To claim torture never works is juvenile. Torture gets you more information. This information may or may not be accurate, but pretty much all information gathering can lead to false information. Accepting that torture works makes it a real discussion you can then decide if the loss of the high ground is worth the extra information.
We intuitively know that closely held secrets would not be given up without some sort of distress. In Chinatown the director and actors decided to change the script to have Jack Nicholson slap the actress to have her confess my daughter, my sister repeatedly. They felt that it was unbelievable to just have her just come out and say it.
If you believe that torture never works there is no moral dilemma. Someone who smacked someone to get information is just a sadistic person doing it for their own enjoyment. People who allowed torture are all also sadistic people who would just smack people around for fun and cover it up.
I prefer to live in a grown up world where things have a cost and a benefit and there are tough decisions to make.
The other thing about torture is to remember that there are worse things than torture. The guy who's information led to the capture of Saddam Hussian was not tortured. His innocent family members were jailed and some may have been raped and/or killed.
When I go to https://www.dni.gov/ and I accept the bad cert it does not take me to the site. It takes you to a page that says the site is down. They are using akamai as a CDN and have not configured it for https access.
If he outed all politicians that would be one thing. He outed a politician in part because he did not agree with his politics. If you are a political operative that is one thing, but do not claim to be doing it for a higher moral purpose. You are doing it to further your political ends.
This reminds me of when Brian Ross who is the Head of Investigative Reporting for ABC News bought the list of clients of the DC Madam (I keep hearing they do not pay for news stories). He then only released the names of Republicans, because they took a stance on morality and this made them hypocrites. If Brian Ross had been a Republican operative not a Democratic one he could have only released the names of Democrats since they have taken a stance supporting woman's rights and this made them hypocrites.
So you are either a reporter or a political operative. If you are a political operative you can behave in a partisan manner, if you are a reporter you cannot. The guy who runs this blog is a political operative and should be treated accordingly.
I wonder if the person had been of the Blog of Arizona's political persuasion and saying crazy stuff if the Blog of Arizona would still have outed them. I doubt they would have. So now we are going to have people afraid to cross over and comment on blogs that have a differing view. So we are going to have echo chambers where only one set of ideas are presented. This is going to cause people to become even more partisan.
I think you need to reexamine what happened. We have significant evidence that there was unequal treatment. The one person who seems to have directed this unequal treatment "lost" two years of emails. Six other people involved with this have also lost their emails.
This is not the first time the IRS has targeted people with an anti IRS bent. There have been numerous times tax documents have been leaked. There is a high correlation between audits and people that were critical of the administration.
Nixon supposedly lied. I guess we will never know.
It was the Republican Congress that caused him to do this
It was the Republican Congress that caused him to do this. He blames them for everything else. He accuses them of failing to compromise, but his definition of compromise is you do what I tell you. Eventually the public may realize that Obama's definition of compromise equals capitulate.
When I was attending New College a similar thing happened. A drunk guy and girl not remembering what happened. She went to Womyn Tea. They decide she had been raped and went around collecting signatures of professors to kick him off campus. They put up signs calling him a rapist. He left.
It is not surprising to see this happening, a majority of the woman studies students believed that since it was so difficult to make an accusation of rape that there should be no trial. There is shame and judgement of the victim. They believed that the guy should be automatically guilty since only a small percentage of rapes are reported.
There were already six investigations of the IRS targeting
There were already six investigations of the IRS targeting. I saw numerous people (Jay Carney, Harry Reid, etc) make statements how one more investigation was unnecessary. That this was just a political exercise since it was throughly investigated. Well apparently none of those six investigations were through enough to uncover that they did not have all outside emails from the person at the center of the targeting. I am waiting for the apologizes from all the politicians and press that made those statements.
If they are impress by George Ws PR then they must be in awe of the Obama PR machine. His press team determines what stories most of the press covers. He uses his interviews as a carrot to have the press provide favorable coverage. He will periodically punish a media company by refusing to provide them with interviews from him and his administration. He provides the press with photos that his staff photographer took, so he determines how he is photographed in many events. He also goes around the press with a strong social media campaign.
Let's say that no money was allowed to be spent on campaigning. Then the media Comcast/NBC would have even more power by being able to chose their coverage of a candidate. Political speech would be limited to media companies. So we say ban the media from choosing the candidate. You throw the influence to the labor unions, NRA, AARP, and other groups with large member bases that can be mobilized. You are playing wack a mole with political influencers when what you really need to do is find a way to educate the public on the candidates and let them decide. We need a way to cut thru the half truths and false implications.
The problem is that most journalist have a party (team). It is fine to do these things to help your team, but if this happens to your team it is wrong. The survey picks an interesting year in 2002, which was right after 9/11/2001. There was a strong feeling of nationalism that year. I would be more interested in seeing a study that used different years.
What do you mean by paid political advertising. Can NBC do a one sided Obama interview? They are controlled by NBC which has a couple of merges they are trying to push through. Is that a political ad? If you limit paid political advertising you are then saying the only people allowed speech on candidates is the news media. Get ready for some pro media laws.
Lets start with the assumption that you can remove the money out of politics. Then the power will lie with big media corporations nbc, fox, nyt, etc. You will not be elected unless the media chooses to present you reasonably. Comcast (nbc) recently showed their power by purchasing the #2 cable service, there were few objections. If you are rich enough to buy a media outlet then you are allowed to promote your candidate without limit, if not you have a very limited voice.
It is terrible that we have such a short memory and attention span. You promise something wait a couple of years and either deny you promised it or try to change what you promised. The press is counted on to combat this sort of thing, but they rarely call politicians and companies out on this.
So you are saying you don't want her on the board, because she supported warrentless surveillance, so you will make the same argument and protest against anyone from the Obama administration when they try to get on boards of tech companies. I am sick of people claiming that they are upset about an issue when they are really just upset that the person was on the wrong team. I was involved in several groups that supported Net neutrality and when Obama was elected the groups disbanded. We still don't have net neutrality.
The guidelines also tell schools to look at race to make sure they are not disproportionally suspending african american children. The goal should be to foster a environment where kids can learn. If a child is disruptive and not interested in learning the school needs to be able to remove that child from school. Additionally, I am sure majority of students that are suspended are male, so by this logic we should take that into account and make sure we suspend an equal percentage of female.The only reason this is not mentioned is that males are not a minority (they are less than 50%, but not a minority).
On the post: President Obama Claims CIA Torture Was Okay Because People Were Scared And The CIA Is A 'Tough Job'
Re: Re: Torture never works
We intuitively know that closely held secrets would not be given up without some sort of distress. In Chinatown the director and actors decided to change the script to have Jack Nicholson slap the actress to have her confess my daughter, my sister repeatedly. They felt that it was unbelievable to just have her just come out and say it.
If you believe that torture never works there is no moral dilemma. Someone who smacked someone to get information is just a sadistic person doing it for their own enjoyment. People who allowed torture are all also sadistic people who would just smack people around for fun and cover it up.
I prefer to live in a grown up world where things have a cost and a benefit and there are tough decisions to make.
The other thing about torture is to remember that there are worse things than torture. The guy who's information led to the capture of Saddam Hussian was not tortured. His innocent family members were jailed and some may have been raped and/or killed.
On the post: How Serious Is James Clapper About Cybersecurity When His Office Can't Even Get Its SSL Certificate Right?
It is not configured for https
On the post: Kickstarter, Etsy And Dwolla All Speak Out On Net Neutrality And Why The FCC's Plan Is Dangerous To Innovation
Well said
On the post: Blogger Defends Outing Politician Trolling His Comments
Re: Rationalize away
This reminds me of when Brian Ross who is the Head of Investigative Reporting for ABC News bought the list of clients of the DC Madam (I keep hearing they do not pay for news stories). He then only released the names of Republicans, because they took a stance on morality and this made them hypocrites. If Brian Ross had been a Republican operative not a Democratic one he could have only released the names of Democrats since they have taken a stance supporting woman's rights and this made them hypocrites.
So you are either a reporter or a political operative. If you are a political operative you can behave in a partisan manner, if you are a reporter you cannot. The guy who runs this blog is a political operative and should be treated accordingly.
On the post: Blogger Defends Outing Politician Trolling His Comments
More partisan
On the post: IRS Rejects Non-Profit Status For Open Source Organization, Because Private Companies Might Use The Software
IRS supposedly target conservatives
This is not the first time the IRS has targeted people with an anti IRS bent. There have been numerous times tax documents have been leaked. There is a high correlation between audits and people that were critical of the administration.
Nixon supposedly lied. I guess we will never know.
On the post: Obama To Appoint Pharma Patent Lawyer, Who Has Fought Against Any Patent Reform, To Head Patent Office
It was the Republican Congress that caused him to do this
On the post: College Reacts To Negative Press By Attempting To Seal Court Documents Exposing Its Ridiculous Actions
Similar thing happened at New College
It is not surprising to see this happening, a majority of the woman studies students believed that since it was so difficult to make an accusation of rape that there should be no trial. There is shame and judgement of the victim. They believed that the guy should be automatically guilty since only a small percentage of rapes are reported.
On the post: IRS Claims Two Years Of Emails Were Destroyed In A 'Computer Crash;' Congressman Asks The NSA To Supply 'Missing' Email Metadata
There were already six investigations of the IRS targeting
On the post: China Learned The Tricks Of Propaganda From The Best: US Politicians & PR Industry
Impress by George W PR then in awe of Obama PR
On the post: Lessig's Anti-SuperPAC SuperPAC Raises First $1 Million In Just 12 Days
What is meant by removing money from politics?
On the post: As Government Officials Continue To Shed Trustworthiness, Journalists Continue Placing More Trust In Government Officials
Journalist are mostly partisan hacks
On the post: TV Networks Sued For Hiding Who's Buying Political Ads
Re: Re:
On the post: DOJ Morality Police May Be Behind Chase Closing Bank Accounts Of Adult Film Actors
This is a liberals list of things to stop
On the post: DOJ Morality Police May Be Behind Chase Closing Bank Accounts Of Adult Film Actors
This is a liberals list of things to stop
On the post: Larry Lessig Launches Crowdfunded SuperPAC To Try To End SuperPACs
Money out of politics
On the post: Verizon Knows You're A Sucker: Takes Taxpayer Subsidies For Broadband, Doesn't Deliver, Lobbies To Drop Requirements
Short Memory
On the post: Adding Condoleezza Rice To Dropbox's Board Seems Incredibly Tone Deaf Following NSA Concerns
Careful of the precedent
On the post: Newscasters Reenact Final Four Moments Rather Than Wait For Game Highlight Rights To Clear
Re: Re:
On the post: Administration Calls For Schools To Limit Use Of Zero Tolerance Policies, Police Officers For Routine Student Discipline
Use race as a criteria
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