The babyjesuschristsuperstar on Board: filling the moral void of Clinton’s legacy

[Southern Patriot]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

• Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist
  
  
  While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
  ................ the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.
  ..................Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.
  
  Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.
  
  The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third................The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. ..............With scores in the mid-70s, CBS' "Evening News" and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.
  
  ...................."By our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet," Groseclose said. "Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post's. If anything, government‑funded outlets in our sample have a slightly lower average ADA score (61), than the private outlets in our sample (62.8)."

Hank Chinaski

201-12

Boy, I must say I admire this work. Those Yanqui Communists at the Drudge Report ought to have their phones tapped.

Good job, son. You are one smart fellow.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Their methodology makes very little sense to me, and the bit in there about Drudge being left of center -- because they basically ignored what he writes, paying more attention to other things he cites -- seems to reflect the problem.

Assuming 2 minutes for you to notice the post, and 2 minutes to draft your response, leaves 5 minutes for your in-depth consideration of this work of 3 years. Bravo. I hope your clients appreciate your ability to so quickly get to the heart of a matter.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It's not clear to me how this gets in front of a court. I think it ends up as a political question. Or does Congress stop appropriating money for the program?

Congress holds hearings and amends the statute.

What Bush has yet satisfactorily to explain is why the statute was insufficient--the application is ex parte, and they can do it retroactively. Basically what he's saying is that rather than amend the statute to make it useful in the circumstances it was better to ignore it and use his constitutional authority (which he presumes overrides the statute) to seek these taps.

And he wonders why the Patriot act wasn't reauthorized. (which, by the way, is another story--why did hte times sit on this story for a year, publishing it on teh day the patriot act was up for a vote?)

[Southern Patriot]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
(which, by the way, is another story--why did hte times sit on this story for a year, publishing it on teh day the patriot act was up for a vote?)

Boy, they had to run it, because if they didn't, that Drudge fellow was going to scoop them. And we all know Drudge would have been releasing it solely to defeat the Patriot Act and embarass the Republicans.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Congress holds hearings and amends the statute.

What Bush has yet satisfactorily to explain is why the statute was insufficient--the application is ex parte, and they can do it retroactively. Basically what he's saying is that rather than amend the statute to make it useful in the circumstances it was better to ignore it and use his constitutional authority (which he presumes overrides the statute) to seek these taps.

And he wonders why the Patriot act wasn't reauthorized. (which, by the way, is another story--why did hte times sit on this story for a year, publishing it on teh day the patriot act was up for a vote?)

The only thing I could think of is that maybe the NSA launched a sophisticated data mining surveillance system, and ALL conversations and e-mails are under some sort of low-level monitoring. The system picks out conversations with certain key words or phrases, and then someone analyzes the conversation to see if it's something the NSA may be interested in following up on. Wasn't Total Information Awareness, run by John Poindexter, a similar system?

Maybe the NSA picked up that ball when Congress decided that the Pentagon shouldn't be playing with such things without much more supervision.

But even if a system like that was in place, the 72 hour retroactive rule would still work, I think. Though maybe the NSA was concerned that judges wouldn't approve warrants on the basis of phrases alone without further probable cause.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Statutes can be repealed a whole lot easier than the Constitution can be amended. Once the statute has been reversed, isn't the reversal support that the previously proscribed acts are not unconstitutional?

Nope. The issues are completrely unrelated. (Except perhaps to the extent that you might argue in a 4th A case that the reversal changed a person's "reasonable expectation of privacy" -- but that doesn't hold much weight.)

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
You say "concern" but ain't no "concern" here. If the acts are unconstitutional, then they were/are, and no statute is necessary.

Statutes -- especially nice clear ones like FISA -- are much easier and quicker to interpret and enforce that the Constitution. They also have penalties for violations. You don't get sent back for remedial classes for violations of the Constitution.

S_A_M-

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Southern Patriot
Boy, I must say I admire this work. Those Yanqui Communists at the Drudge Report ought to have their phones tapped.

Good job, son. You are one smart fellow.

Ummmm. i didn't write it, I quoted it.

note to Fringey: you should mention in GGG's file (unless you closed it- optomist!) that while he lives in Boston, he apparently didn't go to school there.

I know there's more than one school there- but there's not.

Hank Chinaski
'88 '91 Law

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Assuming 2 minutes for you to notice the post, and 2 minutes to draft your response, leaves 5 minutes for your in-depth consideration of this work of 3 years. Bravo. I hope your clients appreciate your ability to so quickly get to the heart of a matter.

I saw an article on the study on Monday. I suspect Ty was familiar with the study before you posted it.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
And he wonders why the Patriot act wasn't reauthorized. (which, by the way, is another story--why did hte times sit on this story for a year, publishing it on teh day the patriot act was up for a vote?)

This article (linked on the liberal Drudge Report) suggests that the reporter had a book coming out talking about the wiretaps. If they didn't run the story, they'd be scooped by their own reporter.

http://www.observer.com/pageone_offtherec.asp

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Diane_Keaton
Is all this stuff illegal? Yes. But if I were a second term president, though, I'd be tapping as I deem best because -- fuck my ratings - the only thing I DON'T want in my legacy as Prez is that blood ran in the streets of the U.S. as part of a plan hatched right over U.S. phone lines by someone on U.S. soil and I didn't do anything to tune into it because my suspicions weren't enough to warrant a warrant. As long as my advisors can come up with some shaky argument that I can say I *thought* this stuff was okay. What do I care. 25 years after Watergate, Nixon's legacy became a lot better than the expected "fuckhead who perpetrated Watergate". So a few Muslims phone calls were tapped without going through the usual channels. The fallout is not going to be that big a deal.

Yeah, I guess you're right. Once he's a lame duck, then why should he bother obeying the law?

You ought to consider actually reading this stuff before you post it.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The constitutional argument is less clear than the statutory argument, and perhaps there's no reason to reach it. The fundamental problem here is that Bush sees himself as above the law, and has surrounded himself with people who affirm this.

There is another, minor, gloss on the Constitutional aspect of this. Bush took an oath of office wherein he swore to obey and uphold the laws of the United States. He violated that oath. He did so knowingly, apparently with full intent to do so, and he now shows no indication that he even acknowledges the possibility that his conduct was wrong.

[Shape Shifter]

Liar liar liar.

• Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040420-2.html

[Shape Shifter]

Hitchens's take:

• But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.

http://www.slate.com/id/2132806/

[Southern Patriot]

Originally posted by taxwonk
There is another, minor, gloss on the Constitutional aspect of this. Bush took an oath of office wherein he swore to obey and uphold the laws of the United States. He violated that oath. He did so knowingly, apparently with full intent to do so, and he now shows no indication that he even acknowledges the possibility that his conduct was wrong.

My God, man, you are not actually suggesting that this is as bad as lying about sex, are you?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
There is another, minor, gloss on the Constitutional aspect of this. Bush took an oath of office wherein he swore to obey and uphold the laws of the United States. He violated that oath. He did so knowingly, apparently with full intent to do so, and he now shows no indication that he even acknowledges the possibility that his conduct was wrong.

On the scale of things how does this stack up to stealing the election in 2000, disenfranchising millions of black voters in 2004, lying us into a war to protect his dad and wrecking the economy to get tax breaks for his rich friends? It just seems minor in comparision.