Very powerful.

[sobo]

Dangerous

[Fairweather]

When I run for office, I won't know who Tvashtarkatena is.

 

[Sam Furley]

[j_b]

The super PACs that are currently outspending the campaigns 3:1 in Iowa are all non profit corporations. Should it be OK for Soros or Murdoch to run ads as individuals while gagging less financially powerful folks who wish to pool their resources to get their message out?

 

of course not, but I am first making sure you understand that corporations aren't people because they are legal fictions created at our pleasure, right?

 

Next, we can make up rules that account for how non-profit corps acquire their financial muscle and whether spending should be capped

 

The post citizens united world is turning out to be a big yawn. More $ is being spent on media, providing jobs, but it's the same ole attack ad environment that favors no particular viewpoint. Free speech is no longer restricted by the unsupported whims of Congress.

 

sure, conservative interests outspending liberals 2:1 during 2010 resulted in a big yawn

 

Despite all the whining about CU, I've yet to meet one complainant who is sdvacating for congress to produce evidence of substantial harm for independent ads - a path left wide open by SCOTUS.

 

that's because ultra conservatives on SCOTUS will never acknowledge that equal protection demands accounting for economic muscle.

[tvashtarkatena]

Sweet little tantrum but a little shy on actual rebuttals. It's pretty clear you've never bothered to read the CU decision, nor do you know much about SCOTUS and the varied and conflicting philosophies of its justices. End of conversation.

Edited December 30, 2011 by tvashtarkatena

[kevbone]

[video:youtube]

[j_b]

Sweet little tantrum but a little shy on actual rebuttals. It's pretty clear you've never bothered to read the CU decision, nor do you know much about SCOTUS and the varied and conflicting philosophies of its justices. End of conversation.

 

You are right that I am neither buying your trying to put words in my mouth nor a fetishist framing of the issue but you are obviously deluded about the lack of specific rebuttal.

[tvashtarkatena]

If respect and support for the 1st Amendment is fetish, then I guess I'm a Super Freak.

[j_b]

I fail to see how extending 1st amendment rights to legal fictions like corporations reflects respect and support for the 1st amendment.

[billcoe]

if the law is in fact at odds w/ the constitution, won't the courts end up throwing it out?

 

No. Although you can write to your congressman or someone who cares. Well, ask Pat how long the ACLU has been trying to get into court over the federal government "monitoring" ...lets call it what it is, warrantless surveillance, the recording of all phone calls in the US. All of your phone calls are recorded and checked. All. The internet is watched with equal zeal. Warrantless surveillance via computers, looking for the boogieman and the terrorists, criminals. If we aren't one I suppose we really shouldn't care if the feds hang out in your closet or your bedroom. Record our phone calls and read our email.

 

Is that violation of privacy and generally accepted to be violating the constitution?

 

Yes, pretty much by unanimous agreement.

 

Is it still going on?

 

I think so.

 

Does the ACLU, with deep pockets and plentiful skilled lawyers have the right to take it to court to have it looked at and stopped? No. The courts say they do not have standing. You can have your politician do something about it.

 

 

Last I heard, since the article I linked the ACLU had refiled the case and it had been tossed out again.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=27371

 

"The American Civil Liberties Union's Steven Shapiro is one of the best lawyers in the United States. Still, he was flat wrong when he told the New York Times that a federal appeals court's July 6 dismissal of the ACLU's challenge to the Bush administration's now-defunct Terrorist Surveillance Program "deprives Americans of any ability to challenge the illegal surveillance of their telephone calls and emails."

 

No, no, no. The ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the plaintiffs--the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), journalist Christopher Hitchens, et al.--do not have standing to sue does not deprive Americans of the ability to challenge the warrantless surveillance of al Qaeda's wartime communications into and out of the United States. It deprives them of the ability to challenge the program in court. They can challenge it through political channels--and already have done so successfully. Bowing to criticism, the administration eliminated the program, at least in its most controversial form, early this year."

 

So the "program" was "eliminated" but the NSA still records every call. So it goes.

 

As long as we are on the subject, the Telecoms get immunity for facilitating and helping the government recording all of your email and phone calls. (todays news).

 

"Court OKs immunity for telecoms in wiretap case

 

By JASON DEAREN

 

 

A federal appeals court on Thursday said a 2008 law granting telecommunications companies legal immunity for helping the National Security Agency with an email and telephone eavesdropping program is constitutional.

 

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court ruling that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, passes constitutional muster.

 

The appeal concerned a case that consolidated 33 different lawsuits filed against various telecom companies, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. on behalf of these companies' customers.

 

The plaintiffs, represented by lawyers including the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, accuse the companies of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with NSA on intelligence gathering.

 

The case stems from new surveillance rules passed by Congress in 2009 that included protection from legal liability for telecommunications companies that allegedly helped the U.S. spy on Americans without warrants.

 

"I'm very disappointed. I think the court reaches to try to put lipstick on a pig here," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who argued the case before the panel. "I think what Congress did was an abdication of its duty to protect people from illegal surveillance."

 

In its ruling, the court noted comments made by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the legal immunity's role in helping the government gather intelligence.

 

"It emphasized that electronic intelligence gathering depends in great part on cooperation from private companies ... and that if litigation were allowed to proceed against persons allegedly assisting in such activities, `the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future,'" Judge M. Margaret McKeown.

 

Thursday did not bring all bad news for plaintiffs challenging the government's surveillance efforts.

 

In a separate opinion on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the court revived two other lawsuits that challenged the warrantless surveillance program.

 

Two groups of telecom customers sued the NSA for violating their privacy by collecting Internet data from AT&T from telecom companies in the surveillance program authorized by President George W. Bush.

 

Government lawyers have moved to stop such cases, arguing that defending the program in court would jeopardize national security.

 

The suits will be sent back to U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

 

Emails seeking comment from AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice weren't immediately returned."

 

Have a nice day.

[tvashtarkatena]

You'll probably continue in that failure, j-b

 

Yup, Bill, the ole "National Security - nothing to see here' defense.

 

National Security and the Rule of Law need not be at odds, but they certainly are in the good old USA. It's become a handy excuse for 'I'll do whatever I want'.

 

 

[tvashtarkatena]

The ACLU sued the NSA over its wireless watertapping a while ago - it was thrown out due to lack of 'standing' (the defendents couldn't prove they'd been wiretapped because the program's is secret). Now we're back in business.

 

We'll see. Going up against 'national security' is often a tough fight.

[j_b]

You'll probably continue in that failure, j-b

 

Indeed, progressive supreme court justices and I (along with many others) will probably continue to fail seeing how legal business fictions are entitled to equal right protection intended for "we, the people".

Edited December 30, 2011 by j_b

[billcoe]

The ACLU sued the NSA over its wireless watertapping a while ago - it was thrown out due to lack of 'standing' (the defendents couldn't prove they'd been wiretapped because the program's is secret). Now we're back in business. We'll see. Going up against 'national security' is often a tough fight.

 

Indeed. Wish you all well on that fight. I was hoping for an update on that long ACLU fight to give Ivan a heads up on his earlier question regarding use of judicial overview to protect citizens from crazy unconstitutional moves by the President and unconstitutional laws from congress. Meantime, this might be the further answer in this story I've copied below. I'm referencing the state sanctioned murder of Al-Awaki, a US citizen in Yemen, wherein Obama issued a "Fatwa" on his ass, and the dads court case to keep his kid from being murdered outright without a trial was tossed as he had "no standing". While Al-Alawaki, when told in the news that the US would kill him on sight, issued a press release claimed he didn't do that stuff and wisely chose not to stick his head into the noose by trying to return to the US himself. He was killed shortly thereafter by a US drone strike. Along with another US citizen, his 16 year old son, who was riding next to him. The idea that the President can outright murder a citizen without judicial review for things he claimed he didn't even say, is a new idea for our country. I'd like to see us turn away from that path unless the dude is an active threat. "Sticks and stones...."

 

News story should be titled "Opps".

 

"U.S. Officials Fear They were 'Played' in 2010 Yemen Strike

[An Nahar] U.S. officials suspect that Yemen fed them false intelligence for a 2010 strike against al-Qaeda suspects that killed a local leader locked in a dispute with the president's family, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Lot of that going around in this administration.

The disclosure of such an incident would complicate relations between the two allies at a time when Yemeni President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh

... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...

is seeking to visit the United States amid months of popular protests demanding his ouster.

 

The May 25, 2010 U.S. missile strike, launched on intelligence supplied by the Yemeni government, killed Jabir Shabwani, 31, deputy governor of the central Mareb province, whose long-standing relations with Saleh's family had soured.

 

"We think we got played," the Journal quoted an official as saying, adding that other officials do not believe there was a Yemeni plan to kill Shabwani.

 

Saleh has been a key ally in the covert U.S. war on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a group increasingly seen as a threat to the United States comparable to the global network's core leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistain.

 

Saleh has also faced months of massive protests demanding the end of his 33-year reign accompanied by growing unrest that further threatens stability in the impoverished and largely tribal country.

 

Earlier this month Saleh requested permission to visit the United States, setting up a dilemma for U.S. President Barack "We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us" Obama, who has relied on the Yemeni leader as an anti-Qaeda ally but has also voiced support for the pro-democracy revolts sweeping the Arab world.

 

The Journal said some U.S. officials doubt the military was intentionally misled in the 2010 strike but said it raised troubling questions about the reliance on Yemeni security forces for intelligence.

 

The Journal quoted Yemeni officials as denying that they had any knowledge that Shabwani was at the site of the air strike. "

 

Speaking for myself, I'd like to see the slide towards anarchy and battle I see coming down the pike. Totalitarian goverment and increased control and avoidance of the rule of law on the one side - and my fellow citizens (just look at some of these boards and forums) getting jaded and hateful about goverment on the other. I don't see it being a good direction for the country. We need to start balancing our budget and respecting the rule of law again.

[mattp]

Blake posted a link to a pretty good article on Ron Paul. Check it out:

 

Salon

 

The article is long winded but it points out that Paul is the only major candidate talking about our war mongering ways, the disaster of our war on drugs, domestic spying and warrantless arrests, and our blind support of Israel. He points out that Paul is bringing up issues that, in the past, Liberals have said were important issues. He writes:

 

 

What I want Paul detractors to confront is that he alone, among viable candidates, favors reforming certain atrocious policies, including policies that explicitly target ethnic and religious minorities. And that, appalling as it is, every candidate in 2012 who has polled above 10 percent is complicit in some heinous policy or action or association. Paul’s association with racist newsletters is a serious moral failing, and even so, it doesn’t save us from making a fraught moral judgment about whether or not to support his candidacy, even if we’re judging by the single metric of protecting racial or ethnic minority groups, because when it comes to America’s most racist or racially fraught policies, Paul is arguably on the right side of all of them.

 

 

His opponents are often on the wrong side, at least if you’re someone who thinks that it’s wrong to lock people up without due process or kill them in drone strikes or destabilize their countries by forcing a war on drug cartels even as American consumers ensure the strength of those cartels.

[rob]

Blake posted a link to a pretty good article on Ron Paul. Check it out:

 

Salon

 

The article is long winded but it points out that Paul is the only major candidate talking about our war mongering ways, the disaster of our war on drugs, domestic spying and warrantless arrests, and our blind support of Israel. He points out that Paul is bringing up issues that, in the past, Liberals have said were important issues. He writes:

 

 

What I want Paul detractors to confront is that he alone, among viable candidates, favors reforming certain atrocious policies, including policies that explicitly target ethnic and religious minorities. And that, appalling as it is, every candidate in 2012 who has polled above 10 percent is complicit in some heinous policy or action or association. Paul’s association with racist newsletters is a serious moral failing, and even so, it doesn’t save us from making a fraught moral judgment about whether or not to support his candidacy, even if we’re judging by the single metric of protecting racial or ethnic minority groups, because when it comes to America’s most racist or racially fraught policies, Paul is arguably on the right side of all of them.

 

 

His opponents are often on the wrong side, at least if you’re someone who thinks that it’s wrong to lock people up without due process or kill them in drone strikes or destabilize their countries by forcing a war on drug cartels even as American consumers ensure the strength of those cartels.

 

He's also the only candidate talking about abolishing the EPA and ending federal regulation of the stock market.

[mattp]

I'm not sure where you are coming from there, Rob. If they haven't come out for outright abolishment, I think many in the House and candidates Gingrich, Perry, and Bachman all said things pretty close to advocating the end of the EPA or at least leashing it to the point of non-effectiveness.

 

In any event, I kind of like Paul because he is at least mixing things up a little bit. I wouldn't vote for him but I hope he sticks around a while. I don't think he'll get much traction on the gold standard but it'd be nice to see us as a nation of voters talk about whether it is a good idea for us to continue to find reasons to start a war every year or two. It wouldn't hurt, either, for there to be a little more discussion about how Obama has continued so many Bush policies that I for one feel are abhorrent.

[j_b]

Blake posted a link to a pretty good article on Ron Paul. Check it out:

 

Salon

 

The article is long winded but it points out that Paul is the only major candidate talking about our war mongering ways, the disaster of our war on drugs, domestic spying and warrantless arrests, and our blind support of Israel. He points out that Paul is bringing up issues that, in the past, Liberals have said were important issues. He writes:

 

 

What I want Paul detractors to confront is that he alone, among viable candidates, favors reforming certain atrocious policies, including policies that explicitly target ethnic and religious minorities. And that, appalling as it is, every candidate in 2012 who has polled above 10 percent is complicit in some heinous policy or action or association. Paul’s association with racist newsletters is a serious moral failing, and even so, it doesn’t save us from making a fraught moral judgment about whether or not to support his candidacy, even if we’re judging by the single metric of protecting racial or ethnic minority groups, because when it comes to America’s most racist or racially fraught policies, Paul is arguably on the right side of all of them.

 

 

His opponents are often on the wrong side, at least if you’re someone who thinks that it’s wrong to lock people up without due process or kill them in drone strikes or destabilize their countries by forcing a war on drug cartels even as American consumers ensure the strength of those cartels.

 

Good article although it is obscenely mistaken in repeating that "Paul is on the right side of America’s most racist or racially fraught policies". Advocating that pulling oneself by ones bootstrap is the only social safety net needed for ethnicities discriminated against over the course of centuries is as racist as can be.

 

I also find it telling that no challenge to Obama from his left is considered (green party, justice party, ..).

 

 

[PrincessWookie]

Let's take a look at Ron Paul's "Actions", shall we bone? How about we just focus on the last year?

 

******

 

Oct 6, 2011: Voted to repeal EPA Emissions Regulations for Cement Manufacturers

 

July 27, 2011: Voted to Limit Funding For Endangered Species Act

 

July 13th, 2011: Voted to limit the EPA's authority to regulate clean water laws

 

July 12th, 2011: Voted to repeal Energy Efficiency Standards for Incandescent Light Bulbs

 

May 5th, 2011: Voted to lease offshore drilling rights to oil companies

 

May 3rd, 2011: Voted to repeal funding for for State Health Benefit Exchanges

 

April 13th, 2011: Voted to repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund

 

March 30th, 2011: Voted against school vouchers for Washington D.C.

 

March 29th, 2011: Voted to Terminate the Home Affordable Modification Program

 

March 17th, 2011: Voted to repeal funding of NPR

 

March 6th, 2011: Voted to terminate the Neighborhood Stabilization Program

 

March 11th, 2011: Voted to terminate the Emergency Mortgage Relief Program

 

March 10th, 2011: Voted to terminate the Federal Housing Administration Refinance Program

 

March 3rd, 2011: Voted to repeal the Form 1099 Provision in the Health Care Law

 

Feb 18th, 2011: Voted to terminate Federal Funds For Planned Parenthood

 

Jan 19th, 2011: Voted to repeal the Health Care Bill

 

December 21, 2010: Voted against FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

 

 

WOW, you sure can pick 'em!!!

Right on. FINALLY, a guy who votes the way I would!

[mattp]

It looks like he's doing pretty well today.

 

In my sampling of liberal and conservative voters over the past few days the reactions have been 100% as the author I quoted above indicated: complete disdain and maybe even attack for Ron Paul but not a single person willing to discuss the positions that I say I agree with after I note they are positions held by Paul. What's up with that?

 

I realize he is rather odious but hey: what is really to respect about the political dialog as we have focused it? Don't even the "responsible" or "respectable" politicians advocate or passively support policies most of us find reprehensible?

 

[Sam Furley]

It looks like he's doing pretty well today.

 

In my sampling of liberal and conservative voters over the past few days the reactions have been 100% as the author I quoted above indicated: complete disdain and maybe even attack for Ron Paul but not a single person willing to discuss the positions that I say I agree with after I note they are positions held by Paul. What's up with that?

 

:tup:

[j_b]

I realize he is rather odious but hey: what is really to respect about the political dialog as we have focused it? Don't even the "responsible" or "respectable" politicians advocate or passively support policies most of us find reprehensible?

 

Not very many politicians consider the 1850's as good as it gets.

[mattp]

So, and I mean this in all respect:

Does a dislike for Paul mean you and my friends both left and right should not or can not discuss the idea that we shouldn't be killing people with no trial or starting wars based on our business interests if these positions are identified with Ron Paul?

 

I've indicated above that I don't support Paul as a candidate for anything. But he is the only main player in our national debate who is talking about these things and all the rest of the stage can do is dismiss these as areas of discussion not worth talking about.

[j_b]

I agree with you and I have been denouncing Obama's imperialist policies as well as his furthering of the security state.

 

btw, Paul isn't the only player talking about these issues (rocky Anderson, green party candidate, etc) talk about the above and for the right reasons (contrarily to Paul)

[mattp]

btw, Paul isn't the only player talking about these issues (rocky Anderson, green party candidate, etc) talk about the above and for the right reasons (contrarily to Paul)

 

Yes, but I don't hear much about the green party candidates. Even if I thought I supported Mr. Anderson, he isn't much contributing to the national dialogue as my liberal and conservative friends never heard of him. I'm not saying that is a good thing; my posts above have already indicated I favor a more robust public discussion. But we have what we have. And the ideas that we should not be pursuing endless wars that we cannot win, or that killing people without any legal process is a bad idea, are not part of our national dialogue.