ok lets get the patriot act used on me...

I'm gonna blow up the mall of america, the statue of liberty, the golden gate bridge, oh and I plan to fertilizer bomb the hardware store in sleepy hollow, new york just for good measure

I'll be waiting for my epic raid for phat lewt!

>> ^chingalera:

The guy was a troll that threatened the safety and mental processes of others and put them in harm's way in doing so. Though detained per the fucked-up patriot act, the troll got his and from the looks of his face, his demeanor in his photographs, the punk got his but good. SLAP!!
Funny though, that some of the most virulently opposed to the Patriot Act would label VS user choggie "troll" (because of his always dissenting opinions and rhetoric and his terse manner when dealing with assholes) and pretty much do the same-same to his account. Fucking hypocrites!
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/tyrone/


You still cannot jail ANYONE in a civilized country without due process, without the right to face his accusers. This is bullshit and you know it!

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

The guy was a troll that threatened the safety and mental processes of others and put them in harm's way in doing so. Though detained per the fucked-up patriot act, the troll got his and from the looks of his face, his demeanor in his photographs, the punk got his but good. SLAP!!

Funny though, that some of the most virulently opposed to the Patriot Act would label VS user choggie "troll" (because of his always dissenting opinions and rhetoric and his terse manner when dealing with assholes) and pretty much do the same-same to his account. Fucking hypocrites!

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/tyrone/

>> ^KnivesOut:

No, no, no, you were thinking of Rush Limbaugh saying he was going to move to Costa Rica because the Affordable Care Act was found to be constitutional.>> ^Mashiki:
Really? I seem to remember dozens of forum posts from liberals whining over the renewal of the patriot act. And I remember even more whining about if Bush won again. Of course nothing actually came of it. But to point out the obvious here, the liberal left does whine like small kids over things like this, especially when it benefits society as a whole, and voter ID laws do benefit everyone.


No pretty sure I'm not. Pretty sure I remember the last 10 years pretty well, especially the previous election minus Obama pretty good too.

Hey did you catch this, looks like those voter ID laws might just be a good idea after all.
http://ohio.mediatrackers.org/2012/08/17/voters-first-canvasser-arrested-for-submitting-fraudulent-petitions/

No, no, no, you were thinking of Rush Limbaugh saying he was going to move to Costa Rica because the Affordable Care Act was found to be constitutional.>> ^Mashiki:
Really? I seem to remember dozens of forum posts from liberals whining over the renewal of the patriot act. And I remember even more whining about if Bush won again. Of course nothing actually came of it. But to point out the obvious here, the liberal left does whine like small kids over things like this, especially when it benefits society as a whole, and voter ID laws do benefit everyone.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^Mashiki:
In other news, liberals everywhere who threatened to run to Canada, discover that Canada has a VoterID law already in place. Their world is shattered instantly.

I hate to sound so blatantly over-patriotic, but Americans who would run to another country just because a law got passed should (maybe) not be Americans.

Really? I seem to remember dozens of forum posts from liberals whining over the renewal of the patriot act. And I remember even more whining about if Bush won again. Of course nothing actually came of it. But to point out the obvious here, the liberal left does whine like small kids over things like this, especially when it benefits society as a whole, and voter ID laws do benefit everyone.

Thanks to the Patriot Act the government can "sift" through any data they want in any American-based or American-Owned (even in a different country) server, at any time, with no one having to be told.

So... WHO wants you to put your data "in the Cloud"?

Remember, the SCOTUS upheld this atrocious provision of the Patriot Act in the case Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. "Material support for terrorism" is what got others into jail for considerably less than what these open advocates of MEK are doing.

This guy, for instance, was sentenced to 69 months in prison for "providing satellite television services to Hezbollah’s television station, Al Manar".

But hey, if the Israelis are working with them, they can't be terrorists, right? Israel and state-sponsored terrorism? Nah, never.

Besides, members of MEK were trained by JSOC at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. So if they were terrorists, the US would be equally guilty of state-sponsored terrorism. Luckily though, being on the State Department's terrorist watch list doesn't make you a terrorist by US definition.

Opposition to US interests makes you a terrorist. Support of WikiLeaks makes you a terrorist.

Um, you do realize the Patriot Act reduced restrictions on the use of power right @GeeSussFreeK ? A patriot act on the rich would allow them greater flexibility in how they continue to drain the economy and environment of whatever remains.

Also, using the word "attack" when talking about the rich is simple rhetoric. Rational policy that redistributes some of the wealth (as one example) is not 'attacking' - it is something that would benefit everyone.

What sort of campaign finance reform would you support btw? Do you like Lawrence Lessig (and others) idea of publicly financed elections via a constitutional convention?

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/4/as_states_take_on_citizens_united

@joedirt

I think both I and Mr. Greenwald understand what a corporation is. Let me describe it in another way from you, even though I don't think your description is wrong. Is it a free collection of citizens arranged for a specific end. For instance, the ACLU is a corporation. Are we going to start staying that only certain groups of freely gathered citizens are allowed protection under the law? Are we going to start writing different sections of laws for different factions of people? I can honestly say this is the WORST idea we could have to amend the constitution in this way. This is the same kind of logic that denies voting rights to minorities, and to women, or to Catholics. Specifically limiting certain groups participation is censorship of the worst kind, it is also forbidden by the constitution, see Article I, Section 9.

And @dystopianfuturetoday, if money isn't speech, then isn't there no problem? I mean, no "group" has vocal cords persay, but factions are things we all are a part of. How is a political faction, or a family faction, or a business faction, or a religion faction any different? The ALCU isn't that much different than IBM computers, or the Church of Christ in the way the carry out their actions. They are groups of freely gathered people with common aim to achieve certain goals, and as such, have a right to freely petition the government in the affairs that concern them collectively. I don't see how collective spending is any more of less evil that individual spending. If you aren't free to petition the government as a certain faction because some other faction has successfully lobbied your legal pacification, then far have we fallen from what was supposed to be the thrust of the 10th federalist paper.

Not to say that I don't support some form of campaign finance reform of sorts, but I do not agree with the legal notion of denying people the ability to do with what they own they like; spare it harm someone else, because some other group doesn't like you...it is horrible and reeks of the worst kind of oppression.

Believe me Mr Dirt, I find all those subsidy and bail outs abominable, just as I found those terrorists on 911. But I will not permit anyone to pass a new sort of patriot act against the rich that really is attacking us all in the end. I say this not as a rich man, but one whom exists in poverty.

(crap, misclick on the upvote, sorry dirt )

1) I'm not going to contest that. I am not knowledgeable in the Vietnam war. It's also 8 million years ago, so it doesn't really apply anymore.
2) Yes and no. You have some 20~30k troops in europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments#Europe) They shouldn't be there. As for your socialism remark, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita the socialistic states of europe, scandinavia, are the highest gdp per capita. How do you figure that? Magic?
3) You're not free to leave if for whatever reason the department of homeland security deems you a threat, which means they can abduct you and torture you and even have you assassinated, EVEN THOUGH you're an american citizen. In the last 10 years it seems to me that the US have given up more freedoms that most countries have. As a freedom loving american, don't you hate the patriot act? I mean, really? I can't understand why americans who are otherwise so proud of their freedoms would willingly, some even lovingly, give up their freedom for a perceived sense of security.
>> ^quantumushroom:

1) The left-wing textbook on the Vietnam War always ends right before the communist genocides.
2) Europe should be paying for its own defense, except thanks to socialism it can't even pay to keep the lights on.
3) America is evil? Here you're free to leave, which in itself is more than one can say for red china, which will promptly gobble up the rest of the world as America's military mistakenly retreats under President Paul.


>> ^gwiz665:
America is a force for evil in this world.

Good talk NR. I'm not convinced.... there are cabinet appointments, etc. he's made that make me not trust him, but I am listening. Ob's speech a couple days ago has me wondering you've got a direct line to him or something.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
>> ^Truckchase:

I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.

Oy, Buddy Roemer? The problem with Buddy Roemer is that he seems to think his becoming President is the only/main way to fix the problem with money in politics. Never mind that the biggest problem with campaign finance law is that a) Republicans always oppose it and b) the Supreme Court has deemed real campaign finance law unconstitutional.

The answer to that is a Constitutional Amendment, not giving Buddy Roemer the potential ability to appoint SCOTUS judges, especially since he'd only get to replace liberals in a 2013-2017 term, not roadblocks like Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts.

I personally don't think silent support is good enough. I'm gonna be out campaigning for Obama nice and loud. I'm especially going to be pushing back against what I see as crazy misinformation, like the story Cenk is pushing here.

Once you strip away the misinformation, the only legitimate liberal complaints I've heard about Obama boil down to "he didn't do enough to make things better" as opposed to "he made something worse". People seem to have rather quickly forgotten the width and breadth of the damage done by Bush and a Republican congress.

Most people just remember the wars, the Patriot Act, and the tax cuts. Fewer people remember the US Attorneys scandal, fewer people remember the way he gutted the SEC, put the EPA on hold, sabotaged the FEC, tried to gut the FCC, turned the NLRB into a union-busting department, and so on. It was a nonstop deluge of sabotage, fraud, and abuse that just went on and on relentlessly for eight fucking years.

It grates me that it's only partially and often only temporarily being undone by Obama, but now those low-publicity nitty-gritty detail stories are almost universally good ones.

The choice isn't really one of a "lesser of two evils" it's a choice between empowering an enemy who's sworn to destroy everything you hold dear, or empowering a friend who's let you down. I see this as a choice between feckless and imperfect good, or pure, ruthless evil.

The TEA Party is just fed up with corrupt government and the only way to fight back is to go back to the original intent of the founders and that to to just plainly follow the constitution. How can that be wrong?

There is so many unconstitutional policies on and everyone knows it.

The report on the government officials practicing insider trading just came out and it indicated a 98%+ corruption of elected leaders. How sad. Only 2 republicans were singled out as having not participated in this actions, and that was Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann. These 2 don't have a chance of winning the party nomination because they are deemed too radical or such. Are they? Or have we drifted astray? I would gather there would be a Democrat or 2 also that have clean sheets and they should run against Obama.

We don't need more of the same. We need change. Obama did not bring change. The wars did not end. Gitmo still stands. The Patriot Act is even more intrusive. TSA - need I say more? Spending is totally out of control. Our credit rating took a hit because we yet again raised out debt ceiling. Have we not learned anything from what is going on on Greece and Europe?

We have to wake up and vote for officials who are loyal to the ideals of the Constitution and not to themselves. We the people also need to stop asking for a handout just because its "free". nothing is free only freedom and we are loosing it at a very fast rate.

Stop voting just to beat the other guy. I feel that Gingridge can wipe the floor in an Obama debate but he will never get my vote.
For purely principle sake I would have to Vote for Paul or Bauchmann. Sure I disagree on some things but they would preform their elected duties following the constitution. Isn't that what the a are supposed to do? Don't they take an oath on the Bible to uphold the constitution?

>> ^Truckchase:

I know where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your logic, but I'm not gonna get out there and campaign for or vocally support Obama because I do think his administration is still heavily corrupted by (mainly) the financial industry. As you point out he's not nearly as bad as the repubs, so unless by some miracle Buddy Roemer gets any real traction I'll most likely be voting for Obama and running from the polling place in a ankle length trench coat and hat like a family man from 1974 escaping the newsstand with a smut rag.

Oy, Buddy Roemer? The problem with Buddy Roemer is that he seems to think his becoming President is the only/main way to fix the problem with money in politics. Never mind that the biggest problem with campaign finance law is that a) Republicans always oppose it and b) the Supreme Court has deemed real campaign finance law unconstitutional.

The answer to that is a Constitutional Amendment, not giving Buddy Roemer the potential ability to appoint SCOTUS judges, especially since he'd only get to replace liberals in a 2013-2017 term, not roadblocks like Thomas, Scalia, or Roberts.

I personally don't think silent support is good enough. I'm gonna be out campaigning for Obama nice and loud. I'm especially going to be pushing back against what I see as crazy misinformation, like the story Cenk is pushing here.

Once you strip away the misinformation, the only legitimate liberal complaints I've heard about Obama boil down to "he didn't do enough to make things better" as opposed to "he made something worse". People seem to have rather quickly forgotten the width and breadth of the damage done by Bush and a Republican congress.

Most people just remember the wars, the Patriot Act, and the tax cuts. Fewer people remember the US Attorneys scandal, fewer people remember the way he gutted the SEC, put the EPA on hold, sabotaged the FEC, tried to gut the FCC, turned the NLRB into a union-busting department, and so on. It was a nonstop deluge of sabotage, fraud, and abuse that just went on and on relentlessly for eight fucking years.

It grates me that it's only partially and often only temporarily being undone by Obama, but now those low-publicity nitty-gritty detail stories are almost universally good ones.

The choice isn't really one of a "lesser of two evils" it's a choice between empowering an enemy who's sworn to destroy everything you hold dear, or empowering a friend who's let you down. I see this as a choice between feckless and imperfect good, or pure, ruthless evil.