A word to those who insist that remaining silent during police questioning is being "rude" or an "a$$hole" to the questioner need to take a civics class. In the United States of America, our forefathers fought and died to secure our rights to remain silent and not incriminate ourselves. Using those rights is not rude. NOT using those rights is being a rude a$$hole to those thousands of patriots that died to secure them for you. Railing against those who exercise their rights is unpatriotic, rude, and the act of cowardly a$$holes. Try living somewhere you have no right to silence, they exist, see how it suits you. You are free to leave your freedom and rights at the door on your way out, but do not try to remove mine.
If you are not a citizen of the USA but are commenting on the rudeness of the silent 'offender', I submit my opinion that you are speaking about (and condemning) things you do not understand. Again, this seems to be an act of the rude and misinformed.
As an aside, I also question them...in what way is being politely and calmly silent rude? Also, do you not see that being asked questions that imply you were doing something untoward is rude in itself, even when asked under the umbrella of 'public safety'? Perhaps not, or perhaps you had not considered that. (Asking a driver "How much have you had to drink tonight" certainly implies that the questioner believes the driver has been drinking and driving, which to law abiding citizens should be insulting....I see that they did not ask this exact question this time, but most checkpoints/officers do word it that way.)
This person did exactly what any citizen of the USA should do any time they are questioned by police, identify yourself if asked (and some would say that even that is going too far), and that is all. There is no legal obligation to self incriminate yourself by answering questions designed to get you to do so, conversely there is a moral and civic obligation to exercise your rights or we may all lose them.

BRAVO SIR!!! I commend you and wish there were more like you!

Its true, I hate to sound paranoid or alarmist but I definitely do not think it was coincidental that bill was passed a bit after the immense popularity of Occupy. They plan on fighting dissent and popular protest on our own soil and not in the ways they do it now: all media, police state, illegal arrests etc but with the mofuggin military. Demonic, unpatriotic, robot, bastards.

But, if they do decide to use the military on our own soil... it may end up benefiting the real rulers of the country, the 99%! Heh heh heh.



>> ^csnel3:

I am glad this man is fighting the good fight, as he spoke , I'm think "hell yes, those bastards are overstepping the line" . And then , what he says in the last 15 sec of this video, just floors me. He is talking about the infamous WTSHTF scenario!! He thinks the elite are getting ready!!! Alex Jones was right!!

That guy who's in the first live footage shown says something perfectly indicative of the manipulation going on in politics - he basically says "if you complain, you're unpatriotic"

The words used to describe and the coverage given to two groups of people who feel they are being wronged and are not being represented in their respective governments are what I notice most.

Americans who complain and protest are whiners and unpatriotic.

Foreigners who complain and protest (revolt even) are in need of support from all leaders across the world.

Where as I see it in Egypt and other emerging potentially democratic nations are directly beneficial to the people of those countries, and maybe offer some long term goal of world stability bringing mindsets of the people closer to those of other democracy based nations.

Versus America where having the "leaders" of this country get on board and listening is almost unfathomable at this moment, if other nations leaders are calling for aiding the OWS I have never seen this, and if there were a push to address the virtually unrepresented people who are fueling these protests it would benefit other people of the US or at least be discussed to find what would be. Also have the added benefit of hopefully stabilizing the economy, restoring some consumer confidence (it's seems to be a huge unquantifiable factor in the economy from my perspective) that SOMEONE is going to make sure this never happens again, and would in turn benefit the rest of the world's economies since we're all tied together now in more ways than I can put words to.

Susan Lindauer:
...
I got indicted for protesting the War in Iraq. My crime was delivering a warm-hearted letter to my second cousin White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, which correctly outlined the consequences of War. Suspiciously, I had been one of the very few Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations for seven years. Thus, I was personally acquainted with the truth about Pre-War Intelligence, which differs remarkably from the story invented by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

More dangerously still, my team gave advance warnings about the 9/11 attack and solicited Iraq’s cooperation after 9/11. In August 2001, at the urging of my CIA handler, I phoned Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and the Office of Counter-Terrorism to ask for an “emergency broadcast alert” across all federal agencies, seeking any fragment of intelligence on airplane hijackings. My warning cited the World Trade Center as the identified target. Highly credible independent sources have confirmed that in August, 2001 I described the strike on the World Trade Center as “imminent,” with the potential for “mass casualties, possibly using a miniature thermonuclear device.”

Thanks to the Patriot Act, Americans have zero knowledge of those truths, though the 9/11 Community has zoomed close for years. Republican leaders invoked the Patriot Act to take me down 30 days after I approached the offices of Senator John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify about Iraq’s cooperation with the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework that would have achieved every U.S. and British objective without firing a shot. Ironically, because of the Patriot Act, my conversations with Senator Trent Lott’s staff got captured on wire taps, proving my story.

You see, contrary to rhetoric on Capitol Hill, the Patriot Act is first and foremost a weapon to bludgeon whistleblowers and political dissidents. Indeed, it has been singularly crafted for that purpose.

The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a “white supremacist group.” Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged “civil rights violations.”
...
I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.

I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington — independently and collectively verified my story— then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed “classified.”

I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be “cured” of believing what everybody wanted to deny— because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.
...

>> ^chilaxe:

@ gwiz665 @ Jinx @ MaxWilder @ quantumushroom @ Yogi @ peggedbea
It seems like a mistake to imply we don't care if people are douchebags or if they irrationally destroy their family.


It is irrational in the extreme to expect politicians to be saints. In general, they're kinda the opposite. We know that, and accept it. So why do we act all shocked when one of them screws up?

What chaps my hide is that we don't get all outraged and demand resignations when they blatantly go against the will of the people and their sworn oath to uphold the Constitution when passing legislation like The unPatriot Act.

>> ^MaxWilder:

One of the fascinating things about this thread is that you can see why this country is falling apart. There are people who really, truly think that giving up small freedoms will somehow make the world a better place. And we've spent years giving up one small freedom after another. Until the government feels quite safe taking away big freedoms (e.g. The unPatriot Act).
When you have principles, you fight for them or you lose them. Even if somebody defies your principles in a small, silly, quite understandable way, they are still defying them. You either fight, or give up.
Another way to look at it: if those cops had simply asked those dancers to leave that first night without arresting anybody, then these daytime noisy protests wouldn't happen. Peace begets peace, war begets war.


The United States is a pretty big place. You can dance pretty much anywhere you like. Except the Jefferson Memorial. Why is that so bad? Do you really think in a few years they're gonna ban dancing in malls? You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

And it's my understanding that, during the initial incident, the cops DID ask the dancers to leave. And, according to Mr. Kookesh, one of them asked why they were being asked to leave. Then suddenly the cops ended up arresting them. Pardon me if I don't consider him a "reliable source" but, it sounds like bullshit. It's a publicity stunt, nothing more.

MaxWilder wrote: "One of the fascinating things about this thread is that you can see why this country is falling apart. There are people who really, truly think that giving up small freedoms will somehow make the world a better place. And we've spent years giving up one small freedom after another. Until the government feels quite safe taking away big freedoms (e.g. The unPatriot Act).

When you have principles, you fight for them or you lose them. Even if somebody defies your principles in a small, silly, quite understandable way, they are still defying them. You either fight, or give up.

Another way to look at it: if those cops had simply asked those dancers to leave that first night without arresting anybody, then these daytime noisy protests wouldn't happen. Peace begets peace, war begets war."

Thank you for stating this so eloquently.

>> ^MaxWilder:

One of the fascinating things about this thread is that you can see why this country is falling apart. There are people who really, truly think that giving up small freedoms will somehow make the world a better place. And we've spent years giving up one small freedom after another. Until the government feels quite safe taking away big freedoms (e.g. The unPatriot Act).
When you have principles, you fight for them or you lose them. Even if somebody defies your principles in a small, silly, quite understandable way, they are still defying them. You either fight, or give up.
Another way to look at it: if those cops had simply asked those dancers to leave that first night without arresting anybody, then these daytime noisy protests wouldn't happen. Peace begets peace, war begets war.


Max, this time I can't agree at all. Trolling the cops because you got a ticket and want your 15 minutes on youtube does not equal fighting to prevent the Patriot Act. This is nothing but a group of trolls...and I feel for the cops who had to try and deal with people who didn't -want- to deal.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Bravo - I could not have put this as well.>> ^MaxWilder:

One of the fascinating things about this thread is that you can see why this country is falling apart. There are people who really, truly think that giving up small freedoms will somehow make the world a better place. And we've spent years giving up one small freedom after another. Until the government feels quite safe taking away big freedoms (e.g. The unPatriot Act).
When you have principles, you fight for them or you lose them. Even if somebody defies your principles in a small, silly, quite understandable way, they are still defying them. You either fight, or give up.
Another way to look at it: if those cops had simply asked those dancers to leave that first night without arresting anybody, then these daytime noisy protests wouldn't happen. Peace begets peace, war begets war.

One of the fascinating things about this thread is that you can see why this country is falling apart. There are people who really, truly think that giving up small freedoms will somehow make the world a better place. And we've spent years giving up one small freedom after another. Until the government feels quite safe taking away big freedoms (e.g. The unPatriot Act).

When you have principles, you fight for them or you lose them. Even if somebody defies your principles in a small, silly, quite understandable way, they are still defying them. You either fight, or give up.

Another way to look at it: if those cops had simply asked those dancers to leave that first night without arresting anybody, then these daytime noisy protests wouldn't happen. Peace begets peace, war begets war.

QM...where do you get your information? From Trump?
As far as I can tell, most if not all jobs 'created' (moved) by Trump are NOT in this country. Indications are that the net job gain/loss in this country are squarely in the negative column for Trump, probably internationally too, but that's much harder to tell. You can say he lost, then won, but indications are that the losses are larger than the wins, and the wins are wins for him alone (and other chair-persons who get large payoffs for bankrupting and 'strip-mining' companies), not his company's American employees or the companies themselves for the most part. By his account, his involvement with the bankrupt casino was most likely considered a 'win' because HE made money selling his name, the fact that the business failed and the employees lost their jobs doesn't seem to bother him in the least, or even register.
Also, the numbers I've seen show large private sector job growth, true, not back to pre-Bush levels yet, but Bush drove/spent us into the ground for 8 years, turning surplus into insurmountable debt and deficit while also deferring payment of many of his 'project's' costs until after he left office (the sneakiest thing he did as president, he found a way to make the next president find a way to pay for many of his failed policies and projects (can you say unpaid for tax cuts?), amazing), climbing back up is bound to take time. The stock market is back higher than pre-Obama and moving in the right direction, jobs are sure to follow.
And as to 'his earness', why not quit parsing your words and come out and say 'his browness', it's fairly obvious that's the problem most of the far right have with him, a little honesty would be refreshing. Making up BS and infantile names to call someone because you're afraid to admit and confront your REAL issue with them is what spoiled little girls do, not grown men and women. I'm sure you won't agree, but you can't possibly defend your childish name calling over the years, or your incessant unpatriotic attacks against YOUR president during war(s). Sometimes your vitriol IS as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump because it comes from the same uninformed, hyper arrogant, infantile, inexplicably self righteous attitude (I call it "Peggy Hill Syndrome").
Then there's the real question for you, what if you got what you wanted and removed Obama, do the Retardicans really think Biden would be better for them somehow? Perhaps so, if what they really want is someone to give them gaffs to exploit, he almost certainly would. If they want reason and thoughtfulness, they had better hope with all their might that Obama stays right where he is. Compared to most Dumbocrats, his plans seem hyper-conservative.

>> ^quantumushroom
Trump creates jobs that create wealth. Trump has lost and won, lost and won again, the real deal who earned his arrogance. What the fuck is a community organizer?
His Earness created more government jobs, which actually drain taxpayer money. Otherwise he hasn't done shit, unless you count making things worse as "doing something".
This is nowhere near as excruciating as watching "the situation" attempt to roast Trump during Trump's Comedy Central roast.

Didn't anyone notice that his "official birth video" showed him being born in Africa? Hey QM and WP, where's the conspiracy theories and claims of forgery on the long form? You now have "proof" he is an African.
Also to answer QM, I guess you're technically correct, he's made sure at least ONE of America's enemies won't be kept awake at night, or at any other time.
And again QM you are asked, exactly how did Trump 'earn his narcissism'? Is it by inheriting a fortune and losing a large part of it, bankrupting businesses the world over (including at least one casino), being a ridiculous never ending blowhard, or is it by making the retardicans look like the insane crybabies they have become and showing clearly the racist, blatantly un-American and unpatriotic ideals they now stand for (for instance, attempting to publicly delegitimize their current president by any means)?

Nobody said you have to be ashamed of your country. You just have to respect the Constitution, which gives certain rights if you are awaiting trial or not, and most of those rights don't go away if you are guilty, the privileges yes, the rights no. How is asking him to be treated with the respect the Constitution demands being unpatriotic? If anything, it is the very definition of patriotic, sticking up for the Constitution even when others think it should be ignored. All people are asking for here is that the government be transparent about their treatment of him to be sure his rights granted by the Constitution and International law are being protected.
It is those here who call for Julian Assange to be sent here for trail that could be called unpatriotic. He did the job the media is supposed to do, and is the very reason the freedom of the press clause exists in the 1st Amendment: to act as a check and balance against government corruption and violation of international laws and treaties.
And when the public knows about such treatment in other countries, then people here complain as well. Perhaps not the people you listen to, or the major media outlets, but the Real News, Democracy Now and other independent non-corporate, pro-humanitarian media do.
If he is guilty then yes, he should spend his life in jail, nobody would argue that, but he should be treated humanely with his full Constitutional and International rights before and after said convection.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

What I intended to do in my rather strident initial comment was to smack some sense into folks who seemed to be [engaged in] a loathsome intellectual scavenging of misery. It could not go unchallenged.

To be honest, I have the same motivation behind about 80% of my comments. It the "someone on the Internet is WRONG" syndrome.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Are there people out there who are using violent and apocalyptic rhetoric? Not as many as are typically implied. I cannot name a SINGLE person who I would hold up as “the example” of a person that routinely uses ‘violent and apocalyptic rhetoric’. When such rhetoric exists it is typically very isolated.

Let me give two examples of something I found both pervasive, and an incitement to violence.

The first one is Sarah Palin's invention of the "death panel":

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.

That was never something even remotely part of the Affordable Care Act, but you had it repeated and defended almost to a man by conservatives. Even the normally anti-talking point libertarians we have around here felt compelled to occasionally add "perhaps that's the basis for the 'death panels' the Republicans keep talking about..." to their criticisms of the ACA.

If you think that what liberals are trying to do is, as Senator Chuck Grassley put it, "pull the plug on Grandma", then it justifies trying to stop it by all means necessary. If talking about it doesn't work, intimidation, harassment, vandalism, and ultimately armed rebellion is okay, because it's all self defense against an unconscionable act of nihilistic genocide.

The second one is the talk about revolution and secession. The most famous are Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment remedies", Michele Bachmann's "armed and dangerous" about Cap & Trade, and Gov. Rick Perry winds up on TV a lot for talking about secession.

I'd also say that when I compare left vs. right on this topic, it's not so much about the quantity, but the quality and authority. The right-wing elected officials and candidates were talking about armed rebellion if they lose the election, while left-wing ones never did. Glenn Beck is making the case, night after night, that Obama and liberals aren't metaphorically taking us down the path of fascism and genocide, but literally doing so. That's qualitatively different from the average boisterous protester drawing a Hitler mustache on Obama or Bush's face, or some nobody like me calling him that in a comment.



>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I'd just be a bit happier if they'd return the favor, and admit that liberal philosophy has a legitimate place in American politics, rather than talking about it like it's a cancer that must be completely eliminated.
Conservatives feel the exact same way. It’d be nice if liberals treated conservatives like human beings instead of vermin to be eradicated. Classic example: like how liberal pundits & politicians treat the Tea Party.

Okay, again, I think there's a big difference. The criticism of the Tea Party from the left has mostly been to call them:

• Racist
  
• Angry
  
• Incoherent/Stupid
  
• Believe a revisionist version of history
  
• Believe in a revisionist version of the Constitution
  
• Quick to resort to intimidation or violence
  
• Run by corporations
  

That's a pretty negative set of attributes. Well earned too, IMO.

Thing is, we don't really want them gone, we want them to snap out of it. We want to demonstrate to them the value of what we believe, and we want to show that the things we want and what they want aren't really so different when you come down to it.

Their criticism of us is:

• Elitist
  
• Incoherent/Stupid
  
• Weak (on terror/drugs/Ruskies/welfare parasites, etc.)
  
• Lazy
  
• Naive
  
• Run by special interests (mostly Unions and enviro-terrorists)
  
• Propagandist (we supposedly control all media, remember?)
  
• Unpatriotic
  
• Un-American
  
• Baby-killing
  
• Grandma-killing
  
• Job-killing
  
• Troop-hating
  
• Gay-loving
  
• Flag-burning
  
• God-hating
  
• Socialist
  
• Communist
  
• Fascist
  

I don't get the same sense of desire for outreach/reformation of liberals. I also don't get the sense of compatibility from them. They're not okay with a government that's part-conservative and part-liberal in inspiration. It's an all-or-nothing game to them.

I think that's less true in the broader right-wing movement, but the Tea Party-style of argument is in ascendance over there, and it seems like hardly anyone on the right thinks they should be trying to cool down that eliminationist streak.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
But most of the time the reality is that the guy we want to believe is such a jerk is nowhere near as bad as we imagine in our head.

I agree.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
So when some politician says, “Hey – Limbaugh (or whoever) is poisoning our national discourse with their violent rhetoric”, all too many people are ready to lap up the demagoguery. Politicians who do so are manipulating us for votes. Pundits who do so are manipulating you for ratings.
Don’t be a dupe. We live in a free country, where speech – even speech you don’t like – is protected.

I agree with where you start here, but not where you end. Throughout, I am talking about condemnation, not criminalization.

I can condemn anything I want because I have free speech. I also think that there's a lot of validity to the idea that our national discourse has been poisoned with over the top rhetoric.

I think the kind of political junkies who come and get in my face here are kindred spirits, but I get so very, very tired of trying to break through the vitriol, and I mostly just write off responding to the people who seem to only speak to provoke.

To be frank, you have been a pretty borderline case in my book. You come across to me as someone who's commentary often only serves to raise the amount of heat and useless vitriol in conversations. I know I can dish it out myself, but I tend to dial it way back if I sense someone wants a real conversation.

I'm glad to see you do that at least a bit here.

Like you said, don't be a dupe -- don't be one of these people who carries nothing but a burning hatred of people who disagree with you, especially if you like to hang out in a place you think is 90% people who disagree with you.