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>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Not to mention CATO. It doesn't get much more corporatist than CATO, which is funded by corporatist demi-Gods Scaife, Koch, Ford and Coors.


No, I think corporations like Halliburton and KBR are as corporate as it gets, and they're nestled up so comfortably around the government's fist. Coors and Cato didn't take us into Iraq. Besides, Cato is non-profit, and the money they make from corporations comes as charitable donations they have to hustle to raise. Is it ideal? No. But I don't see them making the same money from mom and pop. Even the ACLU takes contributions from corporations, such as the tobacco industry.

All this "democratically elected" blah blah is hollow rhetoric when the people elected are so powerful the lobbyist want to use them to get us into war with no bid contracts or change corporate law to tip the playing field in their favor. Every presidential candidate takes money from corporate lobbyists and big business. Even your beloved Obama. You want to fight corporations, you start with the entity that created them: government.

I say if you support big government then you're a corporatist.

And another thing why an "inside job" makes so much more sense than the "terrorist conspiracy" - Bush & Cheney blocked the 9/11 investigation every step of the way.

From day one.

And all of the people involved in the so-called glitches in the system were protected and promoted.

And as a result of the war, Boeing and all of the other defense contractors like KBR started making money hand over fist again.

And the Pentagon was about to be investigated for 2.3 trillion dollars that it couldn't account for, and I believe the investigation was subsequently dropped after the attack.

I'm sorry, but there are just too many aspects of this event that don't make sense.

Green was a white boy, born into a white-boy world; finding jobs was easy for him, like a square peg finding square holes.

Blue was a round peg, and had trouble fitting into the square-hole world.

Red is the embodiment of the putrid imagination of Green.

Consider the fact that Green has lots of money to spare: big surprise, since Green is living in a world that caters to him...only a fuckup could be Green in a Green world and not make money.

Yes, let's remember that there is no reason to threaten Green's life just because Blue is starving to death. The two are totally unrelated.

Oh, yes, let's create a "program" to help people like Blue, because we all know that in the USA it is the poor and the weak who control our government.

Aggressive acts...redistribution...never would occur if the blues were organized. Unionized. Had they formed "Guilds." Because there are at least two factors to capitalism: those who have capital, and those who don't (labor).

Transfer of wealth? Working for minimum wage while somebody else makes enough to live on Malibu Beach, that's not a transfer of wealth to start with?

"The main problem with this system is the unrepresented blues and greens that object to the will of the masses." You're joking, right?

"The reason we do not have a democracy is to prevent the whim of the majority from dictating peoples lives." Oh, that's a riot. Yeah, that's why. Has nothing to do with GE, Lockheed, Boeing, KBR, and certain families that I dare not mention for fear of reprisal.

Wake the fuck up, Blankie.

Stop being a boy crying about the nickels you lost from your pocket.

Wake the fuck up, man.

I can't even watch the rest of this shit. You will know in about 20 years just how valuable you are.

how is this different from Haliburton/KBR?
to think that this is somehow a new and novel or an isolated incident just means you havent been paying attention.
stossel is and always has been a sensationalist.i am not suggesting that his report here means nothing but i am saying that it is nothing new and as per his style he cherry picks and then inflates the drama.
the only thing i like from stossel is when he got bitch slapped by that wrestler when stossel suggested wrestling was fake.

It is amusing to listen to the GOP talk. Often the stuff they accuse democrats of, they, themselves, have done worst. And one usually doesn't have to look beyond ten years, to find exactly when and where the GOP was a bigger hypocrit. It is like, they hope liberals are as stupid, dim-witted, and uneducated as conservatives who keep voting them in to office. Like, no one will look back in to history, and see if their actions and words reflect their current B.S.

For example. Republicans talk about, spending a trillion dollars on health care. This health care would cover 94-96% of Americans (who could keep their health insurance if it was better). This trillion would be spent over ten years, lowering the debt that is created through medical issues and bankruptcies. This, Republicans say, is not needed, as only the rich and elite, should be allowed health coverage.

Now, here is the hypocriticy in action:

2003-2009, six years, of paying $500 billion (a conversative number) for the war in Iraq. That's three trillion dollars in six years. The grand majority of that money was given to defense companies, and other 'cantering' companies like KBR. We were told by Republicans (most notably the Bush Administration), that Iraq had (and I quote) "Massive stock piles, of weapons of mass destruction". These WMDs were threating our allies in the Middle East (read: Isreal). So we invaded, put 50K-80K people to the sword, got 12K+ of our soldiers killed, and injuried another 70K of our soldiers. Not a single time, did Mr. Bush meet the coffins of our honored dead at Dover AFB. And in the end, we STILL< did not find a single WMD. Some how, we went from "massive stockpiles" to "nothing", after spending $3 Trillion dollars.
And that's just one of a few thousand things wrong with the GOP. After all, the GOP feels torture does not voilate any code of law, including God's. The way in which regulators, regulations, and systems put in place to monitor and keep markets from doing things they were not allowed to do....ultimately led to the collapse of the economy a year ago.

Yes, Republicans can't handle taking responsiblity for their actions. And they hope conservatives are to uneducated to notice. So far, it looks like its working.

I'm still a little cloudy on the subject, but I guess that's because I'm not informed enough about politics, but I think I get your drift. Thanks NetRunner

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Glenn Greewald wrote a great article on this topic that really digs into this, including Supreme Court decisions.

Re: the Franken amendment, it's completely nonspecific. The KBR case was certainly the catalyst, but the law is aimed at the behavior, not the individual.

With the push to defund ACORN, the reverse is true.

Glenn Greewald wrote a great article on this topic that really digs into this, including Supreme Court decisions.

Re: the Franken amendment, it's completely nonspecific. The KBR case was certainly the catalyst, but the law is aimed at the behavior, not the individual.

With the push to defund ACORN, the reverse is true.

>> ^Tymbrwulf:
>> ^NetRunner:
^Wouldn't this apply to the amendment that Franken passed that dished out a punishment for KBR/Halliburton? Would that be considered a Bill of Attainder?

Except that Franken's bill doesn't punish KBR, unless they -continue- to force binding arbitration on their contractors who are victimized in clearly egregious violent crimes. His bill doesn't remove funding from KBR. It stops -future- funding from any company that, in the future, forces blanket acceptance of binding arbitration.

This Acorn bill stops funding in retaliation for past actions, no matter what changes they may make. That's the very definition of a bill of attainder.

Wouldn't this apply to the amendment that Franken passed that dished out a punishment for KBR/Halliburton? Would that be considered a Bill of Attainder?

Good example. See - what Mr. Doofus decides is (or isn't) a BOA changes, as it does for any politician. They are moving agendas, not taking stands for the Constitution. If Mr. Doofus was consistent in his position on treating 'retribution legislature' as a BOA then I'd be OK with it. He isn't. So I'm not.

(Attack on the democrat party)

So what? I attacked the Republican party in the Bush years for passing all kinds of crap. When a political party does something STUPID, you attack them. You know - because they deserve to be called out for doing stupid things. Democrats & Republicans both have been curbstomping the Constitution a long time, and they deserve far more castigation than I'm dishing out.

(but it IS a Bill of Attainder)

Because Mr. Doofus says so? A real Bill of Attainder has a very specific legal definition, which the Georgia guy says this bill does not meet. Mr. Doofus is arguing that it violates the 'spirit' of being a BoA. Georgia guy says it follows the LETTER of the law. This is an argument of semantics - and if Mr. Doofus wants to start calling out ALL legislation that punishes ANY organization as a BoA then he is opening up a pretty big can. But - of course - as a Democrat he only wants to apply that standard to entities that he politically favors.

Take away your blatant lies

Without examples, your puffery (like your arguments) are invalid.

>> ^NetRunner:
^ The topic under discussion was the bill that would strip ACORN of all Federal funding, because it's supposedly corrupt.
Now, pay attention when they talk about why bills of attainder are wrong. To paraphrase, it's to keep Congress from taking on issues that should be the purview of the judicial branch -- namely determining the guilt or innocence of the accused, and meting out punishments for the guilty.
The move to strip ACORN of Federal dollars is entirely about trying to use the legislature to pass judgment on alleged criminal activity, and dispense a punishment.
It's set up so that perhaps there's a way to narrowly define "punishment" so it doesn't count, but any rational person knows that's the entire point of the bill.


Wouldn't this apply to the amendment that Franken passed that dished out a punishment for KBR/Halliburton? Would that be considered a Bill of Attainder?

I'm just playing devil's advocate here and trying to discern the difference.

Also, I'd like to interpret Winstonfield_Pennypacker's post to what I saw it as:

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Now if only he could start practicing what he preaches and stop his party from stiff-arming the constitution(Attack aimed at the Democratic Party). Here is the conversion simplified.
Mr. Grayson: "Are bills of attainder bad?"
Mr. Brown: "This isn't a bill of attainder."
Mr. Grayson: "I asked you if bills of attainder were bad."
Mr. Brown: "This isn't a bill of attainder."
Mr. Grayson: "Answer my question. Aren't bills of attainder bad?"
Mr. Brown: "Sure - but this isn't a bill of attainder."(but it IS a Bill of Attainder)
I assume Mr. Grayson believes that if enough people hear him call something that isn't a bill of attainder a bill of attainder enough then someone may start believing it(He quoted and interpreted the constitution in a way that even I was able to interpret this bill as a Bill of Retainder, and I'm not a politician). Politicians have a pretty long history of using technicalities, buearucrat-speak, legalese, and other textual skullduggery to get around the Constitution to accomplish political objectives (this applies to both sides)(this also applies to your posts as well). Mr. Grayson is a pot calling a kettle black in that regard. Congress has been violating constitutional law for decades, and he's getting all testy now? (Personal attack on Grayson, expletive deleted). I guess that's what politicians do best though. Blame others for their own faults.


Take away your blatant lies and personal attacks and you're just re-iterating what was in the video without bringing any new information into light. NetRunner at least explains his comments and tries to inform the sift public what the hell the video is about. I'd like to ignore your comments, but it's amusing to watch you employ tactics to try and prove a point.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'franken, kbr, de bernardo, binding arbitration' to 'franken, kbr, de bernardo, binding arbitration, gang rape, jamie leigh jones' - edited by calvados

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^NordlichReiter:I thought that common knowledge was no felony can be sent to arbitration.
Rapes in Iraq are not crimes in the US, so, you can't follow that chain of responsibility. As far as I'm aware Iraq provided full criminal immunity to contractors at the time, so it wasn't even a crime in Iraq.


It depends on the circumstances. I for example was born overseas on a US military base within another country. However as my father was in the US military, and I was born on a US base (legally considered US soil), then I am a natural born citizen, as if I was born within the border of the USA in any state. US diplomatic compounds are also considered US soil. As a result anyone on such grounds are subject to US law. When they step beyond those grounds, especially in wartime... they are in the employ of the US military and are bound by the same laws which govern the troops. Murder is murder. Rape is rape. This isn't the first time crimes have been prosecuted in US court that took place overseas.

With the same logic, a crime committed on the high seas beyond the borders of the US or any nation would not be prosecutable. This is not the case. The are a lot of complexities involved of course, but i can guarantee a gang rape or murder spree won't go unpunished in such a blatant rape case as this.

Why the Republicans are fighting it? Lobbying money. KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater (conveniently renamed for those with memory issues) may think they are immune from the law. Lawmakers may have told them they are immune. But that does not make it so.

A high ranking official may get away with it. But a bunch of raping low-levels will face a judge. The public won't allow for it.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'franken, kbr, de, bernardo, binding, arbitration' to 'franken, kbr, de bernardo, binding arbitration' - edited by lucky760

I used to be Republican but for years I find Both parties Disgusting. As a conservative I don't like Republicans and hence loath Democrats.

That being said Al Franklin did a great job. KBR ( Haliberton) deliberately hid wrong doings and tried to keep it under the rug and this girl gets raped. How sick.


Funny that the vote being 68 YEAs to 30 NAYs and the 30 being all Republicans. Funny ? no not really just predictable and sad.