardon me if I'm a little puzzled about exactly what civil rights restrictions you think you are under, and as to how President Bush is "dramatically increasing" the powers of the Executive. I'm sure you, and many on Slashdot, feel that way.
Oh wait I think you meant we have a greater relationship with Israel because we view the Israelis as "white people". You might be right about that.
The US is friends with Israel because the Israelis are viewed as "white people", eh? All of them? (Is that just Israelis, or all Jews?) I guess that puts them in the same company as some of the other "white folk" that the US has supported, or fought and died for, like Koreans and South Viet Namese. (~50,000 dead American soldiers in each country) And then there are those other famous "white folk" that we support, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, and the Kuwaitis. And don't forget Iraq, where American soldiers are currently fighting and dying to aid a newly elected democratic government, apparently of "white folk", in stabilizing the country.
Pakistan is full of religous fanatics, but it isn't ruled by them at the moment, and they are cooperating in fair measure in the fight against Al Qaeda.
If the Pakistani government were to fall into the hands of fanatics, and it stopped cooperating, it might be time for a policy review.
I'm sure that they have noticed that the US is friends with their archrival India as well, and that plenty of funds could head India's way if warranted by other events.
Before Hitler rose to power in Germany, Bush Sr's father Prescott Bush funded Hitler to ensure his rise. And continued to fund Hitler even as those funds paid for bullets fired at American troops, until stopped for violating the "Trading With the Enemy" laws.
Comrade Doctor, you should make your agitprop more believable. This one is trivially shown false:
These stories had circulated for years but resurfaced on May 13, 2003, in the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma, headlined, "Bush Family Funded Adolf Hitler." As the Associated Press reports, Prescott had been on the board of Union Banking Corp., whose majority owner, the Thyssen family of Germany, indeed had funded the Nazis against a feared communist takeover of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Family leader Fritz Thyssen broke with Hitler over the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jews, was stripped of his citizenship and fortune, and was in a Nazi prison at the time the elder Bush sat on that board. There is no evidence that Prescott Bush, who owned just one share of Union Banking, had anything to do with the Thyssen political work in Germany.
..... Discussing this controversy, columnist Joe Conason of the New York Observer writes, "Henry Ford was a Nazi collaborator. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. was a Nazi sympathizer. Unless additional information emerges to indict him, Prescott Bush Sr. was neither. To misuse such terms for political advantage against his grandson is to trivialize very grave offenses."
One of Phillips's most attention-grabbing chapters posits the theory that the Bushes were involved in the rise of Adolf Hitler. While he correctly notes that Brown Brothers Harriman, an investment-banking firm employing Prescott Bush and George H. Walker (George W.'s great-grandfather), invested in Nazi-era German companies, Phillips fails to note that it was Averell Harriman, later FDR's ambassador to Moscow and Truman's commerce secretary, who initiated these investments (and some in Soviet Russia) before either of the Bushes joined the firm. Prescott Bush did not oversee these investments; the reality is that he was involved almost exclusively in managing the firm's domestic portfolio. It was Harriman who largely managed the foreign investments and, accordingly, it was he who met German and Soviet leaders.
Phillips also makes much of the fact that Prescott Bush was involved with the Union Banking Corporation, which was seized by federal authorities in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, a story frequently cited on left-wing websites. But what Phillips fails to mention is that Bush had only a token role in the bank: Of the more than four thousand shares, Prescott Bush owned only one -- urged on him by Harriman. Moreover, despite the conspiratorial argument that members of the WASP elite always work together hand in glove, Bush and Harriman were never as close as Phillips leads one to believe: Harriman actually campaigned aggressively against Bush in his 1952 senate race.
Who has done everything he could to give Iran "reasons" to get nukes, while supplying them with Iran/Contra military parts and recently handing them Iraq.
You above most people here should recognize that it isn't all about us, or the US. Iran has its own reasons for doing things, including the Iranian Shia revolution, and their desire to spread it though the entire region. As to Iraq,... its fate is being hammered out and has yet to be settled. It doesn't seem likely to fall back into the hands of the Baathist socialist party though, and Iran is likely to be frustrated too.
Oh, and the Arab states *certainly* don't consider Iranians their "brethren." Arabs and Persians hate each other!
That may be, but the vast majority of both are Muslim, and sizable percentages of both (Arab & Iranian, Sunni & Shia) hate the Jews enough to want to kill all of them, AKA genocide.
I wouldn't overstate that division between them either. There seems to be good size chunk of Iraq's Shia Muslim Arabs don't seem to mind Iran too much. Parts of Arab Syria and Lebanon are quite cozy with Iran as well. (If you've been listening to the news lately, you should know from whom Hezbollah has been getting its arms and training.)
You grossly oversimplify; actually, the situation was a lot more complex than that. Saddam was selling oil way too cheap, in euros, to the French. So we didn't like him.
Right.... and the reason that Enron's executives are liable for repaying $183 million, and probably jail time, is that their stock "under-performed" the market.
Saddam used the wholly corrupt "Oil for Food" program to bribe all manner of foreign officials, buy influence in the Security Council, undermine UN sanctions, buy weapons, and fund terrorists, all the while skimming billions of dollars off the top. Even UN Secretary General Koffi Annan's son took bribes, and the Deputy Secretary General was eye deep as well. So, it was that, his refusal to fully and voluntarily comply with the weapons inspections, his record of genocide, aggression against pretty much every country around him, the abysmal human rights record, his military regularly fired on US aircraft (act of war), his support for international terrorists, well.... you get the picture,.... that is why we "didn't like him".
Furthermore, the only way the government knows that these people might be linked with Al Quaeda is through the program. They didn't start wiretapping because they knew of the links, they know of the links because they started wiretapping.
So, I guess you are agnostic on the existence of captured address books, phone records, stored telephone numbers, interrogation reports or records of suspicious donations to "Islamic charities"? No chance that in the big world we live in that a some other friendly country could exist that would have an intelligence agency that might tip us off? No possibility of identifying another link in the chain by surveillance? No way of proving that any of this exists, you've never seen them, and won't believe in them until you do? Right.......
They have reduced education and social spending (mostly through crippling unfunded mandates). They have left the science budget the same but selectively trimmed spending on some subjects e.g. Global Warming.
You are either clueless, or making this up.
Education spending has shot up under the Bush administration.... as has social welfare spending.
But when it comes to spying on Americans and invading others no amount is too high and no law apparently can stand.
So, to summarize, you disagree with the policy, and don't understand the law.
This isn't flamebait, I'm being serious,
No you aren't being serious. You are getting things wrong that are trivial to get right.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin
I'm wonder what Slashdot readers think about the good Mr. Franklin reading the private communications of persons living in the American colonies, but hostile to them, as noted below?
The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence thereby given, be kept secret until further orders."
Republicans in Nixon's time would be considered liberal or "democratic" in today's society.
On the face of it, your statement is wrong, almost ridiculously so in fact. Republicans in Nixon's time weren't much different than they are today. However, in a subtle, and no doubt unintended way, you approach a greater truth on the matter.
Historically, both the Republican and Democratic parties have had liberal and conservative wings. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the party practically split over the Viet Nam war and it began marginalizing its conservative wing. Over time, more and more conservative Democrats began to leave the Democratic Party as the party apparatus and platform began to run more and more liberal, and then further left yet. Today, there is what is practically a purge going on in the Democratic Party as leftist activists try to drive out all but the most liberal or left leaning members. Joe Lieberman is a prime example. The net effect is that the Democratic Party is now becoming the "Liberal Party", and not the Democratic Party with both conservative and liberal wings.
So, where do those former Democrats go? Even if they remain formal members of the Democratic Party, many of them end up voting Republican. Maybe you've heard of "9/11 Democrats"? They are Democrats that understand that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were the opening volleys of a new threat against the United States, and that the Democratic Party, as currently composed, is not serious about national security despite the occasional noise they make. The current direction of the Democratic Party is only likely to make things worse for the Democrats. Twenty years ago, Reagan Democrats stood behind President Reagan in the Cold War. Nixon came into office carried by the great "Silent Majority".
It is sad, but many of the great figures of the Democratic Party would not find a home there today, they would be forced out. Consider the case of President John F. Kennedy. He favored tax reform, supported the Bay of Pigs operation, committed US troops to Viet Nam, authorized the US Army Special Forces their distinctive Green Berets, faced down the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, watched the Berlin Wall go up, and set the goal of sending a man to the moon. I don't think that we will hear a Democrat speak words like these again any time soon:
We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom -- symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning -- signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge -- and more.
Any Democrat using language like that today would be labeled a religious extremist, Neocon,... or even Presid
Which is the most simple explanation? That a bunch of people who don't have passports, plane tickets or (if the Register article is to be believed) the remotest understanding of explosives presented a genuine threat? Or that someone didn't really care what kind of threat they represented wanted to present themselves as the good guys by having "saved" us from this threat?
I am often amazed that even so sharp a tool as Occam's razor is unable to cut through the nonesense that gets posted on Slashdot.
Lets try this: It was a genuine plot, under invenstigation for a long period of time, (one of many) that was stopped when they decided to try a dry run. Cash, guns, and a bomb making kit have apparently been found. No word yet on if they are related to the suspected terrorist training going on in various places in the UK. This was as much about "saving Joe Lieberman" as the terrorist activity against Australia... which is to say, not related at all. (Maybe you've heard of the Bali bombing? It is just one of many attacks against Australians and the West in general.) There are many more like it in: Phillipines, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, none of which are designed to prop up a US president who can't be reelected any way..
When I first saw your post, it was being moderated "insightful", not "funny". There clearly were people who weren't getting the joke, including moderators. History has repeatedly shown that on Slashdot there is a significant percentage of people who will believe just about any foolish idea about the United States or the current administration if it portrays them in a bad light, even when it is plainly contrary to evidence, common sense, and other people taking responsibility for it. You only have to look that the appalling nonsense over the 9/11 conspiracy, blaming it on the US government, to get a taste of it. Clinton Derangement Syndrome was bad enough, Bush Derangement Syndrome is ever worse.
As to my point, it was that the "science hostile" Bush administration (that has a plan for space flight to Mars) is in fact monitoring and testing for the dangerous strains of bird flu, and that they aren't being so stupid as to deny mutation/evolution of it.
A fine anti-Bush troll/joke, but a few facts are in order....
WASHINGTON - All year, the government has promised stepped-up testing to see if bird flu wings its way to the United States. On Monday, the Bush administration announced those tests got a hit -- but the suspect isn't the much-feared Asian strain of the virus.
In almost the same breath, Agriculture Department officials announced that routine testing had turned up the possibility of the H5N1 virus in the two swans on the shore of Michigan's Lake Erie -- but that genetic testing has ruled out the so-called highly pathogenic version that has ravaged poultry and killed at least 138 people elsewhere in the world.
"We do not believe this virus represents a risk to human health," declared Ron DeHaven, administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "This is not the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that has spread through much of other parts of the world."
Yes, it's amazing how effective American media spin is, isn't it? Um, no, the situation isn't that simple.
Hmmmm....., I wonder what happens when you drill down into one of your bland assertions?
June 23rd: Tensions on the northern border escalate when violence expands in Gaza when the Israeli army invades and siezes two sons of Palestinian activist Ali Muamar to put pressure on him.
This is what the associated press reported: "On Saturday, Israeli commandos seized two Palestinians suspected of being Hamas militants in the army's first arrest raid in the Gaza Strip since Israel's withdrawal nearly a year ago. An Israeli army spokesman said the two men, arrested at a house near Rafah in southern Gaza, were in the 'final states of planning a large-scale terror attack' in coming days. The army did not provide details on the nature of the alleged plot. Hamas denied that the men, who were identified by neighbors as brothers, are members." Quite a different account than the one provided by Chomsky et al. (Lie number two). Chomsky has said in interviews that "we don't even know their names," referring to the arrested militants. But a quick check of newspapers reveals that their names are Osama and Mostafa Muamar, whose father is Ali Muamar, a notorious Hamas leader. According to press reports "local Hamas activists said the pair was... known to be members of Hamas." (Lie Number three).
Nor was the arrest of these Hamas terrorists the origin of the crisis, as Chomsky asserts. Even Kofi Annan acknowledged that "Hezbollah's provocative attack on July 12 was the trigger of this particular crisis"; that Hezbollah is "deliberate[ly] targeting...Israeli population centers with hundreds of indiscriminate weapons"; and that Israel has the "right to defend itself under Article 51 of the U.N. chater."
I wonder if there is more?
June 24th: In retaliation, Hamas sneaks into Israel via a tunnel, kills two Israeli soldiers, and captures a corporal. They seek a prisoner exchange (Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many women and children)
Women and children? Hmmmm... Here is sonething about that....
The people in Israeli jails are there because they were involved in terrorist activities and many committed heinous crimes. In an effort to win greater sympathy for their gambit, Hamas has asked for the release of women and children, giving the impression that housewives and toddlers are being unfairly imprisoned. Out of the 109 women and 313 juveniles currently in prison, 64 women and 91 juveniles "have blood on their hands." Palestinian prisoners under the age of 18 threw Molotov cocktails, transported weapons and associated with terrorist organizations. The women planned suicide attacks, prepared bombs and assisted suicide bombers; they also attacked Israeli soldiers and joined terrorist organizations. Ahlan Tanimi, for example, brought the bomb that murdered 16 in the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem. Kahira Sa'adi drove a terrorist to King George Avenue, where he blew up three people. Hanady Jaradats killed 21 in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa (Jerusalem Post, July 6, 2006).
Thousands of people did die today... Due to car accidents, cancer, and poverty. If we're just trying to stop deaths, we should focus on making safer cars, researching cancer, and helping those less fortunate than ourselves.
I suspect, however, that all of this terrorism hype isn't about stopping deaths.
You've got it spot on, it isn't about stopping "deaths", randomly distributed accidents, excess deaths due to poor life style choices like eating too much cheese on your onion rings every day, or disease. It is about stopping deliberate, calculated mass murder. Terrorist incidents are infrequent due to active preventative measures, not because it has a low naturally occurring frequency.
We don't even know for sure that there was going to be a terrorist attack.
By repeated observation, the British like most people in Western society have learned that when young Muslim men between the ages of 18-40 accumulate explosives, hold secretive meetings, receive large sums of wired money, and follow up by studying airline schedules, and plots to blow up aircraft in midflight, it is unlikely to lead to a spontaneous soccer match,.... at least not one you would care to attend. A terrorist attack, on the other hand, seems to be a distinct possibility. Some well informed people might even spot something resembling a pattern or two. Of course, who knows? Maybe they just wanted to go "dancing". But hey, believe what you want.
The US and UK governments are far from being trustworthy.
You left out Australia, Spain, Russia, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Philippines, Afghanistan, and quite a few more countries that are having problem with Islamist terrorist organizations.
The US government has contemplated "simulated" terrorist attacks to change public opinion.
Well, here is a shocker: the US government tries to change or influence public opinion or behavior pretty much every day on all kinds of matters: diet, exercise, tax code compliance, joining the military, better methods to raise corn, reducing pollution, reducing drunk driving, avoiding travel to various foreign countries, and so on. The fact almost 45 years ago a handful of anti-Communist zealots managed to get a draft paper for a dubious plan like Northwoods to the President where it was immediately shot down (with no doubt that one or more of the words: crazy, stupid, insane, criminal, were in the air) is a wonderful example of US democracy and civilian control of the military in action. The system worked. Or is that bad? Unless you are proposing total thought control, which has plenty of problems of its own, there will always be ideas that need to be shot down in government.
You know, it strikes me as odd that you would seemingly trust the government to deliver all manner of social welfare services, health care, and medicines, when you believe that same government is untrustworthy and is trying to fool you or maybe even kill you.
Boardman countered that presidents since James Monroe have issued statements of interpretation to accompany laws, and that every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has issued statements reserving the right not to execute sections of laws that may contradict the Constitution. By her accounting, Bush has issued such statements on 110 laws, compared with 80 from Bill Clinton, as many as 105 from Ronald Reagan and 147 from George H.W. Bush in a single term. But President Bush issued multiple statements on many of those laws for a total of 750, and it is unclear how many statements the other presidents issued.
But the session also concerns countering any influence Bush's signing statements may have on court decisions regarding the new laws. Courts can be expected to look to the legislature for intent, not the executive, said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas., a former state judge.
"There's less here than meets the eye," Cornyn said. "The president is entitled to express his opinion. It's the courts that determine what the law is."
But Specter and his allies maintain that Bush is doing an end-run around the veto process. In his presidency's sixth year, Bush has yet to issue a single veto that could be overridden with a two-thirds majority in each house.
"The president is not required to (veto)," Boardman said.
"Of course he's not if he signs the bill," Specter snapped back.
Well, that is slightly out of date now that Bush has vetoed a bill.
Right.... Their arrests were completely unrelated to crossing a police line after losing their court case.
This past presidential election there were actually _4_ presidential candidates.
No, there were at least 74 candidates, of which 6 could have theoretically (due to being on enough state's ballots) won the election. (Oddly, you omitted Ralph Nader - Independent/Reform (spite?) and Peroutka - Constitution).
Michael Badnarik the candidate for the Libertarian party, and David Cobb the candidate for the Green party were both arrested when they showed up for the debate. Some democracy, eh?
They weren't invited to the debate. They lost their court case. They crossed a police line. They were arrested. American democracy is fine, the Libertarian & Green parties, on the other hand....
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin, 1759
My recollection is the Franklin spoke those words regarding the stationing of troops in people's homes.
Also, I'm forced to wonder what the people who filed this suit, or many on Slashdot for that matter, would think about the actions of the good Mr. Franklin regarding the private communications of persons hostile to the United States living within it, as noted below?
The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence thereby given, be kept secret until further orders."
You also have to wonder.... are there any groups we have to watch out for in addition to Al Qaeda, such as Hamas and Hezbollah? If so, what might they be up to? Do we need to worry about sleeper cells? Anyone who might be taking up arms against the US? Do we need to worry about our peaceful neighbors to the north? Hmmmm....
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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In that appeal, as I shamelessly copied and pasted earlier, Fox argued that broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports.
If you "shamelessly copied and pasted," could you provide a link? Somehow I doubt that it was couched in those terms if it came from either court documents or a mainstream news outlet.
By the way, here is additional detail, including some that is quite interesting.
Wilson and Akre's beef with WTVT grew out of their attempts to report on bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance given to cattle. They claimed WTVT refused to allow them to report accurately and attempted to twist the story to favor BGH's manufacturer. Their lawsuit became something of a cause célebrè among foes of genetically altered food. Many liberals were sympathetic to them as well, owing to Murdoch's arch conservatism. The journalists piqued the interest of other journalists, and their conflict with WTVT and Fox was featured in articles and broadcast reports. The fired couple created a Web site and, before long, set up a legal fund -- Citizens Fund for the Right to Know -- and began seeking contributions.
Wilson, who acted as his own attorney, lost his claim against his former employer. But the jury found for Akre and awarded her $425,000. An appellate court then overturned that verdict, which Akre is challenging.
I became aware of Wilson's story when John Sugg, senior editor of the Creative Loafing newsweekly in Atlanta (who had once worked in Tampa) wrote a piece disclosing that Wilson and Akre had purchased a $1.4 million residence on the beach near Jacksonville, Fla., and did so with a down payment in excess of $1 million.
Journalism trade Web sites and message boards picked up the story, and -- after learning that Wilson had worked for WXYZ in Southfield for two years -- so did I.
I went to Channel 7's studio to give Wilson a chance to respond to questions that were being raised about the dispensation of money donated to the legal fund. He and Akre are still soliciting funds on their Web site (www.foxbghsuit.com), saying they had "put our pride aside" to seek assistance and are "hoping to get back on our feet."
Wilson's first comment to me was comforting. "As a guy who makes a living holding people accountable, I'm extremely aware of the need for accountability," he told me. "I think the press is far too frequently not accountable."
He said he and Akre had not used money from the legal fund to purchase the home. He found it odd that I believed the real estate acquisition was newsworthy.
I did what any competent reporter would do and asked him to provide me with an account history on the legal fund. He stonewalled. I told him that if he had done nothing wrong, as he insisted, then a complete accounting of the legal fund would provide some measure of vindication and silence the speculation swirling through the journalism community. I'd report my findings in my column.
Wilson hemmed and hawed, then suggested that he might turn over an account history -- provided I would agree not to write this column if the documents seemed to be in order. I refused. I know of no sane journalist who would make such a pledge. I doubt Wilson would.
Wilson not only refused to provide the account history. He refused to say how much had been donated to the legal fund. He refused to identify anyone who had donated. He even refused to provide a copy of his résumé.
Under Florida law, people and groups asking the public for donations are required to register with the state and provide accounting. Though he has been seeking funds for years, he has not registered. Wilson told me on Nov. 13 that he intended to register "in the next few days." As of 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 24, he had not done so. Officials of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said anyone who solicits contributions -- religious, g
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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Part of it's in the way that Fox News reports things - wordings, the details they pay most attention to, spin, etc.
So they make choices and judgements just like the judgements and choices that any other news outlet makes, eh? Is that sinister? Or could it be that you just happen to disagree with the choices they make compared to those made by other media outlets?
Part of it's that Fox News doesn't even claim to be a legitimate news organization.
Fox News is a legitimate news organization. That is why so many politicans, Representatives, Senators, party leaders, and other prominent people show up for interviews. That includes Democrats.
Please, please, please let us not forget that Fox News is the organization that won the court decision in Florida saying they are under no obligation to not outright lie about the news.
That court case in Florida? Read this, it is almost too rich for words. Here is an excerpt:
Wilson and Akre's beef with WTVT grew out of their attempts to report on bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance given to cattle. They claimed WTVT refused to allow them to report accurately and attempted to twist the story to favor BGH's manufacturer. Their lawsuit became something of a cause celebre among foes of genetically altered food. Many liberals were sympathetic to them as well, owing to Murdoch's arch conservatism. The journalists piqued the interest of other journalists, and their conflict with WTVT and Fox was featured in articles and broadcast reports. The fired couple created a Web site and, before long, set up a legal fund -- Citizens Fund for the Right to Know -- and began seeking contributions.
Wilson, who acted as his own attorney, lost his claim against his former employer. But the jury found for Akre and awarded her $425,000. An appellate court then overturned that verdict, which Akre is challenging.
I became aware of Wilson's story when John Sugg, senior editor of the Creative Loafing newsweekly in Atlanta (who had once worked in Tampa) wrote a piece disclosing that Wilson and Akre had purchased a $1.4 million residence on the beach near Jacksonville, Fla., and did so with a down payment in excess of $1 million.....
I went to Channel 7's studio to give Wilson a chance to respond to questions that were being raised about the dispensation of money donated to the legal fund. He and Akre are still soliciting funds on their Web site (www.foxbghsuit.com), saying they had "put our pride aside" to seek assistance and are "hoping to get back on our feet."
Wilson's first comment to me was comforting. "As a guy who makes a living holding people accountable, I?m extremely aware of the need for accountability," he told me. "I think the press is far too frequently not accountable."
He said he and Akre had not used money from the legal fund to purchase the home. He found it odd that I believed the real estate acquisition was newsworthy.
I did what any competent reporter would do and asked him to provide me with an account history on the legal fund. He stonewalled. I told him that if he had done nothing wrong, as he insisted, then a complete accounting of the legal fund would provide some measure of vindication and silence the speculation swirling through the journalism community. I'd report my findings in my column.
Wilson hemmed and hawed, then suggested that he might turn over an account history -- provided I would agree not to write this column if the documents seemed to be in order. I refused. I know of no sane journalist who would make such a pledge. I doubt Wilson would.
Wilson not only refused to provide the account history. He refused to say how much had been donated to the legal fund. He refused to identify anyone who had donated. He even refused to provide a copy of his resume.
I encourage reading the rest of it.
There is also useful information
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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FOX did not dispute that it tried to force Akre to broadcast a false story, but argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports.
Not quite.
Try this and this for a somewhat better description of what happened.
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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Hannity is in the commentary side of the business. Rather was allegedly in the hard news side of the business.
Dan rather is nowhere near as biased as anybody on fox news.
No doubt it was his dispassionate search for the truth that blinded him to the pathetic forgeries in the Memogate/Rathergate scandal. A pity they didn't have a little more ideological and intellectual diversity there to speak truth to power and hopefully avoid that train wreck. They weren't so much unbiased as unhinged.
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
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· Score: 3, Informative
Fox News (pronounced "Faux News" if you want to use call by value) actively goes out of its way to suppress any news that it thinks could harm the current Administration, or the Republicans in general.
I suppose we should take it for granted that it isn't just liberals, but that every fair-minded observer will label Fox News as "Faux News"?
For a very eye-opening documentary, see Fox News Techniques.
I watched it. I'm underwhelmed. It "surprisingly" reveals that prominent liberal organizations and critics pan Fox News. I found it interesting that they focused so heavily on opinion / commentary segments for their claims of bias instead of actual hard news reporting. Stop the presses! People engaged in commentary have opinions!
I have been a newsjunkie for nearly 20 years. I consider myself middle-of-the-road, and take every news report with a grain of salt. Heck, I've voted for Republicans and Democrats about evenly. But I was shocked to see the blatant pandering and partisanship displayed by Fox News. It's like the Republican Party's permanent informercial.
Your stated view of yourself as "middle-of-the-road" strikes me as being similar to that demonstrated these days by many in the media:
THE ARGUMENT over whether the national press is dominated by liberals is over. Since 1962, there have been 11 surveys of the media that sought the political views of hundreds of journalists. In 1971, they were 53 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In a 1976 survey of the Washington press corps, it was 59 percent liberal, 18 percent conservative. A 1985 poll of 3,200 reporters found them to be self-identified as 55 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In 1996, another survey of Washington journalists pegged the breakdown as 61 percent liberal, 9 percent conservative. Now, the new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found the national media to be 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative.
Over 40-plus years, the only thing that's changed in the media's politics is that many national journalists have now cleverly decided to call themselves moderates. But their actual views haven't changed, the Pew survey showed. Their political beliefs are close to those of self-identified liberals and nowhere near those of conservatives. And the proportion of liberals to conservatives in the press, either 3-to-1 or 4-to-1, has stayed the same. That liberals are dominant is now beyond dispute.
When the next terrorist attack comes you can almost predict the public's reaction.
1. Blame the press.
It won't be "the press" that gets blamed, just the NY & LA Times.
That assumes they keep up their idiocy of periodically publishing the inside details of key intelligence programs so Al Qaeda and friends know what they are and can figure out ways to avoid them in route to bomb, shoot, or poison Americans.
As to the rest, we've got a long ways to go before reasonable protective measures are going to start posing the risk of dictatorship. Europe, on the other hand, is in far worse shape.
You were wrong. It actually did take the Patriot Act, according to this testimony by John Ashcroft, the Attorney General at the time.
In the late 1970s, reforms were made reflecting a cultural myth that we could draw an artificial line at the border to differentiate between the threats we faced. In accordance with this myth, officials charged with detecting and deterring those seeking to harm Americans were divided into separate and isolated camps. Barriers between agencies broke down cooperation. Compartmentalization hampered coordination. Surveillance technology was allowed to atrophy, eroding our ability to adapt to new threats. Information, once the best friend of law enforcement, became the enemy.
Intelligence gathering was artificially segregated from law enforcement, effectively barring intelligence and law enforcement communities from integrating their resources. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, a criminal investigator examining a terrorist attack could not coordinate with an intelligence officer investigating the same suspected terrorists. As compartmentalization grew, coordination suffered.
Reforms erected impenetrable walls between different government agencies, prohibiting them from cooperating in the nations defense. The FBI and the CIA were restricted from sharing valuable information. And as limitations on information sharing tightened, cooperation decayed.
FBI agents were forced to blind themselves to information readily available to the general public, including those who seek to harm us. Agents were barred from researching public information or visiting public places unless they were investigating a specific crime. And as access to information was denied, accountability deteriorated.
As information restrictions increased, intelligence capabilities atrophied. Intelligence-gathering techniques created in an era of rotary phones failed to keep pace with terrorists utilizing multiple cell phones and the internet. As technology outpaced law enforcement, adaptability was lost.
The culture of rigid information compartmentalization that took root in the 1970s continued, irrespective of changes in Administrations, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As late as 1995, we found that the guidelines governing FISA procedures were tightened to a degree that effectively prohibited coordination between intelligence officers and prosecutors within the Department of Justice.
Based on this review, we concluded that our law enforcement and justice institutions and the culture that supports them must improve if we are to protect innocent Americans and prevail in the war against terrorism. In the wake of September 11, Americas defense requires a new culture focused on the prevention of terrorist attacks. We must create a new system, capable of adaptation, secured by accountability, nurtured by cooperation, built on coordination, and rooted in our Constitutional liberties.
Congress has already taken the first, crucial steps to adapt to our changing security requirements.
The passage of the USA-PATRIOT Act made significant strides toward fostering information sharing and updating our badly outmoded information-gathering tools. The Patriot Act gave law enforcement agencies greater freedom to share information and to coordinate our campaign against terrorism. Prosecutors can now share with intelligence agents information about terrorists gathered through grand jury proceedings and criminal wiretaps. The intelligence community now has greater flexibility to coordinate their anti-terrorism efforts with our law enforcement agencies.
Slashdot Mirror
Will we be able to recover from Bush's restrictions of our basic Constitutional rights, or from his dramatically increasing the power of the Executive?
I'm curious, exactly what "restrictions" are you talking about? Apparently you can still criticize the government, so there must be something else. Can you still vote? Can you still run for office? Can you still publish or read what you want? Are there any restrictions on employment? Are you limited in the gods you can worship, or not worship? Can you still pick your friends? Is your choice of mates any different than under the laws of Jimmy Carter's time? Is there a government policy that has changed to prevent you from studying what you want in school? Can you still travel to the same places you used to? Do you still have a choice as to what political party to join or not join? What about food, is there a new banned food?
As to the power of the Executive, under the great Democratic President FDR, the same one who initiated the Social Security program and a host of other beneficial social welfare programs, the government: engaged in massive amounts of domestic surveillance, often without a court order; intercepted, opened, read, and censored mail; tried American citizens by Military Commission and executed them; engaged in wire tapping without court order; rounded up enemy aliens and American citizens and interned them in camps; seized or impounded a variety of properties; instituted the use of loyalty oaths; increased the US armed forces to approximately 12 million people (vs ~ 1.5M today and a country 2x); sent some conscientious objectors to jail and required others to serve in the armed forces; attacked a number of sovereign nations, including nations that never attacked us; prepared large stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction for use; after FDR's death, his former VP, now President Truman, dropped the Atomic bomb... twice; ended the conflict with next to no negotiation as the demand was for unconditional surrender.
You'll have to pardon me if I'm a little puzzled about exactly what civil rights restrictions you think you are under, and as to how President Bush is "dramatically increasing" the powers of the Executive. I'm sure you, and many on Slashdot, feel that way.
Oh wait I think you meant we have a greater relationship with Israel because we view the Israelis as "white people". You might be right about that.
The US is friends with Israel because the Israelis are viewed as "white people", eh? All of them? (Is that just Israelis, or all Jews?) I guess that puts them in the same company as some of the other "white folk" that the US has supported, or fought and died for, like Koreans and South Viet Namese. (~50,000 dead American soldiers in each country) And then there are those other famous "white folk" that we support, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, and the Kuwaitis. And don't forget Iraq, where American soldiers are currently fighting and dying to aid a newly elected democratic government, apparently of "white folk", in stabilizing the country.
On a tangent, I hear that Leftist anti-Semitism is becoming a problem.
Pakistan is full of religous fanatics, but it isn't ruled by them at the moment, and they are cooperating in fair measure in the fight against Al Qaeda.
If the Pakistani government were to fall into the hands of fanatics, and it stopped cooperating, it might be time for a policy review.
I'm sure that they have noticed that the US is friends with their archrival India as well, and that plenty of funds could head India's way if warranted by other events.
Comrade Doctor, you should make your agitprop more believable. This one is trivially shown false:
And more...
Who has done everything he could to give Iran "reasons" to get nukes, while supplying them with Iran/Contra military parts and recently handing them Iraq.
You above most people here should recognize that it isn't all about us, or the US. Iran has its own reasons for doing things, including the Iranian Shia revolution, and their desire to spread it though the entire region. As to Iraq,
I've got the whole barrel of monkeys
Now you're just bragging.
Oh, and the Arab states *certainly* don't consider Iranians their "brethren." Arabs and Persians hate each other!
That may be, but the vast majority of both are Muslim, and sizable percentages of both (Arab & Iranian, Sunni & Shia) hate the Jews enough to want to kill all of them, AKA genocide.
I wouldn't overstate that division between them either. There seems to be good size chunk of Iraq's Shia Muslim Arabs don't seem to mind Iran too much. Parts of Arab Syria and Lebanon are quite cozy with Iran as well. (If you've been listening to the news lately, you should know from whom Hezbollah has been getting its arms and training.)
You grossly oversimplify; actually, the situation was a lot more complex than that. Saddam was selling oil way too cheap, in euros, to the French. So we didn't like him.
.... that is why we "didn't like him".
Right.... and the reason that Enron's executives are liable for repaying $183 million, and probably jail time, is that their stock "under-performed" the market.
Saddam used the wholly corrupt "Oil for Food" program to bribe all manner of foreign officials, buy influence in the Security Council, undermine UN sanctions, buy weapons, and fund terrorists, all the while skimming billions of dollars off the top. Even UN Secretary General Koffi Annan's son took bribes, and the Deputy Secretary General was eye deep as well. So, it was that, his refusal to fully and voluntarily comply with the weapons inspections, his record of genocide, aggression against pretty much every country around him, the abysmal human rights record, his military regularly fired on US aircraft (act of war), his support for international terrorists, well.... you get the picture,
Personally, I think you want to let President Saddam "I grind my opponents alive, and my sons are worse" Hussein off the hook a little too easily.
Furthermore, the only way the government knows that these people might be linked with Al Quaeda is through the program. They didn't start wiretapping because they knew of the links, they know of the links because they started wiretapping.
So, I guess you are agnostic on the existence of captured address books, phone records, stored telephone numbers, interrogation reports or records of suspicious donations to "Islamic charities"? No chance that in the big world we live in that a some other friendly country could exist that would have an intelligence agency that might tip us off? No possibility of identifying another link in the chain by surveillance? No way of proving that any of this exists, you've never seen them, and won't believe in them until you do? Right.......
They have reduced education and social spending (mostly through crippling unfunded mandates). They have left the science budget the same but selectively trimmed spending on some subjects e.g. Global Warming.
You are either clueless, or making this up.
Education spending has shot up under the Bush administration.... as has social welfare spending.
But when it comes to spying on Americans and invading others no amount is too high and no law apparently can stand.
So, to summarize, you disagree with the policy, and don't understand the law.
This isn't flamebait, I'm being serious,
No you aren't being serious. You are getting things wrong that are trivial to get right.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin
I'm wonder what Slashdot readers think about the good Mr. Franklin reading the private communications of persons living in the American colonies, but hostile to them, as noted below?
Maybe there was a war on... or something.
On the face of it, your statement is wrong, almost ridiculously so in fact. Republicans in Nixon's time weren't much different than they are today. However, in a subtle, and no doubt unintended way, you approach a greater truth on the matter.
Historically, both the Republican and Democratic parties have had liberal and conservative wings. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the party practically split over the Viet Nam war and it began marginalizing its conservative wing. Over time, more and more conservative Democrats began to leave the Democratic Party as the party apparatus and platform began to run more and more liberal, and then further left yet. Today, there is what is practically a purge going on in the Democratic Party as leftist activists try to drive out all but the most liberal or left leaning members. Joe Lieberman is a prime example. The net effect is that the Democratic Party is now becoming the "Liberal Party", and not the Democratic Party with both conservative and liberal wings.
So, where do those former Democrats go? Even if they remain formal members of the Democratic Party, many of them end up voting Republican. Maybe you've heard of "9/11 Democrats"? They are Democrats that understand that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were the opening volleys of a new threat against the United States, and that the Democratic Party, as currently composed, is not serious about national security despite the occasional noise they make. The current direction of the Democratic Party is only likely to make things worse for the Democrats. Twenty years ago, Reagan Democrats stood behind President Reagan in the Cold War. Nixon came into office carried by the great "Silent Majority".
It is sad, but many of the great figures of the Democratic Party would not find a home there today, they would be forced out. Consider the case of President John F. Kennedy. He favored tax reform, supported the Bay of Pigs operation, committed US troops to Viet Nam, authorized the US Army Special Forces their distinctive Green Berets, faced down the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, watched the Berlin Wall go up, and set the goal of sending a man to the moon. I don't think that we will hear a Democrat speak words like these again any time soon:
Any Democrat using language like that today would be labeled a religious extremist, Neocon,... or even Presid
Which is the most simple explanation? That a bunch of people who don't have passports, plane tickets or (if the Register article is to be believed) the remotest understanding of explosives presented a genuine threat? Or that someone didn't really care what kind of threat they represented wanted to present themselves as the good guys by having "saved" us from this threat?
I am often amazed that even so sharp a tool as Occam's razor is unable to cut through the nonesense that gets posted on Slashdot.
Lets try this: It was a genuine plot, under invenstigation for a long period of time, (one of many) that was stopped when they decided to try a dry run. Cash, guns, and a bomb making kit have apparently been found. No word yet on if they are related to the suspected terrorist training going on in various places in the UK. This was as much about "saving Joe Lieberman" as the terrorist activity against Australia... which is to say, not related at all. (Maybe you've heard of the Bali bombing? It is just one of many attacks against Australians and the West in general.) There are many more like it in: Phillipines, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc, none of which are designed to prop up a US president who can't be reelected any way..
When I first saw your post, it was being moderated "insightful", not "funny". There clearly were people who weren't getting the joke, including moderators. History has repeatedly shown that on Slashdot there is a significant percentage of people who will believe just about any foolish idea about the United States or the current administration if it portrays them in a bad light, even when it is plainly contrary to evidence, common sense, and other people taking responsibility for it. You only have to look that the appalling nonsense over the 9/11 conspiracy, blaming it on the US government, to get a taste of it. Clinton Derangement Syndrome was bad enough, Bush Derangement Syndrome is ever worse.
As to my point, it was that the "science hostile" Bush administration (that has a plan for space flight to Mars) is in fact monitoring and testing for the dangerous strains of bird flu, and that they aren't being so stupid as to deny mutation/evolution of it.
Kudos on a +5 funny though.
A fine anti-Bush troll/joke, but a few facts are in order....
WASHINGTON - All year, the government has promised stepped-up testing to see if bird flu wings its way to the United States. On Monday, the Bush administration announced those tests got a hit -- but the suspect isn't the much-feared Asian strain of the virus.
In almost the same breath, Agriculture Department officials announced that routine testing had turned up the possibility of the H5N1 virus in the two swans on the shore of Michigan's Lake Erie -- but that genetic testing has ruled out the so-called highly pathogenic version that has ravaged poultry and killed at least 138 people elsewhere in the world.
"We do not believe this virus represents a risk to human health," declared Ron DeHaven, administrator of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. "This is not the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that has spread through much of other parts of the world."
Hmmmm....., I wonder what happens when you drill down into one of your bland assertions?
June 23rd: Tensions on the northern border escalate when violence expands in Gaza when the Israeli army invades and siezes two sons of Palestinian activist Ali Muamar to put pressure on him.
You find something interesting about that here:
I wonder if there is more?
June 24th: In retaliation, Hamas sneaks into Israel via a tunnel, kills two Israeli soldiers, and captures a corporal. They seek a prisoner exchange (Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many women and children)
Women and children? Hmmmm... Here is sonething about that....
I guess you're right, things aren't that simple.
Thousands of people did die today... Due to car accidents, cancer, and poverty. If we're just trying to stop deaths, we should focus on making safer cars, researching cancer, and helping those less fortunate than ourselves.
.... at least not one you would care to attend. A terrorist attack, on the other hand, seems to be a distinct possibility. Some well informed people might even spot something resembling a pattern or two. Of course, who knows? Maybe they just wanted to go "dancing". But hey, believe what you want.
I suspect, however, that all of this terrorism hype isn't about stopping deaths.
You've got it spot on, it isn't about stopping "deaths", randomly distributed accidents, excess deaths due to poor life style choices like eating too much cheese on your onion rings every day, or disease. It is about stopping deliberate, calculated mass murder. Terrorist incidents are infrequent due to active preventative measures, not because it has a low naturally occurring frequency.
We don't even know for sure that there was going to be a terrorist attack.
By repeated observation, the British like most people in Western society have learned that when young Muslim men between the ages of 18-40 accumulate explosives, hold secretive meetings, receive large sums of wired money, and follow up by studying airline schedules, and plots to blow up aircraft in midflight, it is unlikely to lead to a spontaneous soccer match,
The US and UK governments are far from being trustworthy.
You left out Australia, Spain, Russia, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Philippines, Afghanistan, and quite a few more countries that are having problem with Islamist terrorist organizations.
The US government has contemplated "simulated" terrorist attacks to change public opinion.
Well, here is a shocker: the US government tries to change or influence public opinion or behavior pretty much every day on all kinds of matters: diet, exercise, tax code compliance, joining the military, better methods to raise corn, reducing pollution, reducing drunk driving, avoiding travel to various foreign countries, and so on. The fact almost 45 years ago a handful of anti-Communist zealots managed to get a draft paper for a dubious plan like Northwoods to the President where it was immediately shot down (with no doubt that one or more of the words: crazy, stupid, insane, criminal, were in the air) is a wonderful example of US democracy and civilian control of the military in action. The system worked. Or is that bad? Unless you are proposing total thought control, which has plenty of problems of its own, there will always be ideas that need to be shot down in government.
You know, it strikes me as odd that you would seemingly trust the government to deliver all manner of social welfare services, health care, and medicines, when you believe that same government is untrustworthy and is trying to fool you or maybe even kill you.
Vetos aren't required?
Well, that is slightly out of date now that Bush has vetoed a bill.
And get arrested?
Right.... Their arrests were completely unrelated to crossing a police line after losing their court case.
This past presidential election there were actually _4_ presidential candidates.
No, there were at least 74 candidates, of which 6 could have theoretically (due to being on enough state's ballots) won the election. (Oddly, you omitted Ralph Nader - Independent/Reform (spite?) and Peroutka - Constitution).
Michael Badnarik the candidate for the Libertarian party, and David Cobb the candidate for the Green party were both arrested when they showed up for the debate. Some democracy, eh?
They weren't invited to the debate. They lost their court case. They crossed a police line. They were arrested. American democracy is fine, the Libertarian & Green parties, on the other hand....
My recollection is the Franklin spoke those words regarding the stationing of troops in people's homes.
Also, I'm forced to wonder what the people who filed this suit, or many on Slashdot for that matter, would think about the actions of the good Mr. Franklin regarding the private communications of persons hostile to the United States living within it, as noted below?
You also have to wonder.... are there any groups we have to watch out for in addition to Al Qaeda, such as Hamas and Hezbollah? If so, what might they be up to? Do we need to worry about sleeper cells? Anyone who might be taking up arms against the US? Do we need to worry about our peaceful neighbors to the north? Hmmmm....
If you "shamelessly copied and pasted," could you provide a link? Somehow I doubt that it was couched in those terms if it came from either court documents or a mainstream news outlet.
By the way, here is additional detail, including some that is quite interesting.
So they make choices and judgements just like the judgements and choices that any other news outlet makes, eh? Is that sinister? Or could it be that you just happen to disagree with the choices they make compared to those made by other media outlets?
Part of it's that Fox News doesn't even claim to be a legitimate news organization.
Fox News is a legitimate news organization. That is why so many politicans, Representatives, Senators, party leaders, and other prominent people show up for interviews. That includes Democrats.
Please, please, please let us not forget that Fox News is the organization that won the court decision in Florida saying they are under no obligation to not outright lie about the news.
That court case in Florida? Read this, it is almost too rich for words. Here is an excerpt:
I encourage reading the rest of it.
There is also useful information
FOX did not dispute that it tried to force Akre to broadcast a false story, but argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports.
Not quite.
Try this and this for a somewhat better description of what happened.
Hannity is in the commentary side of the business. Rather was allegedly in the hard news side of the business.
Dan rather is nowhere near as biased as anybody on fox news.
No doubt it was his dispassionate search for the truth that blinded him to the pathetic forgeries in the Memogate/Rathergate scandal. A pity they didn't have a little more ideological and intellectual diversity there to speak truth to power and hopefully avoid that train wreck. They weren't so much unbiased as unhinged.
I suppose we should take it for granted that it isn't just liberals, but that every fair-minded observer will label Fox News as "Faux News"?
Well, if your assertion is true, there shouldn't be any stories about Abu Ghraib, the NSA surveillance program, or the CIA secret prison story, and yet there are.
For a very eye-opening documentary, see Fox News Techniques.
I watched it. I'm underwhelmed. It "surprisingly" reveals that prominent liberal organizations and critics pan Fox News. I found it interesting that they focused so heavily on opinion / commentary segments for their claims of bias instead of actual hard news reporting. Stop the presses! People engaged in commentary have opinions!
I have been a newsjunkie for nearly 20 years. I consider myself middle-of-the-road, and take every news report with a grain of salt. Heck, I've voted for Republicans and Democrats about evenly. But I was shocked to see the blatant pandering and partisanship displayed by Fox News. It's like the Republican Party's permanent informercial.
Your stated view of yourself as "middle-of-the-road" strikes me as being similar to that demonstrated these days by many in the media:
Well, I guess that Fox News will never be another New York Times with its fair mindedness and influence on policy, or CBS News with its steady hands, or even a CNN with its thoughtful leadership. I guess they will have to live with that.
When the next terrorist attack comes you can almost predict the public's reaction.
1. Blame the press.
It won't be "the press" that gets blamed, just the NY & LA Times.
That assumes they keep up their idiocy of periodically publishing the inside details of key intelligence programs so Al Qaeda and friends know what they are and can figure out ways to avoid them in route to bomb, shoot, or poison Americans.
As to the rest, we've got a long ways to go before reasonable protective measures are going to start posing the risk of dictatorship. Europe, on the other hand, is in far worse shape.