Reason Morning Links: Obama Assassinates His First U.S. Citizen, Trio of Pundits Declare Chris Christie Too Fat to Be President, USPS Attacks the Internet in New Advertising Campaign

• U.S.-born al-Qaeda Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been assassinated. 
• Michael Kinsley, Henry Blodget, and Eugene Robinson all agree: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is too fat to be president. 
• From the Postal Service's new ad campaign: "'A refrigerator has never been hacked,' an announcer says in the first message as an actress pins a paper bill to her fridge."
• Feds raid Boeing factory, charge 37 with selling prescription drugs. 
• Over 4,000 federal corrections officers were investigated for misconduct last year. That's double the number who were investigaated in 2001. 
• Mother Jones refutes Jonathan Turley's L.A. Times op-ed, in which the law professor said that Obama had killed the civil liberties movement. MoJo's response? "Obama, Rule Of Law Guy"

New at Reason.tv: "Interview with Reason Cartoonist Peter Bagge"

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie is too fat to be president.

Only if he picks Bachmann as his Veep.

[Bee Tagger]

Now is as good a time as any to quote Roger Ebert (via Winston Churchill, annoyingly):

"although I am fat, one day I will be thin, but Mr. Gallo will still have been the director of The Brown Bunny."

[Mongo]

My friend walked out of the movie during the first scene.

He was junk-sick, so that could've played a part....

[Art-P.O.G.]

...both in choosing to watch the movie and in walking out.

[Troy]

Somewhere, Sasha Grey is saying, "you call that a blow job."

[Pro Libertate]

Isn't it an ADA violation for an employer (the American voters) to discriminate against a prospective employee (a presidential candidate) on the basis of his weight?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Then the ban on discrimination against the unemployed should work in Romney's benefit.

[Brett L]

Given the record of thin people in the last 50 years in this position...

[o2]

u mean NJ gov?

[Almanian]

Not if it precludes him from doing the "essentials functions" of the job. Like playing basketball at the White House.

So, no.

[Ska]

More importantly, does Christie throw like a girl?

[Art-P.O.G.]

Guy's a catcher or designated hitter the whole way.

[Pro Libertate]

Bob Horner.

[Gray Ghost]

I guess he could play 1B.

Signed, John Kruk, Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Good point.

[BakedPenguin]

Or back a little further, George Scott.

[Art-P.O.G.]

So that's why George C. Scott put the "C" in there, I take it?

[Pro Libertate]

We the people have an obligation to provide reasonable accommodations, like a lower hoop.

[SugarFree]

Feds raid Boeing factory, charge 37 with selling prescription drugs.

Maybe somebody will do what the NLRB says without a fight next time.

[Tim]

They're getting high at Boeing?

[Quetzalcoatl]

It's in the godless Northwest. They're trying to move their factory to the southeast to escape all of the dope fiends.

[alittlesense]

Umm....the factory in question is near Philadelphia.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I hear the weather is beautiful there.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, the administration is going to put a solar cell generation plant there.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Very sly. I give you much better than a Dee plus.

[cynical]

Thought that too, but the article suggests it was Boeing that called them in. Maybe that way their way of getting back at the union?

[SugarFree]

Dick move, if true, but you use the weapons you have.

[Tim]

I wouldn't my 777 assembled by some stoned union drone.

[Brett L]

Yeah, I can see how corporate liability would drive me to call in authorities if I thought evidence of turning a blind eye to perscription drug use might show up in a plane crash lawsuit.

[SugarFree]

That's what piss tests are for. If they are selling and passing the piss tests, calling in the Feds is over-kill.

Unless, of course, the unions precious "due process" contracts wouldn't allow them to fire drug dealers selling on company property unless they were charged first by law enforcement...

[Almanian]

Having had some - ahem - experience with this, in EVERY case I've been involved in, it was the cops who drove the "raid".

Could easily arrest these people at their domiciles, or the supermarket, but it's SO much easier to get them all in one place, isn't it?

Maybe that's not what happened here, but I would bet that the po po drove this, and Boeing "cooperated with the authorities".

[o2]

most likely considering oxy was involved

[db]

I have worked in several union shops where random drug testing is disallowed by the contract for union folks. These are all industrial settings where on the job intoxication could result in serious injury to self or others. Of course for us supervisors and engineers who aren't allowed to touch the controls of anything more dangerous than a laptop (which can be plenty dangerous if you're a controls engineer) random tests happen frequently. Union guys could be tested for cause only. And a s a supervisor I can tell you that the requirements to establish cause are not simple.

[o2]

i also often work in union shops where drug testing is random for everybody. so why did ur mgmt team agree to that contract provision? was there a mgmt favored quid pro quo in return?

[KDN]

I'm usually as bloodthirsty as your typical American, but the al-Awlaki thing really bugs me. Couldn't they have tried him in absentia before killing him, or is that not an option in the US? And will anyone even care?

[Quetzalcoatl]

They at least should have made an effigy and tried it in court!
It would have made for good television, if nothing else.

[gaijin97]

I visited the Huffington Post comment thread on this story. Most of the commenters are cheering Obama's success. Quite depressing to think something as basic as due process could become such a partisan issue too. I did appreciate Glen Greenwald's article on the topic at Salon though...too bad noone will see it there. http://www.salon.com/news/yeme...../30/awlaki

[sarcasmic]

These are the same people who would be calling the president a murderer if he were a member of the other party.

Show me a liberal and I'll show you a hypocrite.

[John]

That is why this stuff will continue forever. The Republicans are at least consistent. They won't say a word about Obama doing it. The Democrats have now forfeited their ability to object to a Republican doing it. So who is going to complain?

[sarcasmic]

The Democrats have now forfeited their ability to object to a Republican doing it.

No they haven't. They're hypocrites without shame.
Just wait until a Republican gets into the White House.
I bet you $20 that the war protest will restart.

[John]

They will try I am sure. But it won't pass the giggle test.

[Tony]

Only when they start another war.

[sarcasmic]

Only when they start another war.

Yeah right. Within a month of the next Republican presidency the libtards will be back out there protesting "Bush's Wars".

[o2]

tony - start but not win

[o2]

what a wonderous world u mind is. how fun for you john

[o2]

course at least u have a mind. wish i did 2

[John]

Truth hurts dipshit.

[sarcasmic]

The truth only hurts an honest person.

A liar who will never admit the truth will not be hurt by it. They will steadfastly stand by their lies and show no shame because they have none.

[Tony]

Can we still object to Republicans starting massively expensive wars that serve no purpose? Because, even though the constitutionality of Obama's methods is quite questionable, just going out and getting the terrorists seems to be a better use of resources than getting 4000 Americans killed and NOT getting the terrorists.

[John]

No Tony you can't when you start wars of your own and continue and escalate the ones you inherited. Face it Tony, Obama made a complete chump out of people like you. No one will ever take you seriously on these issues again if they ever did. I hope he at least kissed you after he took your virtue.

[Tony]

It must really piss you off that Obama got bin Laden.

[John]

Doesn't piss me off at all Tony. I am very happy with Obama's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. You will never hear me complaining about them. Of course I wasn't running around screaming "war criminal" and "no blood for oil" when Bush was in office. You were. So you kind of a problem.

[Tony]

Hey I even said Libya was about oil. I'm not happy about the increase in soldier deaths in Afghanistan. I just refuse to exonerate Bush's massive failure of a presidency by playing the false equivalency games that libertarians love so much. Bush's wars will end under Obama, and it's about time. I'd rather we not play global policeman, but since we're going to, I'd rather have a methodical president who thinks these things through rather than a guy who manufactures intelligence to start an unnecessary war. It's always a choice between two evils.

[Trespassers W]

I'd rather we not play global policeman, but since we're going to

"Whoops, how'd that happen?"

[oncogenesis]

It must really piss you off that Obama got bin Laden.

It must really piss you off that Reagan defeated communism.

[Osama Bin Laden]

Tony - I'm not dead. If I am PROVE IT

[This is exactly where BUsh III]

would have been, exactly the same strategies were being developed by Bush's generals who are now Obama's generals. Stop apologizing for Obama's bloody hands.

[The Idol-Worshipping...]

...Neo-Progressive's defense of Bloody Barry is now reduced to, "Well, the Republicans would be worse." A couple of years ago, that was plausible argument. Today it is not clear that McCain would have been worse or any of the warmongering Republican candidates today would be worse....

[Restoras]

Do you mean the massively expensive wars that the democrats wholely endorsed and have been continued by the current Democrat in residence at the White House? Sure, sure you can Tony.

[Tony]

I'm about sick of "nonpartisan" libertarians freethinkers who can't tell the difference between Bush and Obama on foreign policy, almost as if they have a stake in shifting the blame for Bush's massive, massive failures.

Sort of how national debt is suddenly all on Obama even though Bush caused the large bulk of it.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Um, what? Ha ha, drink, Tony, drink. If you're not a sockpuppet, that is.

[John]

Obama ran up more debt in two years than Bush did in eight. How is Bush responsible for the bulk of it?

And I am sorry if Iraq was an immoral illegal war in 2007, it still is in 2011. And Obama owns it after three years just like Bush did. Face it you fucked up, you trusted him.

[Tony]

No he didn't. In terms of new policies, Bush's contributed far more to the debt: the wars, the tax cuts, and his part of the recession response add up to more than 3 times the amount of new spending under Obama.

Iraq was immoral in 2007 and remains so, that doesn't mean I expected Obama to snap his fingers and end it on Jan 20, 2009 or else he gets equal blame. He opposed it from the beginning, and he's responsibly ending it.

[Libtoidz]

dont call us gop...just cause we vote gop...& quote gop radio entertainerz

[Restoras]

Then leave, Tony. You and your bad faith, it's-ok-when-team-blue-does-it!!1! bullshit won't be missed.

[Tony]

You just don't get me. I simply despise the false equivalence fallacy, as it serves to exonerate the worse offender, and that is almost always Republicans on any topic.

[sarcasmic]

I simply despise the false equivalence fallacy

Then why do you use it so much?

Example 1) limited government = no government
Example 2) libertarianism = anarchism
Example 3) criticism of Obama = support of Bush

Your actions make you a liar and a hypocrite.

[Tony]

If you don't want me to mistake you for anarchists then stop making the argument that taxation=theft.

[sarcasmic]

If you don't want me to mistake you for anarchists then stop making the argument that taxation=theft.

Recognizing that taxation is theft does not make one an anarchist.

Thank you for providing yet another example of the false equivalence fallacy that you accuse others of using as you energetically employ it yourself.

Hypocrite.

[Tony]

Either taxation (hence government) is justifiable or it's not. You seem to want it both ways: your OK with certain functions of government, but anyone who thinks it should have other functions is an immoral socialist.

[sarcasmic]

your OK with certain functions of government, but anyone who thinks it should have other functions is an immoral socialist.

Government is where you go to seek justice. For example someone steals your property for the purpose of giving it to someone else. That is an injustice. Government is duty bound to help you get your stuff back and punish the guy who stole it.
What do you do when it is government who is taking your stuff for the purpose of giving it to someone else*?
Do you not see the contradiction?

*There is a distinction between government taking money to pay a member of government to execute a legitimate duty of government - military and courts come to mind - and government taking money so some unemployed cocksucker can buy lottery tickets.

[Restoras]

I get you, Tony. I used to be just like you, so I know exactly where you are coming from.

[sarcasmic]

I used to be just like you, so I know exactly where you are coming from.

I too once felt as Tony does.
Now I think differently.

[Azathoth]

I too once felt as Tony does.
Now I think.

FTFY

[congress critters]

"You just don't get me."
Yes we do, shithead: You're a lying, sleazy hypocrite.
See? We got your number.

[Skr]

Which American citizen did Bush jr assassinate?

[wareagle]

when someone deliberately targets American citizens for mass killings, it's time we stop referring to him as "an American citizen". Citizenship can be stripped or we can just call Awlaki waht he was - a traitor. The penalty for treason is death.

[oncogenesis]

The penalty for treason is death.

Treason must be proved in a court of law, not merely alleged in the popular media.

[Oh, I can tell the difference.]

And the difference is disturbing in its similarity -- style not overall content -- Obama has totally embraced the overt and covert military expansionist policies of Bush and taken them to new levels...

So go get sick and puke in disgust -- it is the dissonance of what you desire your Pretty Barry to be and the reality of the Violent, Warmongering, Class-Envy Barry that is making you sick....

[Tony]

Yeah Obama has taken the Bush approach and the legal reality post-Bush and applied it in a smart and effective way, less the recklessness and incompetence of his predecessor. Anyone claim it's utopia? It's just better.

[Tony]

Plus Obama's not stupid enough to ask permission from Congress before he starts a useless war.

He's president, he should get to kill whoever he wants.

[Alex]

So in other words, he did all the same things that Bush did that you used to complain about, but he did them "smartly," therefore giving you a means to differentiate between the two. You can keep complaining about Bush, while defending Obama when he does the same things, b/c you've convinced yourself that he's doing things "smartly!"

You are truly a POS. And it is POS's like you, on both sides of the aisle, that turn out in droves come election time to pull the lever for their party, whether or not their party is actually doing things they talk about doing.

[Tony]

I've not expressed support for anything Obama's done, I'm just saying he's the better choice between the only 2 choices we get.

I don't think any president, no matter how smart, should have the powers that the Bushies gave themselves. But they're there now and probably not going away soon, so what does that leave you?

[Mr. FIFY]

Why can't we blame Bush AND Obama, Tony?

[Pro Libertate]

Even discounting the odd disconnect created by partisan mindlessness, we've been killing al Qaeda number twos, threes, whatever for a decade. Most of those happened under Bush. So the left now loves Bush?

[John]

Remember the kittens the left had when back under Bush we used a drone to kill some guy, I forget who, talking on his cell phone in his car in Yemen? Now they are cheering this?

[o2]

"they" is wingnutism

[John]

Use words that mean something.

[not really O2]

Wingnutz on your chizzin, beeyotch.

[gaijin97]

Exactly. It just seems that there would be some clearly demarcated line most people would see when we speak in terms of American citizens...you know, US. Heck, even most of the headlines I've seen this morning refer to this guy as 'American born' rather than American Citizen. Just depressing.

[ma]

He was an American citizen who was also a citizen of Yemen. He was not just some ordinary citizen walking around in a foreign country. He was the head of terrorist organization that had been committing acts of war against us. How would they have tried him, anyway?

[sloopyinca]

Convene grand jury.
Grand jury indicts.
File charges in federal court.
Try in absentia.
Reach verdict.
Pass sentence.
Request extradition...or go get him like he was Eichmann.
Stick his pathetic ass in general population.

[torture]

oops - dont forget fruit of the poisoned tree means no trialz

[wareagle]

right..let's pretend he was just a common bank robber or a hyper-Crip. Then we can feel better because we showed the world our moral superiority and the wonder of our system vs anyone else's. Sorry, this guy was a traitor; treason carries a death sentence.

[oncogenesis]

Sorry, this guy was a traitor; treason carries a death sentence.

Thank you for your service, Judge Dredd.

[ma]

Given that it took 7 years to even find Bin Laden, trying to capture this guy would have extended the hunt perhaps another decade. By then, who knows how much damage he could do.

[gaijin97]

How would they have tried him, anyway?

Military tribunal. In absentia. Kidnap him and extraordinarily rendition him to a court in Alaska...or Gitmo? They didn't even make an effort as far as I can tell..

[Art-P.O.G.]

So this al-Awlaki guy never renounced his citizenship? If what they say about him is true, what a douche.

[Pro Libertate]

He loved America. He just wanted Allah to love America, too.

[Gray Ghost]

Do it in absentia if you have to. Appoint someone from the Federal defender's office; they're supposed to be quite competent at their jobs. I'm sure they've got someone who can get the clearances necessary to have put up a defense for Al-Awalki.

Just have some process for killing an American citizen beyond that of, "The President wants him dead." For Christ's sake, we didn't kill Terry Nichols, or Eric Rudolph, or Ted Kaczynski, and they actually killed people. If there's evidence Al-Awalki killed anyone or conspired in a plot that killed people, then show it in a trial. And then you can blow him into a million pieces.

But you need to have some due process. Or else, conceivably, the next time it could be you.

[Tulpa]

Do it in absentia if you have to. Appoint someone from the Federal defender's office; they're supposed to be quite competent at their jobs. I'm sure they've got someone who can get the clearances necessary to have put up a defense for Al-Awalki.

I understand the frustration but trials in absentia would be an even worse precedent. It would violate the right to confront one's accusers and assist in one's defense.

[Gray Ghost]

I understand the frustration but trials in absentia would be an even worse precedent. It would violate the right to confront one's accusers and assist in one's defense.

Issue the indictment and swear out a warrant against him. Serve the warrant by publication (hard to get a process server into the backwoods of Yemen). Give him a reasonable period of time to make himself available for trial, or to try and quash the indictment. After that time, then hold the trial, publicly if possible. By not showing up, he's waiving his rights to confront his accusers and to assist in his defense.

Even in the case of olde-tymey pirates, we still either dragged their asses back to port for trial (William Kidd) or conducted a masthead court-martial. Issue letters of marque if you have to, but have some process that goes beyond the President's say-so. Once you get a public death warrant, then you can go try and capture or kill him. Of course, none of the stuff he's accused of (unless he actually was an operational planner) would be crimes that carry the death penalty.

I am sympathetic to RC's point of view, that this is war and he's an AQ member, and we get to kill AQ members where ever we find them. But I can't get behind the idea that an American citizen can be killed from a secret, unappealable committee marking them for death without due process of law. It's just too ripe for abuse, and can lead to situations like those kinnath was describing.

[Gray Ghost]

I understand that Crosby v. U.S., 506 U.S. 255 (1993) prohibits trials in absentia, due to Fed. Rule of Crim. Pro. 43 prohibiting them, especially in capital cases. It's a unanimous Blackmun opinion, FWIW. While it's pre-9/11, there was certainly concern at the time over terrorism and the inability to adequately deal with terrorists via the courts.

I'd be o.k. with Congress going back and changing the Rule to allow them in cases like this. We can argue later as to the exact parameters of "cases like this."

And I think that opening the door to allowing trial in absentia is still less of a concern than killing him without due process in the first place.

[Tulpa]

Changing the rule may not remedy the constitutional issues. The "fair notice" provision you propose is the weak point that could be abused (as it is in other cases like paternity declarations, etc). It's hard to guarantee that a person really was aware that they were indicted if you don't serve process.

[kinnath]

According the link above, the executee was clearly a bad guy with potential connections to multiple crimes committed in the US post 9/11.

But there's no evidence he had anything to do with 9/11 or the people that planned, supported, or executed 9/11.

Executing the guy without due process ten years after 9/11 because he's tied to an offshoot of AQ is bullshit.

[affenkopf]

ry. He was the head of terrorist organization that had been committing acts of war against us.

Evidence?

[Kill Kill Kill Kill]

The Obama way -- "Killers Without Borders". Reserve the right to kill anywhere on earth, anytime with nothing required but a nod of Barack's head (will domestic assassinations be acceptable tomorrow?) Take no prisoners. Civilian casualties are acceptable as long as they don't make the news.

[Kill Kill Kill Kill]

And there will be NO BLOW-BACK. After all this is Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Laureate.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Though, to be fair, I think that even the Committee now realizes that was a mistake.

[Lost_In_Translation]

good 'ole AQ "whack-a-mole"

[Colin]

Of course, if a Republican had done it, it would've been murder.

[o2]

no it wouldnt

[02 in 2005]

George Bush is a murderer for doing drone strikes!!

[02 in 2005]

George Bush is a murderer for doing drone strikes!!

[teh rael o2]

nope - i supported team boosch's drone strikes AND obama's expanded use. VERY effective weapon in asymmetrical warfare

[bosty]

Obama, Rule of Law Guy!

[John Thacker]

Especially if the person in question is against the death penalty.

If life without parole is much preferable to the death penalty, then presumably assassination by drone is way worse than capturing and indefinite detention, or even waterboarding.

[kinnath]

Someone chastised me earlier in September when I said I knew the US was going to morph into the Soviet Union when I watched the second tower come down.

Well, we now have a president that says he can arrest US citizens on US soil and hold them forever without filing charges or even explaing to a US judge why the person is being held.

And as of today, the president has killed a US citizen on foreign soil without providing a single shred of evidence to a US judge that this person was a grave and immediate danger to anyone anywhere in the world.

Shameful

[02 in 2005]

Yeah but. Back in the 19th Century we used to hang pirates at sea. I would imagine we did that regardless of their citizenship. I don't see how this is any different. That doesn't make it right. But it is hardly unprecedented.

[SugarFree]

wez hangd prieats at c so obama safe frum [WINGNUTZ]

FTFY

[not really O2]

tone down the comma usage, periods, and grammar

i will 2

[teh rael o2]

spoof FAILZ ! i agree w that

[John]

Since Obama is doing it, of course you do.

[o2]

no, i will always support killing terrorist enemies of the USA

[Underpants Gnome]

If the government sets a precedent for assassinating US citizen terrorists, what happens when they expand the definition of "terrorist"? As long as public opinion is generally with them/oblivious, they have a free pass to pick targets for assassination?

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

It's only a matter of time before the "terrorists" are being whacked on U.S. soil and the drones will be overhead constantly to "keep us safe".

[o2]

the border patrol already uses drones

[Tony]

I wouldn't mind if he started with some of the free market terrorists in the Tea Party.

[Mr. FIFY]

No due process for "free market terrorists", Tony?

Nice. Way to be consistent.

[kinnath]

My handle is the anglicization of an old Irish celtic name.

So if I donate $50 to help Irish orphans but it turns out the charity is a front for the IRA,then:

If I reside in the US, then I can be arrested and held without charges until the end of time for providing material support to a terrorist organization.

If I reside in Ireland (as an expat contract engineer), then I can be shot and killed on the president's order without any judicial review, including the review of a military tribunal.

It doesn't matter if Anwar al-Awlaki was merely supplied aid and comfort to a terrorist organization or was actively plotting an attack against the US. His assassination is a complete and utter repudiation of the Constitution of the United States of America.

[wareagle]

nice bastardization of the point. No, if you to the Muslim widows and orphans fund, that is considered charity. But, if you plan the killing of Americans AND carry American citizenship, we call that treason.

[kinnath]

This is exactly the fucking point.

The specific target of this execution is not the fucking point.

[kinnath]

You know the proper process for treason is to arrest, try, and execute (if convicted) the person commiting treason right. We don't have the president send an execution squad to kill whomever the president decides is a future threat to the country.

[Dept of Homeland Security]

Blast it! Now we need to set up another Emanuel Goldstein! Those guys don't work cheap you know!

What, you thought you'd get your civil liberties back? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Tulpa]

I don't think you can try people in absentia in the US, as the accused has the right to confront his accuser and assist in his defense. The only way the trial can go on without the accused present is if he has to be removed for disrupting the trial proceedings. You can definitely indict in absentia though (as was done with OBL a few times).

[KDN]

That was my thought on the matter as well (a good idea but constitutionally dubious), but I'm not very knowledgeable on legal matters. I know a few lawyers hang around here, was hoping for an educated response.

[hacker]

'A refrigerator has never been hacked,'

That sounds like a challenge, post office. I hope you like your lunches warm.

[Pro Libertate]

You're no hacker. A real hacker would've said "Challenge accepted." He also wouldn't have called himself a hacker.

[Fatty Bolger]

He would be wearing a V mask, too. They all do. I know this because I watch network news.

[Tim]

See also " Chris Christie too fat"

[The Other Kevin]

A real hacker would have just done the job, and left "cracked by Bluebeard" on the fridge.

[Brett L]

So breaking in and stealing the bill off of the fridge counts, right?

[Auric Demonocles]

No burglar has ever taken something off a fridge?

[Trespassers W]

Let's all pretend that mailboxes have never been hacked.

[Skr]

Yeah but mail has been stolen before it even gets to the fridge so....

[Mike Laursen]

So, their ad campaign emphasizes that they're the guys who deliver all those bills you've gotta pay? Am I getting that right?

[Mike Laursen]

I actually had a chance to see their ads. The one about billing is aimed towards the businesses who are doing the billing, not the people receiving them. So, I guess it's not such a bad ad as long as they make sure it's only seen by business people. If they show it on broadcast TV, maybe not such a good idea.

Have to say, their other ad, "Face to Face", is exactly the one I would have made if I had to bolster the USPS's image.

[John]

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/25/.....rth-dakota

This is a big deal

Two years ago, America was importing about two thirds of its oil. Today, according to the Energy Information Administration, it imports less than half. And by 2017, investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts the US could be poised to pass Saudi Arabia and overtake Russia as the world's largest oil producer. Places like Williston are the reason why."

[Pope Jimbo]

Just got back from a hunting trip in the Teddy Roosevelt Natl. Grasslands last week. It is amazing how many oil wells they have put into the area.

I'm completely torn about the development. It is great that they can get the oil out economically, but it stinks that they have to put in so many sites. It has really affected the wild life. Sharp tailed grouse and mule deer are way down (a couple bad winters have also hurt the populations) because they normally like to stay away from human activity.

We talked to a game warden who was pretty blunt in the fact that the Fish & Game department has been told that game populations are down solely because of the bad winters and not at all by any drilling. He said that it is very clear that there will be no disparagement of drilling.

I understand that a lot of people are making money at this and am happy for them, but I do miss my hunting trips to a very wild and remote area. I guess I'll have to start driving further and going to eastern Montana soon.

[Pope Jimbo]

Shorter me: NIMFHS (not in my favorite hunting spot)

[John]

There are plenty of mule deer in Kansas and Nebraska. And I see what you mean. But, hey we ought to drill. And I bet the drilling isn't as hard on the wildlife as the birdomatic wind turbines the greens love so much.

[Restoras]

I understand, but in the end you can't eat scenery. Your hunting trips don't stimulate enough economic activity to provide food, clothing, or shelter for the locals. Just sayin'.

[Pope Jimbo]

The locals were doing fine before, there just weren't a lot of them.

Hunting was a huge chunk of change in the local area in the early 2000's. With the economy booming, hunters came from all over and started paying for access to ranches. When the economy dried up, that went away.

During the last trip, if we wore orange and people recognized us as hunters, the locals were very nice. If they thought we were oil workers, we got treated like crap.

The locals were fine before and are somewhat resentful of the newcomers. Typical of boom towns, I know.

[Restoras]

Well, when the economy isn't booming what then? Eat grass? Wouldn't it be better to develop an economy with better resilience?

[teh rael o2]

wingnutz know better than restoras...despite never having been to the grasslandz like restoras. so listen & learn restoras since u couldnt possibly know what u know. >pure wingnutism

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Just curious. Have YOU ever been anywhere you couldn't reach by mass transit?

[Jon Schaffer`s Right Hand]

Clearly we'd all be much happier living in caves and mud huts, gathering berries and running down antelopes, barely scraping together enough food to survive, and otherwise gamboling through the forest. That's what we should do instead of drill for oil.

[o2]

false either/or. typical wingnutism

[Pope Jimbo]

Restoras before the boom the local economy was built around ranching and some farming. There weren't a lot of people, but those who were there did OK.

The original locals are all people who liked the way things were. Very rural, very slow paced, etc. Now things have changed dramatically. Oil trucks are roaring around and there are people everywhere.

If oil dropped back down to $20/barrel tomorrow the oil workers would be screwed, but the original residents would be fine.

If you ever get out west, skip the SD badlands and go to Medora instead. Way less touristy and every bit as beautiful. Great place to really see the west.

[Restoras]

Will do, PJ; I would like to see that part of the country someday. Thanks for your civil commentary.

[Pope Jimbo]

What? Are you trying to destroy my Reason-cred? I swear I will be more uncivil next time!

[free2booze]

While your driving out to Eastern Montana, think about the effect of high energy prices on the those in poverty.

Poverty kills. Increasing the production of cheap, efficient energy sources reduces poverty, and raises standards of living. So, take your pick, deer or people?

[Pope Jimbo]

Free, I think you misunderstand me. I'm not in any way suggesting that they don't drill and get the tasty oil out of the Bakken reserve. I'm just lamenting that it is screwing up my life. I know that is selfish, but that is me.

Also, I'd take deer over people. They fend for themselves, they don't cause too many problems and you can shoot them without running afoul of the law.

[Madbiker]

Also, I'd take deer over people. They fend for themselves, they don't cause too many problems and you can shoot them without running afoul of the law.

If H&R had a 'like' button, I'd hit it for this quote.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Shhhhhhh!
You'll give them ideas!

[FlyoverCountry]

Fuck deer, man. Rats of the prairie is all they are. I've been trying to develop a poison salt block that I can set up to kill the fuckers who keep eating my corn.

Also, you are, like, 10 times more likely to be killed by a deer than a shark. I read that on facebook, so I know that it's true. Fucking deer.

[BakedPenguin]

I was talking to a co-worker from Pittsburgh who said that the deer around there were actually getting into people's backyards. Can anyone from PA vouch for that, or was it an exaggeration?

[Quetzalcoatl]

That whole area of the country is going back to nature.

[BakedPenguin]

I found it surprising, but I've never been there. She still wanted to move back there (if she or her husband could find a job, that is).

[Pope Jimbo]

BP,

In sunny Minnesota they are everywhere. The whitetails that run around my suburban neighborhood are the reason my wife changed her mind on hunting.

She spent the first summer we lived in our house toiling in a garden. Days before she was ready to harvest a couple of deer helped themselves to her crop.

She was not pleased and no longer thought of them as cute woodland creatures.

[Lucy Steigerwald]

Um, isn't that where deer usually are?

I'm from Pittsburgh and I literally don't understand the question.

[Tulpa]

Pittsburgh is a little weird as it's more a loosely connected set of neighborhoods than a city. The terrain is such that there are corridors of steep land that run between populated areas, and obviously no one wants to build on that so it reverts to forest. So I can definitely see deer venturing a little outside the forest corridor onto someone's land if they think there's something tasty there.

Though I was incredibly surprised to see a fox walking down the sidewalk on Blvd of the Allies last night (darted into the forest as soon as it detected me though)

[deluded1]

I live in Philly suburbs, and my greatest danger every morning is deer. West and south of Valley forge? Looks like everyone has an archery target out front. And the bastards keep eating my hops plants!

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Someone please send Flyover some deer jerky. I'm all out right now.

[BakedPenguin]

Wow. Thanks, Keystoners (& Pope Jimbo). On the one hand, I can definitely see how that would be very annoying. On the other, deer feeding on backyard grass and vegetable gardens would probably not be gamey. Of course, I'd have to imagine that there are some pretty tough hunting or gun laws there, or they'd clear out pretty quick.

[Skr]

Maybe they don't cause too many problems in Montana, but back east they are vermin.

[Pope Jimbo]

Skr, they are vermin in Montana too. I was once kicked off a ranch by a rancher for not shooting enough deer.

He let us sit on his hay bales one afternoon with the direction to "kill every one of them you see." We chuckled and thought he was joking.

When we saw him later he asked how many we had shot. When we told him we only shot two he was stunned. He couldn't believe we had only seen two. When we explained that we had only seen two worth shooting, he got mad and said "Boys, don't bother asking me if you can hunt on my land anymore."

Most years eastern Montana is dry as dust and the deer eat the hay the ranchers buy for their cattle and the ranchers don't take kindly to that.

[Skr]

Ok the ranchers position mirrors my own. Lol

[KDN]

You can shoot them without running afoul of the law?

Not in NJ. A friend of mine was able to buy a deli at a rather deflated price thanks to the stupidity of the local hunter tat used to own the place.

[Pro Libertate]

It's funny, but most Americans seem unaware that the United States is one of the great oil nations and has been for a long time. Sure, they know we have oil, but they think we're a small producer.

Of course, the truth is that we consume all that we produce and much more.

[Mo]

I think that's because we hit peak oil production in the 1970s. We used to produce over 10 mbpd, now we're at 2 mbpd.

[John]

That apparently is changing.

[Mo]

Unless we quintuple oil production, it's not going to change. There may be a lot of oil still underground, but we got all of the easy stuff. It's a lot harder and more expensive to get the stuff out of the ground now.

[John]

Sure it is more expensive. Prices are higher. But that doesn't change the fact that, at least according to Goldman Sachs, the US will be the number on oil producer again in 2017. Clearly, we are going to be producing a lot more oil.

[Mo]

That's partly due to the fact that Russia and Saudi Arabia are coming down. Unless we hit another Prudhoe Bay, we're not likely to get back to our old highs.

Also, It looks like the first source I read appeared to be wrong. We're down to 5 mbpd production, not 2. Either way, the estimate for our growth is that we get up to 8 in 2017. This is great news, but still well short of the top.

[Pro Libertate]

It's not just because of production. We're also a major, major potential source of oil. That's still true.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Umm, bullshit, we produce around 6-7 mmbpd

[Spoonman.]

Of course, New York State is doing the right thing for its citizens by forbidding fracking in Western New York. It's not like there isn't plenty of other economic activity for its residents there to engage in.

(If you've ever been to western NY, you know this is a lie.)

[KDN]

What are you talking about? Buffalo is a wonderful, vibrant place with a rosy future, and certainly not Detroit-on-Niagra.

[shorter spoonman]

darn local controlz

[Spoonman.]

Local control is property owners deciding what happens on their land, not crunchy self-righteous assholes in Ithaca preventing poor people in Trumansburg from getting a productive source of income.

[shorter spoonman]

damn state controlz

[Quetzalcoatl]

At least it's not Cleveland on Niagara.

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Or worse - Cleveland on Viagra.

[steve]

or Milwaukie on Viagra

[Tulpa]

Uh, yes, it is. But at least the Bills are 3-0.

[Auric Demonocles]

Hey! Ithaca has...well, it's got Cornell. That's something.

[Spoonman.]

Which is why the smug Ithacans can afford to eschew fracking. Their neighbors are not so lucky.

[Auric Demonocles]

When I was there last year I saw a bunch of people in swimsuits covering themselves in chocolate sauce and getting in my way as I tried to get lunch. Later I found out they were protesting fracking. Stupid liberal arts majors.

[Restoras]

Aren't we sitting on vast reserves of natural gas as well, that we can't tap because of the greenies? Apparently it's better, or at least ok, for other countries to engage in energy production but not us. We don't need no stinkin' jobz! And yeah, let's send our moeny overseas to whackjobs that want to kill us. Brilliant.

[John]

And of course it is better to buy our oil from places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia where the money is put to so much good.

[Pope Jimbo]

A lot. In fact ND also has the only commercial sized coal gassification plant.

It is cool that the ND tourism department actually has a list of big energy projects to go visit. Especially since they list the wind turbines and Garrison dam way at the bottom after the cool mines and gas plants.

Which brings me to another question, why doesn't ND greenlight the construction of a couple new refineries around Beulah? Instead they are planning on pipeline all the way down to New Orleans. I don't get that.

[BakedPenguin]

To be fair, the Dakotas are one of the few places where wind farms actually make sense. > 20 mph winds blowing nearly constantly makes them economically viable.

Now if they could just stop killing all the birds.

[Michelle Casings]

On wind turbines:

They are not built in the path of migratory birds. USF&W will not issue Incidental Take permits to build in those areas.

At least twice as many birds (~1B) are killed flying into windows every year. Just last week I picked up a dead (formerly migrating) gold-rumped warbler off of the Nicollet Mall in Mpls, just a fer blocks form the Mississippi River. The same thing probably happend that day in Memphis, NO, Davenport, etc...

Disclaimer: I am an avid birder, but wind does make sense in ND when sited properly and if the towers are built very high.

http://www.awea.org/newsroom/p.....021511.cfm

[Quetzalcoatl]

As a matter of general interest: what is a birder?
Do you:
-watch them through binoculars
-kill and eat them
-husband them
-all of the above

[skr]

birder = birdwatcher, but that is not mutually exclusive with the latter possibilities.

[o2]

of course we are tapping our natural gas. pure agiprop

[o2]

but enuf about my flatlns flatlnce flatylonce farts

[Restoras]

Technically, you're right, we do drill for natural gas. We just can't drill for all of it, thanks to greenie dooshbags like yourself.

[o2]

u mean thanks to local property owners w flaming water

[sevo]

No, we mean sleazy liars like you.

[o2]

so o2 stopped fracking? there's no fracking anymore, anywhere? >pure wingnutism

[skr]

flaming water would be from crappy wellheads not the fracking part.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Trillions (granted he's speaking of the entire US and not just Bakken)?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp

Not saying Snopes is correct, but the conflicting numbers make me skeptical.

[cynical]

Can't be true. We all know that Obama banned all oil drilling because he's trying to destroy the U.S.

[fat American]

"New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is too fat to be president. "

I think he's down to Earth, a man of the people, someone I can relate to.

[Bee Tagger]

I think he's down to Earth

He's so down to Earth, ships use him as an anchor, right?

[Karl Hungus]

Anchors use him as their ship.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Fat floats.

[Tim]

Kirstie Alley could be his VP. SHe bring the neurotic women and the trekkies.

[Bee Tagger]

And the talking babies.

[Pro Libertate]

Isn't she thin now?

[Tim]

Wait for it.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Ish.

[Zeb]

It wasn't fat, just a lot of extra Thetans.

[Jon Schaffer`s Right Hand]

[BakedPenguin]

What Jon's Hand said! Dammit!

[gaijin97]

He certainly has experience dealing with weighty matters.

[Quetzalcoatl]

He has the required gravitas.

[AblueSilkworm]

+ 300lbs

[Sparky]

He could certain throw his weight around.

[Tulpa]

One advantage Christie would have is that every comedian in America would support him for president, if only for the joke opportunity.

I don't get SNL's love for Obama, seeing as how he's basically off limits to mockery.

[Pro Libertate]

He is? He's exceedingly mockable.

[cynical]

True. They just have to hire Michael Richards as a cast member.

[Bee Tagger]

Over 4,000 federal corrections officers were investigated for misconduct last year. That's double the number who were investigaated in 2001.

That's a lot of investigator jobs created or saved.

[Quetzalcoatl]

So Christie's weight is a problem because the President needs to set a good example? That seems a little silly... healthy children should have several role models that come before the President. As should adults.

But Obama's nicotine habit never got in the way of his campaign.

[Karl Hungus]

But Obama's nicotine habit never got in the way of his campaign.

Easier to hide.

[sloopyinca]

Especially when the media agrees not to print a picture of him sneaking a smoke and not to ever ask him about it.*

*yet those corn-dog head job pics of every team red member they could find pop up on front pages across the country.

[Karl Hungus]

I assume you're referring to the Bachmann pic? I love that pic.

My thinking is, if you're not savvy enough to confine your corndog fellating to places safe from telephoto lenses, you don't deserve to hold office. Especially if you're not a Dem, as you know the press won't help you bury it.

[Pro Libertate]

She was hitting on all the men in the U.S.

[Karl Hungus]

The practiced ease with which she dislocated her jaw to get the whole thing in . . . nothing short of breathtaking.

[Pro Libertate]

Presidential, really.

[o2]

that's why obama quit smoking. when's christie losing the fatz ?

[Fatty Bolger]

A couple of years after winning the election, if he follows Obama's example.

[o2]

christie's montage on politico sez "no, no, no"

[Monty]

Has the O really quit smoking?

[Fatty Bolger]

Only the Secret Service knows for sure.

[o2]

i'll take christie at his word, word, word...

[Quetzalcoatl]

Nope. They just stopped photographing him doing it.

[Tulpa]

Yeah, the same way FDR quit being crippled.

[Obama's Cigarettes]

Then why am I in his jacket?

[Quetzalcoatl]

So Christie's weight is a problem because the President needs to set a good example? That seems a little silly... healthy children should have several role models that come before the President. As should adults.

But Obama's nicotine habit never got in the way of his campaign.

[SugarFree]

New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie is too fat to be president.

The New York Times has a height/weight breakdown of Presidential races back to McKInley.

[Bee Tagger]

Dole is jackin' it in his photo. He never stops shilling for Viagra, does he?

[Mo]

Amazing that we've only had 2 presidents over two bills since Taft. It's especially surprising because of the high proportion of guys > 6 feet tall.

[BakedPenguin]

Huh? Obama, Reagan, Clinton, Bush I, LBJ, FDR.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Unless by "Bill" he means the unit of weight measurement standardized as "the weight of one WJClinton".

[Isaac Bartram]

They were all over 6' but under 200#, which goes to Mo's point.

I agree, with so many 6'+ guys, I'd've expected more porkers.

[Isaac Bartram]

Whoops, sory, except for Clinton at 230.

I think he managed to drop a little after his bypass. Probably still over 2C though.

[Isaac Bartram]

And LBJ at 200, but Mo said over 200.

And, I'm prety sure 200 is OK for 6'-3".

I may have hated LBJ but he never looked like a fatso.

[BakedPenguin]

Oops. Misconstrued Mo's post.

[sloopyinca]

Did FDR need protected class status to become President? If not, then the ADA is a scam.

[Apatheist]

Um, that FDR silhouette is nice bit of historical revisionism isn't it?

[Isaac Bartram]

What FDR needed was to have the media completely ignore his disability and later on his health in general.

There's no way the Democratic Party of 1932 would have nominated a cripple if they didn't have an assurance that reporters would keep quiet about how badly the polio had ravaged him. And no way the voters would have elected him either.

And there's no way the voters in 1940 and 44 would have elected him if they had known how sick he was.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Short people got no business....

[rac3rx]

I'm guessing the Al Gore weight is what he was back in 2000? Because these days I'm thinking Gore would be more...ahem...Taftesque.

[Cornpone]

Some of those heights are dubious. Dubya is 6 foot? Bill Clinton at 6'2"? Maybe on their best days after a good swim and wearing dress shoes.

[JW]

Mother Jones refutes Jonathan Turley's L.A. Times op-ed, in which the law professor said that Obama had killed the civil liberties movement. MoJo's response? "Obama, Rule Of Law Guy"

The Onion won't take kindly to this level of competition.

[Fist of Etiquette]

So once Congress adjusted statutes late in the Bush years to kind of retroactively approve what the government had been doing, the rule of law concerns sharply diminished. But the civil libertarian concerns remained. Now we know that Obama was not the civil libertarian many of his supporters hoped he would be; he was just a rule of law guy.

Exactly. Candidate Obama would never have suggested that closing Gitmo was necessary if Congress had passed an official resolution declaring the prison essential. President Obama should stop trying to close it and focus on getting legislation passed making Gitmo mandatory.

[Tim]

All these years I've been pronouncing it Baggy when it's Bag.

[JW]

Michael Kinsley, Henry Blodget, and Eugene Robinson all agree:

If that's not an anti-proxy, I don't know what is..

[SugarFree]

Sometimes, I'm just so goddamn proud to be an American...

Sex Toy Company Launching Vibrator into Space

[gaijin97]

If a vibrator vibrates in a vacuum...does anybody feel it?

[Gibby]

I mentioned the other morning that my cat is named Twister. A day or two later I saw a vibrator ad on TV from the Trojan people. They named their vibrator after my cat. That is some influence she exerts on the marketplace.

[Gibby]

I would just ad that I wouldn't want my cat anywhere near my junk.

[Abdul]

True Story--I went to college with the guy who patented a "Rocketeer" themed sex toy. Who would have thought that there was a market niche for milque-toast faux steampunk movie rip-off sex toys?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

If it involves a 20-something Jennifer Connelly, I'm all for it.

[Tim]

How much thrust does it develop?

[Pro Libertate]

In all seriousness, when Bigelow or one of the other private space hotel companies is operating in space, what will many space tourists being doing up there? Let's say you stay for three days. Easily a day will be spent looking out the window. The next two days will be spent in zero gravity activities, or I don't know humanity.

[SugarFree]

LEO is for lovers.

[Pope Jimbo]

what does dunphy and his brothers in blue have to do with sex in space?

[SugarFree]

Don't our brave police officers deserve a long weekend of zero gravity grab-ass, free of the homophobic judgments of ungrateful civilians that can't understand the pressure they are under?

[Destrudo]

[L]ow [E]arth [O]rbit

[Pro Libertate]

[L]asting [E]rections in [O]rbit.

[Pro Libertate]

I wonder if microgravity environments have any health benefits? You always hear about the dangers of long-term exposure to space (obviously, one doesn't literally get exposed to space, as that would be measured in a very short term for most of us).

For commercial purposes, less sagging for sure. Maybe less erectile dysfunction? I can think of some more pornographic implications, but I'll leave those to my esteemed colleague, SugarFree.

[SugarFree]

The problem is inertia. A thrust inward is impetus away for both bodies. And traction is helpful for many maneuvers. And the--ahem--fluid dynamics involved.

I bet low-gravity sex (say 1/6) is probably superior to zero gravity sex.

[Pro Libertate]

Impart a slow spin to the orbital whoretels and voil

[SugarFree]

Assuming people can be properly trained to handle the Coriolis effect during cunnilingus.

Which would be a great name for a space porno: The Coriolis Effect.

[db]

Bungees. Space-sex bungees.

[Pro Libertate]

SpaceX. Space Sex. Huh.

[skr]

You know ProLib, I read that as "impart a slow spin to the orbital whore." Yeah, I think that could solve the reciprocal thrust issue.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Once again, private company engineers do what the government's NASA scientists could not: find the Gr?fenberg Spot.

Godspeed, you majestic, ballistic marital aid.

[Tim]

Captain James T. Kirk: I'm curious, doctor, why eh, why is it called M-5 and not M-1?
Dr. Richard Daystrom: Well, you see, the Multitronic Units one through four were not entirely succesful. But this one is. M-5 is ready to take control of the ship.
Captain James T. Kirk: Total control?
Dr. Richard Daystrom: That is what it was designed for, captain.
Captain James T. Kirk: There are some things men must do to remain men. Your computer would take that away.

[Name Nomad]

This sex toy company isn't going to get off that easily (phrasing!). It's only going to get up about 19 miles, while space is traditionally defined as 50 miles above the earth.

[John]

From the Kinsley article

One reason is that a presidential candidate should be judged on behavior and character, not just on policies -- especially because the chance these days of any actual policies being enacted is slim. (Most of us, fortunately, aren't judged this way -- at least not in this life. But presidents are.)

This from one of Bill Clinton's biggest defenders. WTF?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Look, I'm sorry, but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cannot be president: He is just too fat. Maybe, if he runs for president and we get to know him, we will overlook this awkward issue because we are so impressed with the way he stands up to teachers' unions. But we shouldn't overlook it -- unless he goes on a diet and shows he can stick to it.

That's not a very liberal attitude. It's discriminatory. It's patronizing. It's coercive.

Now which is it? Coercive and patronizing or not very liberal?

[Pro Libertate]

As you imply, it's quintessentially liberal. At least, it is in the modern, American sense of the word.

[R C Dean]

I like the admission that in Kinsley's circles, people aren't judged on character and behavior.

Because outside of the government sycophant biz, they are.

[Tim]

Space entrepreneur Elon Musk said Thursday that his company will try to develop an fully reusable orbital launch system ? and he sketched out a scenario for using such a system to send settlers to Mars.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44.....nce-space/

[Pro Libertate]

This is fairly big news. It actually is making a decent splash--I heard it mentioned on local radio this morning.

New Space is definitely the future. NASA needs to get out of the way.

[Brett L]

Fuck yeah. I only need about $490k more dollars to meet his price point. I'm going to Mars, baby!

[cynical]

Don't worry, prices will come down. How else will evil corporations get enough poor people there to oppress?

Um, but if you're on one of the moons there, I would stay away from any military contractor's scientific research facility.

[H man]

Best quote of the story

"Now we need to make sure that those simulations and reality agree, because generally when they don't reality wins."

[skr]

generally? lol

[Auric Demonocles]

I am dying to work there in 4-5 years.

[BakedPenguin]

Mars-steading? The Mars is a Harsh Mistress?

[T]

We'll just use colors. Red Mars, Green Mars, Purple Mars, Black Mars....

[Pro Libertate]

Asimov had farms under domes on Mars in the Lucky Starr series.

[Zuo]

Christie is an inexperienced ascerbic fatass. Being a fat unhealthy piece of shit indicates that one lacks the discipline and self-control to manage their own meaningless life. So they can't control themselves at a buffet table, but some people think they can be trusted to control themselves with the finances?

[Abdul]

Okay, so what's Obama's excuse for raiding the treasury the same way Kirstie Alley raids the fridge?

[Bee Tagger]

Your inability to recognize false equivalencies should safely prevent anyone from taking you seriously when you compare things.

[Restoras]

^^Thank You!

[Zuo]

False equivalency huh.

I suppose if a guy has a chronic lying problem in his personal life, nobody should take that into account if he tries to run for office? "Totally different bro! What he does personally has no bearing on how he acts once he has a shitload of power!"

Maybe you are a landwhale yourself and thats why you resent the implication that fat turds have no self control. But go ahead, look at all the fatties and the fact that the VAST majority of them don't WANT to be fat. That they have embarked on numerous and unserious attempts at losing their lard. Then tell me these people have the fortitude and self-control necessary to succesfully manage or reel in a sprawling out of control mess. They can't even do it with their own worthless person. Christie included.

[sloopyinca]

I suppose if a guy has a chronic lying problem in his personal life, nobody should take that into account if he tries to run for office?

America didn't three years ago. Why start now?

[Night Elf Mohawk]

Yeah, false equivalency.

Liking butter is unlikely to become an issue with governance. Being a liar is.

[Gibby]

So, Zuo, if a candidate is a foul-mouthed troll, would that be grounds for disqualification?

[steve]

try reading the latest research (as well as all pre-WWII research). Obesity is not "eating too much and exercising too little". He, and every other obese american is simply following the government's sage dietary advice... straight into this unprecedented epidemic. He's not a glutton w/ poor self-control.
Enlighten yourself w/ a little Gary Taubes for starters.

[John]

That is horseshit. What he eats is his own business.

[Sparky]

Chris Christie eats horseshit?

[Gibby]

Better than Obama, who blows it out of his mouth on a regular basis.

[Quetzalcoatl]

The root of this post seems to be the idea that someone who is susceptible to one vice is susceptible to all of them.

I'm not sure I need to go into detail as to why that's wrong, but if you'd like me to, just let me know.

[T]

You sound fat, Quetz. This makes your analysis suspect.

[o2]

change "someone" to "they" and its pure wingnutism

[not really O2]

wingnuts on your chin fool

[Trespassers W]

Like this?

"The root of this post seems to be the idea that they who is susceptible to one vice is susceptible to all of them."

I'm not sure what that means, but at least it's capitalized correctly.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Haha, I guess I was trying to say that just because a person loves the butter doesn't mean that they spend irresponsibly. Zuo seemed to be implying that Christie would be a fiscally irresponsible person just because he goes back for thirds.

[Trespassers W]

To clarify, Q, I understood you perfectly correctly. It's OO's brain fart that I had difficulty making sense of.

[Pro Libertate]

After two cokeheads, I'm thinking maybe people shouldn't be casting stones.

[Ska]

Hah, that's pretty excellent.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Along the same lines, I'm pretty sure Clinton was some sort of sex fiend, but he was a pretty good president. Go figure. Liking a food a bit too much is somehow worse than being a horndog, though? Is that the thesis.

[skr]

I have a feeling clinton didn't push too many unfinished plates of food away.

[BakedPenguin]

I could care less about the coke, if they'd only not been such horrible, horrible Presidents.

Then again, maybe their hypocrisy on that subject should have been a tip-off.

[Rhywun]

Maybe he's just big-boned. You do know that body form is largely genetics, right?

[Abdul]

Kinsley's column on Christie's weight is amazing.

The TL;DR version: discrimination against anyone, even fat people, is wrong. That said, I sure harbor irrational prejudices against lard asses!

[Ice Nine]

It struck me as tongue-in-cheek. Was he serious?

[Tim]

Obama is skinny as a rail, how you liking him?

[Quetzalcoatl]

Only because he smokes. If he ever ends up quitting, he might get a midlife paunch.

[John]

It is amazing especially when you consider his dogged defense of Bill Clinton in the 1990s. So when you get a blow job from an intern in the Oval Office, that is not a bad reflection on your character. But if you are fat, you are unfit for office.

[Kinsley, Blodget, & Robinson]

That reminds us: Monica Lewinsky was also too fat for the Office.

[Tulpa]

You're never too fat for the Oval Orifice.

[T]

What bugs me about the whole issue, to this day, is the weaselly defense libs offer. If I am getting hummers from the interns in the office, I will get fired. Period, full stop. No company I've ever worked for will take that kind of liability. But somehow, because he's a politician, it's 'different'. How? You don't get to fuck the interns. It's a hard rule, like don't steal shit from your employer and coworkers. You break it, you get fired. Unfortunately, we can't simply fire politicians for doing dumb shit like this. It'd be easier if we could.

[John]

It would be. And Clinton should have been fired. The irony is that if they had kicked Clinton out and Gore had been running as an incumbent, they probably would have won in 2000. But they were so damned fanatical about not letting the evil Republicans ever be right about something, they screwed themselves.

[Tony]

Clinton got a blowjob and was impeached. Bush legalized torture and got thousands of soldiers killed in a war based on phony intelligence, and wasn't impeached. Cry me a river.

[John]

And Obama continued all of that. I will start giving a shit about what you think about it, the moment you call for Obama's impeachment. Until then you are just a partisan shill.

[Proprietrist]

Obama legalized killing American citizens without a trial and went to war without basic Congressional authorization, and has not been impeached. Cry me a river.

[Tulpa]

I know you're wedded to the red-blue argument, but I'm pretty sure that if the folks at H&R had our druthers, every president since Coolidge would have been impeached.

[T]

I might have given Ike a pass. But probably not.

[rac3rx]

Wrong, retard...Clinton lied under oath in a deposition for a grand jury investigation and was impeached.

Bush was President during a period when long time interrogation tactics were being used that lefties decided were torture, because they had nothing else to scream and cry about because everyone believed the veracity of the available intelligence.

See quotes from your fellow libtards:
http://bit.ly/1obFQS

Not saying the wars are proper, just saying Tony is, as usual, a fucking idiot...

[Mr. FIFY]

Clinton got impeached for lying to a grand jury. WHAT he lied about, isn't the real point... if he'd lied about what he had for breakfast on a given day, IT'S STILL LYING TO A JURY.

The prick got what he deserved.

[Zeb]

Elected officials are not the same as employees. There is no boss to fire them, just an electorate to decide whether to re-elect them. To have rules of conduct for elected offices would be undemocratic.

[John]

True but the electorate can hold them accountable and to the same standards of behavior.

[Pro Libertate]

Actually, that's why we have impeachment. If Clinton had been in any other office, I think he'd likely have been removed.

Presidents--including him--have done much worse than what he was charged with, but, frankly, I think we do ourselves a disservice allowing someone to stay in office who gets caught engaging in cover-ups, perjuring himself, etc. How often do we get any kind of smoking gun, as it is?

Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

[Tony]

Impeached and acquitted... justice was served, which is more than you can say for the torturers and warmongers who followed him.

[o2]

tony - tema boosch fears arrest if any of them travel into the EU where open indictments await

[John]

And so will Obama some day.

[Tony]

Let the world burn as long as John doesn't have to regret being a Bush lover.

[o2]

not for torture since obama ended that early on

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

But but Bill was soooo empathetic!

[Pro Libertate]

My fellowship at the EOP was the summer she was hired (1995), apparently. I don't recall seeing her, but I do recall being surprised at how attractive most of the interns were. Despite the fact that, in theory, they should've been the scions of fat cat contributors. It actually offended me a little (I had some last remnants of na?vet? then), though if I'd understood the president's hobbies the way I do now, I wouldn't have been so surprised.

[JW]

Yo' governor's so fat....

[SugarFree]

when you cut him, he bleeds gravy.

[Rich]

his mouth needs a governor.

[Abdul]

Christie/Cain 2012

It's not their slogan. It's how many pizza's the governor just ordered.

[John]

In all seriousness, that would be a hell of an interesting ticket.

[Fist of Etiquette]

many will dismiss him as being unelectable to national office.

[Gibby]

I guess Huckabee would make a GREAT president because he shed the pounds.

[JW]

his patronus is a cake.

[SugarFree]

he's probably not your real father.

[Fist of Etiquette]

you probably live in New Jersey, which means you should move.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

you can see Russia from atop his waistline.

[Ska]

Your secretary of state has a peg leg with a kickstand.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

he ate the school teacher's pensions for lunch.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

he uses Ann Coulter for a toothpick.

[Abdul]

... he pardons death row prisoners just to eat their last meal.

[Zuo]

excellent!

[db]

His ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new highway bridge has to be held on the abutment.

[Michelle Casings]

Obama Assassinates His First U.S. Citizen

I believe that calls for cigars and brandy.

[Quetzalcoatl]

What should the cigars say, "It's a boy"?

[Number 2]

Amazing how quickly Mr. Kinsley forgot that obesity is a protected disability, and that attacking people because of their weight causes self-esteem issues in young women.

[o2]

women who are insane in the membraine is a whole nother topic

[Sister of Perpetual]

Mercy.

[USPS reminder]

Mail Fraud Complaint

The form below allows you to send a complaint to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service if you suspect you are a victim of mail fraud

[Trespassers W]

Win.

[The Ghost of William H. Taft]

New Jersey Gov. Christ Christie is too fat to be president.

Well, at least he has never gotten stuck in the bathtub.

Also, fuck you.

[Pro Libertate]

That Taft is a bad motha. . .

[JW]

Shut yo mouth!

[JW]

Shut yo' mouth!

[db]

Just talkin' 'bout Taft...

[Anacreon]

I can dig it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I would implore you to quiet your mouth, good sir!

[Pro Libertate]

You would chastise me for discussing that most excellent of men, Mr. Taft?

[Karl Hungus]

Well you gotta admit, modern presidents have tended to fit a certain physical profile: tall, full head of hair (Ford, never actually elected, doesn't count), no facial hair - and lean. Sure, they used to poke fun at Bill Clinton's weight and affinity for fast food, but in the grand scheme of things, he really wasn't that overweight. Christ Christie is simply obese. Who knows if that alone would sink his chances, but we would be parting with tradition if we put a fat bastard like that in the Oval Office.

[John]

Lyndon Johnson drank and smoked himself to death. He had a bad heart and kept doing stuff he knew would kill him. John Kennedy we know now had a totally messed up back from the war and was on massive amounts of pain killers.

Given those facts, I fail to see how being fat matters. And lets not even think of the case of the vapors feminists would be having if Christie were an overweight liberal female and people were saying she was too fat to be President. But it is okay to do the same thing to a man?

[Quetzalcoatl]

So... what you're saying is: Rosie O'Donnell 2010?

[Sonia Maria Sotomayor]

Hell yes!

[Karl Hungus]

Given those facts, I fail to see how being fat matters.

I don't care if they have to break down your bedroom wall and cart you to the inauguration on a flatbed truck: if you're runnning on a true platform of limited government, individual liberty, non-interventionist foreign policy, etc., you've got my vote.

[John]

Me either.

[Tim]

Think how much better the FEMA response to Katrina would have been if George Bush could have plugged that dike by sitting in it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

And when he says, "You're doing a heckuva job, brownie," he would be talking to the chocolate he's eating while doing it.

[Tim]

+ Sprinkles

[Rachel Maddow]

I'd like to see him try!

[TrickyVic]

I voted for Bush in 2000 because he ran on those principles. What could go wrong?

But, Christie beats just about anyone else the Rs are running.

[TrickyVic]

""Given those facts, I fail to see how being fat matters.""

Everyone knows superman isn't fat, and everyone want to elect superman to office.

I'm only half kidding. The idea that leaders should be fit isn't new. People want to elect strong leaders that can rescue them at a moments notice.

[R C Dean]

Well you gotta admit, modern presidents have tended to fit a certain physical profile: tall, full head of hair (Ford, never actually elected, doesn't count), no facial hair - and lean.

Pretty much since the Age of Television began. Quelle coincidence, non?

[Pro Libertate]

Fucking TV. Is there nothing it can't taint?

[Karl Hungus]

Exactly. Ever read about the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960? Those who heard it on the radio held that Nixon had won. Those who saw it on TV, however, gave it to Kennedy by like a 2-to-1 margin. That's because Nixon was pasty, sweaty, and had a 5 o'clock shadow. Plus he was a just sketchy-looking motherfucker to begin with.

[db]

FDR was too crippled to be elected President without a lot of smoke and mirrors to hide his disability. In the age of TV the staged standing photos made possible by assistants and locking leg braces would not have been possible.

[Doug]

no facial hair

I can understand the rest but I don't get this one. Seriously. What's the deal?

[cynical]

Bias against Bizarro world politicians. Strange, since they're mostly honest and well-intentioned.

[Tulpa]

If having a physical characteristic very different from anyone who's been elected in the past few decades makes it impossible to get elected...

[$6M RoboTorso]

Mexican drug cartels' US reach expanded over 300 percent in two years

Fast & Furious "smoking gun"?
...There are two possible explanations. The first is that the anti-gun Obama administration deliberately wanted American guns planted in Mexico in order to demonize American firearms dealers and gun owners. The operation was manufacturing "evidence" for the president's false claim that we're to blame for the appalling levels of Mexican drug-war violence.

If this is true, then Holder & Co. have got to go ? and the trail needs to be followed no matter where it leads. For the federal government to seek to frame its own citizens is unconscionable.

A second notion is that the CIA was behind the whole thing, which accounts for all the desperate wagon-circling. Under this theory, the Agency feared the los Zetas drug cartel was becoming too powerful and might even mount a coup against the Mexican government. So some 2,000 weapons costing more than $1.25 million were deliberately channeled to the rival Sinaloa cartel, which operates along the American border, to keep the Zetas in check.

Of course, there's a third explanation ? that both scenarios are true, and that those in charge of Fast and Furious saw an opportunity to shoot two birds with one Romanian-made AK Draco pistol....

[$6M RoboTorso]

Sheila Jackson Lee tells conservative bloggers to "shut up!"
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, has two strong words for right-wing bloggers: "SHUT UP!"

The high-profile Houston congresswoman was responding to the most recent round of criticism of President Obama on the conservative blogosphere. Right-leaning commentators have been having a field day over Obama's admonition to African-American voters to "stop complaining" about his administration.

Jackson Lee stood by the president and had a short fuse when it came to the right-wing media's reaction.

"To all the bloggers, shut up and stop playing racial politics," Jackson Lee said on the PBS talk show program hosted by Tavis Smiley....

Phone hacking fallout: Labour plans tighter media regulation
Journalists guilty of gross malpractice should be struck off a professional register to prevent them working in news, the shadow culture secretary will suggest at the Labour conference on Tuesday.

Ivan Lewis is proposing a "system of independent regulation including proper like-for-like redress which means mistakes and falsehoods on the front page receive apologies and retraction on the front page".

He will also warn Rupert Murdoch's News International that Labour will never allow the corporation to use its media influence to exert political power in pursuit of ideological or commercial goals....

[Quetzalcoatl]

"To all the bloggers, shut up and stop playing racial politics," Jackson Lee said

She doesn't like the competition.

[T]

We are currently discussing moving back in to town, and the thought of that woman being my congresscritter is one of the reasons I hesitate.

[Old Mexican]

Re: T,

Nobody warned me when I did... But I am kind of used to such type of politician. One has to... in Mexico.

[T]

I don't want to start a second career writing letters to her office calling her an idiot.

[BakedPenguin]

That's why Xerox was invented...

[Art-P.O.G.]

Yup, you just need to use a form letter. Actually, just a template and you can fill it out regularly and mail it to her office.

[Spoonman.]

Luckily Culberson is mine, who as far as I can tell is a completely unremarkable party-line Republican.

It's sad that that makes him the better of the two.

[Gray Ghost]

Come to the west side of Houston. There's life beyond the Heights.

Culbertson isn't great---I still can't figure out if he voted for TARP---but at least he isn't SJL.

[Proprietrist]

Racial politics? You mean like a "Black Congressional Caucus"? You mean like claiming that only one ideology "fits" a certain race and that adherents of a different philosophy are thus inherently racist?

[rac3rx]

BUT BUT...the CONGRESSWOMAAAAAN!!!! and her triple crown weave have degrees from Yale, so they're super super smart and stuff.

(and yes, that is apparently how her staff is required to "announce" her when she enters a room.)

[$6M RoboTorso]

Enron, Solyndra, and Double Standards

New Study Underlines Unfulfilled Promises of Health Care Bill

[Old Mexican]

New Study Underlines Unfulfilled Promises of Health Care Bill

Not even the public option! Waaaa!

[Barack Obama]

Obama Assassinates His First U.S. Citizen

Let me be clear.

Anwar al-Awlaki was not a CITIZEN citizen.

[Pro Libertate]

Was it with a drone? Because drones trump due process.

[JW]

The Consitution doesn't say that you *can't* use a drone, now does it? Huh? HUH?

[Pro Libertate]

Got me there. I concede.

[Proprietrist]

I swear, the drone just went commando. It's like it had a mind of its own.

[Tulpa]

Under the old citizenship laws, you automatically lost your citizenship once you engaged in hostilities against the US on behalf of a foreign power.

[skr]

foreign powers are countries though

[waffles]

Morning reason, need help answering an interview question: "Why do you want to work for the federal government?"

I'm stumped. So have at it?

[Pro Libertate]

To undermine it from within, to free all Americans.

[John]

Cash money homey. Cash money.

[Art-P.O.G.]

^^^this.^^^

[Tim]

Allah commands it!

[Tim]

As you leap to your feet and pound the table with both fists.

[Rich]

+666

[T]

Because the federal government is the only way things get done in this country! Without we wouldn't have roads, or schools, or jobs! A properly functioning bureaucracy is a precondition for all of these things!

[Quetzalcoatl]

I think it's acceptable to say "Job security in an uncertain market".

[Brett L]

Because the federal government killed my private sector opportunities and I like living inside and not being forced to freganism.

[Rich]

This and this should provide all the fodder you need.

[GOLD!]

"To obliterate the entire state of North Dakota with an army of miniature llamas."

[waffles]

This is golden. I was typing up some bullshit about public service. But if Allah commands cash money to undermine our roads, schools, and jobs, then I want in on the action.

[Abdul]

I have trouble sleeping at home.

[R C Dean]

"Why do you?"

[BakedPenguin]

Because stealing in the private sector leads to arrests?

[Ghost of Howard Taft]

I actually think he's kind of thin.

[Tim]

West Wing did an assasination episode years ago. I suppose Barrack was opposed by his loyal but fiery young liberal assistant. WHat drama! Will be great when the books come out.

[T]

Okay, so we we're discussing the Al-Malarkey thing this morning. Here's my problem: universal jurisdiction. The US asserts universal jurisdiction over citizens. The .gov does not give a damn where you are with regard to a whole host of issues, and this has been an explicit policy for years. But in all of those issues, you are still subject to the rule of law. We gotta go find you and bring you back and try you. But somebody suspects you're a terrorist? Fuck you, die. Why is this the only thing in which our universal jurisdiction breaks down? Hell, by this logic, we could have just assassinated Ira Einhorn or Roman Polanski. We knew they were guilty.

Of course, we're also back to the completely secret non-reviewable nature of the status. If they say you're an enemey, fuck you. There's absolutely no mechanism that exists for you to challenge that. Even if you voluntarily surrendered and tried to fight it in court, you'd most likely end up renditioned to a black site.

And in the same day, we have MoJo proclaiming Obama as a Rule of Law guy? Please. We have shat all over the rule of law in our various wars on nouns.

[Tim]

Dr. McCoy: Compassion. That's the one thing no machine ever had. Maybe it's the one thing that keeps men ahead of them. Care to debate that, Spock?
Mr. Spock: No Doctor, I simply maintain that computers are more efficient than human beings, not better.
Dr. McCoy: But, tell me, which do you prefer to have around?
Mr. Spock: I presume you question is meant to offer me a choice between machines and human beings. And I believe I have already answered that question.
Dr. McCoy: I was just trying to make conversation, Spock.
Mr. Spock: It would be most interesting to impress your memory engrams on a computer, Doctor. The resulting torrential flood of illogic would be most entertaining.

[Mongo]

McCoy then pumps Spock's arm with Orion horse.

[anonymous]

To answer your question, congress authorized the office of the president to wage war against al Qaeda. Awlaki joined al Qaeda. Fuck him. He's dead.

Are you contending that there's some doubt that Awlaki was a member of al Qaeda?

As far as I understand the president's legal authority to kill members of al Qaeda, it isn't dependent on establishing that any particular member committed any definite act of terrorism. Membership in that organization is enough to warrant a lethal strike.

[kinnath]

Too much stupid; too little time.

[R C Dean]

That's pretty much the basis for it.

We are engaged in warfighting against AQ. Killing in war does not require due process.

A couple of questions are begged, here.

(1) What does the "declaration of war"/AUMF being relied on actually say? I think it names AQ by, err, name. So far so good.

(2) Ordinarily, killing during a war is authorized for (a) enemy combatants, identified by their uniforms, etc.; and (b) collateral damage while engaged in (a). There's also a (c) for illegal combatants, but the rub all along in this "war" has been identifying them to a point that justifies killing them. That's where the need for some kind of process, legal due or otherwise, comes up.

Of course, all AQ fighters/arguably members are illegal combatants.

I honestly don't think his status as a citizen makes any difference. We have the same right to kill US citizens who are AQ members as non-citizens. The rub comes with identifying them as such, consistently.

[John]

That is about right. It is no different than hanging pirates on the spot.

[Tulpa]

There's the slight wrinkle that Yemen isn't international waters.

[kinnath]

We wipe AQ out of Afghanistan. We removed the government of Iraq and installed a new one. And I supported both of these actions.

But everyone that had anything to do with the planning and execution of the atrocities of 9/11/2001 are either dead or in captivity.

I cannot fathom that the AUMF authorizes the president to kill someone in Yemen in 2011.

[o2]

so obama didnt surrender to the terrorists after all?

[TrickyVic]

""I cannot fathom that the AUMF authorizes the president to kill someone in Yemen in 2011.""

Well it looks like it does. As long as they can claim someone belongs to AQ, or any other terrorst group they want to connect to 9/11.

Section 2 - Authorization For Use of United States Armed Forces(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes [sic] any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....Terrorists

[kinnath]

Well it looks like it does. As long as they can claim someone belongs to AQ, or any other terrorst group they want to connect to 9/11.

....in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism...

A blank check with no expiration date.

So I don't buy it.

[kinnath]

all necessary and appropriate force

The check may be blank, but the bank account does have a limit.

[kinnath]

SEC. 8. (a) Authority to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situations wherein involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances shall not be inferred--

(1) from any provision of law (whether or not in effect before the date of the enactment of this joint resolution), including any provision contained in any appropriation Act, unless such provision specifically authorizes the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into such situations and stating that it is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of this joint resolution; or

SEC. 5. (b) Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1), whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of Untied States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.

I don't see the clause in the War Powers Resolution that authorizes the execution of a non-combatant using a drone a thousand miles away from any active battlefield based only upon the say-so of the president.

[TrickyVic]

I don't see it forbiding it, nor does it describe methodology. It's assumed that when you authorize the military to take action, they have wide latitude on how to acheive the goal.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of bombing anyone in a country in which we are not at war, regardless of what a AUMF might say.

[kinnath]

We have a Constitution, and a huge body of criminal law, and a huge body of military law, and a bunch of internation treaties that limit how we prosecute criminals and conduct wars.

Bush started the argument that none of that fits because terrorism is different. And now Obama believes that he can kill anyone outside the US borders that might commit and act of terror against the US.

We are screwed.

[o2]

so ur defending the aQAP chief?

[TrickyVic]

No.

[TrickyVic]

Well that explains what's missing in the drug war. Congress needs to pass a AUMF on drug dealers.

[cynical]

Should really just expand it to all felons, would make law enforcement much easier.

[TrickyVic]

Well that explains what's missing in the drug war. Congress needs to pass a AUMF on drug dealers.

[TrickyVic]

""I think it names AQ by, err, name. So far so good.""

It does not.

[BakedPenguin]

I wonder what would have happened if the guy had been in, say, Brazil instead of Yemen. A country where we don't have an extradition treaty, yet have enough interest that we (presumably) would not send a drone strike without asking permission (and they wouldn't allow it if we did ask).

[TrickyVic]

""The US asserts universal jurisdiction over citizens.""

Not just our citizens. We think we can kill anyone whom we decide is an enemy of the state anywhere, anytime. Pretty much every dictator used the enemy of the state designation to kill.

[TrickyVic]

""The US asserts universal jurisdiction over citizens.""

Not just our citizens. We think we can kill anyone whom we decide is an enemy of the state anywhere, anytime. Pretty much every dictator used the enemy of the state designation to kill.

[Old Mexican]

U.S.-born al-Qaeda Cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has been assassinated.

Pretty much - he hadn't been convicted of anything.

[o2]

he was pure as the driven snow, right old mex?

[T]

Does it fucking matter? The government can't just kill you because you're douchebag. If that were the case, your head would be on a spike outside the Post Office as a warning.

[Chatroom Crank]

He was more likely to be innocent than Troy Davis was.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

A+ trolling right there. That's how you do it.

[o2]

are libtoidz seriously defending alAwlaki? he's declared himself to be an enemy of the USA

[sevo]

Hey, dipshit, ever hear of 'presumed innocent until...'?

[o2]

not when one is a self-declared enemy & engaged in active hostile actions against the USA

[Surly Chef]

Obviously you know this because you witnessed both things personally, and not because you are taking some anonymous trigger man's word on whether another person you've likely never heard of before has a right to live.

I mean someone with the most guns said someone else was bad, and killed them; obviously that could never be abused.

[o2]

i read alwaki's own words. he spoke english & went to CSU. search inspire magazine.

[Surly Chef]

Great evidence o2, maybe it should be entered into the record as evidence in his trial, the proper forum for finding the guilt of an American citizen, even in the case of a un-coerced confession...oh sorry too late!

[o2]

and to think the gop claimed the dems wanted to fight war w lawyerz.

[sevo]

Yes, EXACTLY when some brain-dead dipshit makes a comment like, oh: "not when one is a self-declared enemy & engaged in active hostile actions against the USA".

[o2]

i took alwaki at his word...& deeds. he was aQAP chief

[Tulpa]

So when I declare myself an enemy of North Korea, that gives the Norks the right to send a drone to Pittsburgh and rub me out?

[o2]

are u the aQAP chief in ur scenario?

[TrickyVic]

Yes, assuming North Korea passed a AUMF against any organization whom it considers a enemy of the state and you belong to that organization.

[Tulpa]

From the North Korean POV, Kim Jong Il doesn't need any authorization to UMF. I'm speaking of international law here. Would the US have any right to object to the Norks sending a drone to kill me?

[TrickyVic]

""I'm speaking of international law here.""

I didn't know that really applied. This conversation has been about US authorizing it's own actions. But if international law allows us to do it, it would allow all other countries to do it.

However, I would agrue that NK's actions would be a violation of a cease fire agreement. The war would resume.

[o2]

well hez brown n moslum so fuck him

[Quetzalcoatl]

he was pure as the driven snow, right old mex?

I'm pretty sure that's racist.

[Joe M]

Mother Jones:

Turley also lets the GOP entirely off the hook, as though there's nothing unusual about a party whose mantra is "small government" offering no opposition whatsoever to the expansion of the national security state.

"They did it too!" Classic.

[T]

Team affiliation trumps principle every stinking time.

[Jon Schaffer`s Right Hand]

You know, for a mother jones article I was actually expecting far more tu quoque. I think it's their favorite fallacy.

[Proprietrist]

Correction: Tu quoque is everyone's favorite fallacy. Few things in the world are more satisfactory than pointing out the hypocrisy of someone we disagree with. Legitimate use of tu quoque disqualifies just about every single pundit from making political criticisms.

[Old Mexican]

From the Postal Service's new ad campaign: "'A refrigerator has never been hacked,' an announcer says in the first message as an actress pins a paper bill to her fridge."

The best goddamned buggywhip the world ever saw!

[Tim]

" A blogger never shot up the office"

[Abdul]

Next from the post office--Whale oil: it stays lit during thunderstorms.

[sevo]

I'm going to make millions selling the USPS brooms to go sweep the tide out!

[Tim]

That genius Peter Bagge finally gets a moment in the sun and all anybody wants to talk about are drones and space dildos.

[sevo]

One panel sticks in mind: Roger Spohn sitting on his stoop with his cat being tossed from his apartment fior handing out dope to sick people.
Words couldn't catch that poignancy and a camera wouldn't do it either. The absolute BEST use of cartooning.

[Robert]

I was sooooo disappointed to see his real face and learn that he pronounces his name "bag" instead of "baggy".

[sloopyinca]

OT, but whatever. OK, I don't use adblocker because I like to see the funny shit that gets tied to reason stories. Today, however, is a head-scratcher. It's from a place called Duffy's Napa Valley. They are a drug and alcohol rehab facility....in fucking Napa Valley. What's next? The cocaine rehab on the outskirts of Medallin, Colombia? The luxurious heroin rehab center near Kabul? Or the fetishest intervention center next to SugarFree's Kentucky home?

[Ska]

Dude, you know how much rent is in Tokyo? They had to move somewhere with cheaper land.

[Karl Hungus]

Even further OT, I'd be interested to see what the actual rate of drug use among Medellin's citizen's really is. Not making any bets, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was lower than in a US city of comparable size, the logic being that those most intimately involved in the manufacture and sale of drugs often don't partake personally.

[Tulpa]

I'd imagine it's the same phenomenon that keeps McDonalds workers from eating Big Macs.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

From the "in case you were wondering" files...

Speaking fees for a variety of pundits:

http://www.allamericanspeakers.....s/0/-1/0/1

[Quetzalcoatl]

Nice work, if you can get it...

[Quetzalcoatl]

Also, I like how:
- I could get Dave Barry at my party for a very reasonable $30,000
- Bill Cosby doesn't even get out of bed for any less than $100,000.
- You can hire Bob Woodward twice.

[Troy]

Michael Kinsley, Henry Blodget, and Eugene Robinson all agree: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is too fat to be president.

These stupid fucks should go to a Wal-Mart in the mid-west. They'd see corpulence that would make Christie look like Kate Moss. Given the obesity rate in this fat country, I don't think it would be much of a setback and these douchebags would like to think.

[Leslie Knope]

Pawnee is the fourth fattest town in the country!

[Fatty Bolger]

Another Elizabeth Warren statement. Warning: for some of you, this idea may test your faithfulness to libertarian values.

(via Instapundit)

[R C Dean]

And, of course, to be progressive, the hotter you are, the more sex you have to have with strangers.

[Troy]

Mother Jones refutes Jonathan Turley's L.A. Times op-ed, in which the law professor said that Obama had killed the civil liberties movement. MoJo's response? "Obama, Rule Of Law Guy"

There is nothing like a MJ article to make me go all Scooby Doo: "Ruuuuugh????"

[Tony]

Thomas Jefferson talked like a girl, Lincoln was ugly, it's interesting to think what good presidents we could have had if looks didn't matter as they do. But I think Christie's challenge will be what everything thinks is his selling point: his mouth. Jersey doesn't necessarily translate well everywhere.

[AMB]

A refrigerator's never been hacked...but the USPS has!

Analog Hacks FTW: http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/bulkmailer/

Cf. also the 80s and early 90s when a bunch of enterprising souls realized that they could reverse the sender and the recipient on a package, then mark it "Return to Sender" and get it sent for free.

[Art-P.O.G.]

I think the Tristero also tried something like this.

[Karl Hungus]

For those who don't want to delve into the comments following that MoJo article, I've done the dirty work. Here's one gem, word for word:

Republicans = People who want to rape you, kill you, rape your corpse, make a goblet out of your skull, and use it to serve baby blood to their rich masters.

Democrats have made good on some of their promises, and continue to advocate for the middle/poor classes.

VOTE DEMOCRAT!

[Jon Schaffer`s Right Hand]

So republicans are black metallers? I would actually respect Team Red more if this were true.

[Karl Hungus]

LOL it sounds like the video Iron Maiden never quite dared to make.

[Tony]

It's not really fair that Republicans have been extremist radicals and so Democrats have to be considered equally bad just for the sake of being fair and balanced, or whatever.

[Karl Hungus]

Right, because with Democrats, the skull goblet would be filled with grape juice.

[Mr. FIFY]

Gluten-free grape juice from free-range organic fair-trade grapes picked by autistic left-handed Armenian-Eskimo hermaphrodites.

[R C Dean]

Sigh. Somebody else who can't tell a Republican from a libertarian.

[peachy]

To be fair, there was no mention of monocles.

[db]

In a fair world, I would be able to pay to have an MRI done to create a 3D model of my own skull to have made into a beer stein.

[Id]

"The same civil libertarian groups who were fighting Bush, like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, are doing so now."

Wait, what?

[Id]

"The same civil libertarian groups who were fighting Bush, like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, are doing so now."

Wait, what?

[Pro Libertate]

Huh. Why would they still be fighting Bush? He's out of office and legally powerless.

[Auric Demonocles]

Cause he's still undermining Obama's presidency.

[Pro Libertate]

Undermining? Why he made it possible in the first place!

[Tulpa]

In body perhaps, but his spirit still lingers.

[TrickyVic]

""He's out of office ""

Can't tell.

[Lavada]

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE !!
~~This year October has 5 Mondays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This Happens once every 823years. This is called money bags. So copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4days. Based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one who does not copy, will be without money. Copy within 11 mins of reading. Can't hurt so I did it 🙂 Got nothing to lose, money here it comes
Thanks Lavada

[Rhywun]

I just had a flashback to 1999 or so.

[Azathoth]

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE !!
~~This year October has 5 Mondays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This Happens once every 823years. This is called money bags. So copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4days. Based on Chinese Feng Shui. The one who does not copy, will be without money. Copy within 11 mins of reading. Can't hurt so I did it 🙂 Got nothing to lose, money here it comes
Thanks Lavada

old, old magic. cumulative sympathetic magic. Didn't know you all had it in you

[Art-P.O.G.]

I haven't believed in magic since Connor MacLeod said "it's a kind of magic" and then I later found out he was just from Planet Zeist.

[R C Dean]

In terms of new policies, Bush's contributed far more to the debt: the wars, the tax cuts, and his part of the recession response add up to more than 3 times the amount of new spending under Obama.

Let's go to the tape:

From 2001 - 2008, The debt increased by around $1.985TT.

From 2009 - 2011(est.), the debt increased by around $3.86TT.

I take the straightforward approach of assigning the deficit to the politician in power. If Obama had wanted to reverse the tax cut, end the wars, etc., he could have - he had overwhelming majorities, popularity, as close to a mandate as you'll ever see. He didn't, so the deficits while he is in office are all his. Everything else is handwaving, deflection, and obfuscation.

[Auric Demonocles]

But....but...Bush!

[Proprietrist]

In Obama's defense (*puke*), it's unfair to put 2009 primarily on Obama. Bush allocated the money for the 2009 fiscal year, and that was the worst spending year ever.

Technically, considering 2010 as the first year in which Obama was entirely responsible, Obama has been the first president in who knows how long that actually spent less than his predecessor's last budgetary year. In fact, 2010 was the first year in decades that federal outlays was lower than the previous year.

Truth hurts. Note this was pointed out not by the DNC but by the Mises Institute.

We can be sure this tiny demonstration of restraint won't last however, and many of Obama's programs will be more devastating in the long term, like Obamacare if it is implemented. But it does put into perspective just how undeniably irresponsible Bush was on just about every front. If I were the Democrats, I'd run my campaign on this chart and claim that the Republicans are lying hypocrites about Obama being an out-of-control spender (which of course he is, but tu quoque is a great reelection strategy).

[Tulpa]

If Obama had been fighting Bush's reckless spending in the Senate you'd have a point.

[Proprietrist]

Oh I totally agree that Democrats controlled the purse strings in Congress. But if the buck stops with the executive as Republicans claim with Obama, why does it not stop with Bush?

[TrickyVic]

My position is Bush scewed it up, he's responsible for that. Obama came in to fix it, failed, and possibly made it worse, he's responsible for that.

Our current fiscal affair is a bi-partisan doing. Blaming it on one side is just partisan hackery.

[Proprietrist]

Very true. For the record, I have no partisan horse in this game. Just responding to the notion RC Dean was arguing - that Obama should be held primarily responsible for 2009 spending (completely wrong) and that he has somehow made spending more out of control compared to his predecessor (in fact just the opposite if we're being unbiased in our analysis of CBO data). That doesn't mean he hasn't, in the long term, exacerbated everything, but he did take a relative baby step in the opposite direction in the short term for which he gets no credit for from Team Red or team libertarian. We're still not even in the same galaxy as "fiscal responsibility", but relative to his predecessor, Obama's shown more restraint than, say, Reagan.

[R C Dean]

Obama should be held primarily responsible for 2009 spending (completely wrong)

Sure he should. Have we forgotten that the biggest budget buster of 2009 was passed after Obama took office?

and that he has somehow made spending more out of control compared to his predecessor (in fact just the opposite if we're being unbiased in our analysis of CBO data).

How so? I'm just saying a President is responsible for what is spent when he is in office. Why shouldn't he be responsible for that?

he did take a relative baby step in the opposite direction in the short term for which he gets no credit for from Team Red or team libertarian.

What on earth are you referring to? What has Obama done that could even credibly be termed "not increasing the deficit"?

[Proprietrist]

Did you read the link from Mises I posted?

You're right only to the degree that Obama could have blocked spending already approved by Bush in 2009, and cut these bureaucracies' already-budgeted funds halfway through the 2009 fiscal year. You and I would have done that, but Obama's not pretending to be a fiscal libertarian. Bush approved the spending, thus the blood is primarily on his hands for FY2009.

The 2009 fiscal year ends in September, and "only" $185 billion of Obama's stimulus funds were spent in FY2009. Even with the bulk of the stimulus being spent in FY2010, federal outlays were lower in FY2010 than FY2009. Thus Obama became the first president in decades to exercise more spending restraint than his predecessor. The debt is worse because tax income has collapsed (and a lot of that is as a result of Obama's policies that have worsened the recession). But technically Bush was more of a spendthrift during his last term.

If we are (somewhat inaccurately) blaming spending on the President, the meme that Obama is somehow shockingly worse than Bush is flat out false, based on CBO numbers.

[Proprietrist]

"What has Obama done that could even credibly be termed "not increasing the deficit"?"

I never said he didn't increase the deficit. I said he approved less spending than Bush.

[TrickyVic]

""For the record, I have no partisan horse in this game.""

I hope I didn't give you the impression that "partisan hackery" was referring to you. I meant that in general.

[Proprietrist]

No, I didn't think so - was just clarifying that I'm trying to be objective. Partisan blinders, the higher domestic allocation of Obama's spending (vs. military nationbuilding) and radically larger deficits lead people to easily accept this false notion that Obama is a worse "spender" than Bush, when he's actually marginally better in the short term.

God, I really hate defending that idiot.

[Andrew]

OT: Did anyone else get hit with the american community survey?

WTF does the federal government need to know what time I leave for work?

[rac]

I don't want him, you can have him, he's too fat for me. He's too fat for me. He's too fat for me.

[sarcasmic]

Kristen Stewart smiles.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvs.....cenes.html

[dunphy]

reasonoids will be happy to hear my partner got punced in the head by an EDP.

did the EDP go to jail? no. he did go to the hospital for a mental invol (his 5th one, with several longterm stings in mental wards).

EDP injuries? - ZERO

yet another non-thuggish cop story you will never read in the media.

interestingly, he told us just beforehand that he could kill anybody he wants in TWO MOVES

because "i know martial arts"

lol

[o2]

dunphy - what's EDP?

[TrickyVic]

Extremely Deranged Person?

[Auric Demonocles]

EDP?

[sarcasmic]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDP

* Edinburgh Park railway station, station code
* Eastern Daily Press, a UK regional newspaper
* Electronic data processing, the use of automated methods to process commercial data
* Electronic Document Professional, a designation for professionals in the electronic document industry
* Electronic Dream Plant, a British manufacturer of electronic musical instruments
* Embedded DisplayPort (eDP)
* Emotionally Disturbed Person, a person suffering from an acute episode of mental illness
* Energias de Portugal, a Portuguese energy company, that includes EDP Renov?veis
* English Democrats Party, a political party
* Esquisse d'un Programme, a mathematical monograph by Alexandre Grothendieck
* Ethylenediamine pyrocatechol, a common chemical in microelectromechanical fabrication
* European Democratic Party, a centrist and social-liberal European political party
* Event-driven programming, a software development technique
* Eau de Parfum, 10-20% (typical ~15%) aromatic compounds. Sometimes listed as "eau de perfume" or "mill?sime".
* Ethylenediamine pyrocatechol, an anisotropic wet etchant for silicon.

I'm thinking it's #7

[o2]

yep agreed #7. thx

[Auric Demonocles]

Dunphy once called me stupid for using Wikipedia.

[dunphy]

i doubt it. cite it. i may have said the relying on wikipedia when information there is contrary to more reliable sources etc. is stupid.

wikipedia is REASONably (drinK!) accurate. in many cases, it most definitely is not.

[sarcasmic]

My second guess would be Embedded DisplayPort

[sarcasmic]

Though as I deal with this uncooperative javascript I feel like I'm getting punched in the head by event-driven programming.

[R C Dean]

I was going to vote for Electronic Document Professional.

Them bitches be crazy.

[T]

What's an EDP?

[hmm]

Emotionally Disturbed Person

[hmm]

Kudos, way to go buddy, you're the man, we couldn't do it without you, YOU ROCK!!!, thank you for your service, without you society would fall... congratulations on doing your fucking job.

[dunphy]

you miss the point. how utterly unsurprising.

"our job" means it would be entirely justified for us to use baton strike(s), taser, pepper spray, or fist elbow strikes in response to a fist strike to the head.

we didn't

cops frequently use significantly LESS force than justified.

this was one such example
these examples also almost never make any media report.

that's the point

if we had baton struck him and then handcuffed him that would ALSO have been "our job"

[Mainer]

Cool Story, Bro.

[dunphy]

there's a million stories in the naked city. this was one of them

[Nipplemancer]

So. Fucking. What.

You and your partner didn't beat someone up.

You want a high-five from the peanut gallery or something?

[dunphy]

we would have been legally justified in using baton strikes, taser, and/or fist elbow strikes

we didn't

this kind of incident happens ALL the time

it does not make media reports.

reasonoids honestly believe (mostly out of ignorance and partially fueled by being tools of the media) that this kind of thing is rare. cops using LESS force than legally justified is far more common than them using more force.

the former will almost never get on the media radar, thus for the ignorati, it must be rare or "unpossible"

[sarcasmic]

Tell us something dunph - say your partner wasn't getting laid regularly and took it out on this Electronic Document Professional.
Got his frustration out by beating him to a bloody pulp.

I do not believe you are so much of a sadist that you would have joined in, but would you have stopped him?

Would you have reported the incident?

What many of us reasonoids believe is that unless it was caught on film and given to the media, such an incident would have been swept under the rug.

As a cop you know that when you catch someone there's a very high probability that the guy has done whatever you caught him doing many times before.

We figure it's the same thing with excessive use of force by police.

[dunphy]

if i saw a cop using excessive force, and certainly if that force rose to a criminal level, i would turn him in

that's tangential to my point which is that for every incident of excessive force, there are MANY incidents of less than justified force, such as this one.

again, we used FAR less force than was legally justified. that's COMMON.

i also know that if we had used such justified force methods as baton strikes and the EDP had ouchies, that the reasonoids would assume that our force was excessive.

this EDP already served time for assaulting his mother, for instance. shocking. a guy that assaults cops has a prior record of violence. that's ALMOST always the case

the vast majority of people walking around have no official record of assaulting anybody

contrarily the vast majority of those who are accused of assaulting cops, and/or that cops have to use force against (to include deadly force) almost always HAVE such a record.

this is beyond strongly suggestive that cops are using force on the people who are violent towards them, not the "average joe"

[TrickyVic]

""if i saw a cop using excessive force, and certainly if that force rose to a criminal level, i would turn him in""

And I would do my best to help you with employment after you got tired of the crappy shifts and shit duty. 😉

[dunphy]

contrary to reasonoid belief, with rare exception, if anything - turning in dirty cops will be a path to promotion

heck, turning in clean cops and trumping up bogus charges almost never has any negative consequences.

we've had a # of cops disciplined or even fired for trumped up bullshit (and unlike a person being charged with a crime, we don't get a right to jury, nor does guilt need to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt)... fortunately, several have been rehired after a neutral arbitrator bitch slapped the dept. and forced them to hire the guy back --- with back pay

[TrickyVic]

""contrary to reasonoid belief, with rare exception, if anything - turning in dirty cops will be a path to promotion""

Maybe where you're at. A very good friend of mine was a cop. A very straight arrow. Every time he brought something like that to his superiors he was branded a troublemaker, got the shit duty, and quit after a few years of it. That was in VA.

In NYC having to testify against your fellow officer might be worth suicide.

"Officer Robert McGee, 62, was supposedly upset he had been called to take the stand before a grand jury against other cops accused of wrongdoing in the widespread ticket-fixing scandal that has plagued the NYPD.

He was also distraught because he feared he might have to to repeat those charges against the cops at trial.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/l.....z1ZT7A5fWe

My point is simple, one's experience may vary. I don't believe every cop shop in the country is the same as yours, or that yours is representitive of the nation any more than the NYPD. You have vaild points, some others have vaild points too. But some just want to hate, and that doesn't help the conversation.

[dunphy]

this is definitely true. some agencies are FAMOUS for corruption of this sort. NOPD comes to mind

[Art-P.O.G.]

So Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans had a nugget of truth to it. Heh.

[TrickyVic]

""we've had a # of cops disciplined or even fired for trumped up bullshit (and unlike a person being charged with a crime, we don't get a right to jury, nor does guilt need to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt)... ""

My employer wouldn't give me a jury trial nor prove guilty prior to firing me either. I don't understand the comparison to criminal acts and employee termination.

[dunphy]

and you probably don't have a collective bargaining agreement with your employer covering such issues as due process, good faith, fairness, etc.

we do.

iow, even if you don't agree with the idea that we should have one, as public employees, the reality isthat we DO and just like any other contract, people need to be held accountable to the contracts they agree to.

we do not have many of the rights an employee of a private company has (in some other respects we have more rights) but we also have a contractual arrangement that works both ways - it binds employer and employee

firing of an officer IN VIOLATION of that contract is thus actionable

[Nipplemancer]

It's your fucking job. That you didn't use what may be justified force doesn't make you or any other cop a hero.

[dunphy]

strawman noted. nobody claimed i was being a hero

the point is, that you will gloss over is that cops frequently use far less force than is legally justified, and that this will almost never make the media.

in the minds of the ignorant bigoted person that means it doesn't happen

it happens WAY more often than excessive force.

the reality is that the vast majority of cops are quite reserved in their use of force.

[cynical]

You guys should wear Thudgards. Officer safety is paramount!

[dunphy]

while the phrase "officer safety is paramount" may be a catchphrase for you, for those of us who have had friends/partners/ourself be the victim of assaults, shootings, etc. - it is a reality.

it's often difficult to prove a negative iow to prove that if we had not done X officer safety procedure, than Y would have happened.

given GREAT officer safety, you can still get injured or killed

however, given same, it is imnsho, much less likely to happen

[rac3rx]

Goatse as industrial sabotage.
http://bit.ly/nmk9J9

[PR]

I'm guessing they think Hillary is just the right amount of fat to be president.

[Karl Hungus]

Volumewise, you're right. But they're looking for abdominal fat. Cankles aren't gonna cut it in 2012.

[Gray Ghost]

Ron Paul, as you'd expect, is not in favor of Al-Awalki's killing.

He's certainly consistent.

[Cytotoxic]

If you aren't happy that Awlaki is dead then you are psychologically unhealthy. He's an active battlefield participant and got what he had coming.

[TrickyVic]

Battlefield Earth?

[Art-P.O.G.]

I have two conflicting emotions. Like Rep. Paul, I hate the precedent. My other emotion you can probably guess.

[TxLaw]

Saw a few people asking whether or not you can try people in absentia in the USA. I haven't been in crim procedure since law school, but the rough answer is that it is extremely difficult to do so. The government has to show that it gave almost every possible effort to give notice or date, time, and that the trial would continue with or without the defendant. Because someone like Awlaki is difficult to contact, it may have been impossible to show a judge that he had the required notice.

[TxLaw]

It's Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 43 if you are curious.

[TxLaw]

Shit. Fed. R. Crim. Pro. 43.

[Gray Ghost]

Think you meant Fed. R. Crim. Pro., but no worries. I cited Crosby in my post way above in the thread, and mentioned that we should think about having Congress modify Rule 43 to allow in absentia for cases where the defendant just will not show up for trial in the first place. IIRC, you can get trial in absentia if the defendant runs midway through the trial, but not if s/he's not there to begin with. Or it the trial is for a capital crime.

I just want the "i's" dotted and "t's" crossed before the state takes it upon themselves to kill someone, that's all. Allowing the state to absolve itself of all oversight by claiming that it's a military strike and covered by state secrets doctrine, is an unConstitutional arrogation of power, and, frankly, is something I'd impeach for.

[Voros McCracken]

"Allowing the state to absolve itself of all oversight by claiming that it's a military strike and covered by state secrets doctrine, is an unConstitutional arrogation of power, and, frankly, is something I'd impeach for."

I might be on the lookout for predator drones over your house for the next couple of days if I were you.

[TrickyVic]

Battlefield Earth?

[TrickyVic]

"U.S. officials have given Anwar al-Aulaqi a newly elevated designation on the day of his death by drone strike, describing him as "chief of external operations" for al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen.

The new title, cited by officials at the White House and the CIA, reflects Aulaqi's evolution from Muslim cleric to alleged terrorist plotter, as well as a desire by American officials to persuade the public that the extraordinary killing of a U.S. citizen overseas was warranted."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/....._blog.html

[Gray Ghost]

If he's chief of external operations---which, frankly, strikes me as utter self-serving horseshit, given the timing---then it shouldn't be a problem laying out evidence to a tribunal and getting a death warrant/letter of marque/what-have-you issued. Have the judge(s) review the evidence in camera, if need be. The Feds do it in FISA court all of the time, with what, a 99%+ approval rate for the wiretap requests? Get some due process before you start assassinating American citizens, world-wide "battlefield" or not. It doesn't seen like that fucking hard of a request.

Also, isn't operations chief for AQ kind of like drummer for Spinal Tap at this point? At what point are we going to "win"?

[dunphy]

obama's point (and bush's) rightly or wrongly is that this is a war thang, not a crime thang.

getting a judge to issue a warrant is what is done in criminal matters, not war matters.

whether or not a judge WOULD have issued one is tangential to the fact that obamaco wants to emphasize their belief that based on what the target did, no judges justification is needed.

[Tony]

If Obama went around demanding warrants and trials for members of AQ, I'm sure the FOX News people and the GOP would be praising his concern for the rule of law.

[Art-P.O.G.]

I'm not sure this is a valid concern for an administration to have, although you are free to fret over it.

[Mr. FIFY]

Upthread, Tony advocated rounding up "free-market terrorists".

Therefore, he should shut the fuck up about his supposed concerns.

[James M. Martin]

The AP story does not use the word "assassinate" once. I wonder why you did? This guy was a pest and very likely responsible for many killings of Americans and innocents. As with bin Laden, justice has been done.

[Haunted Taint]

Maybe because it fits the fucking dictionary definition of assassinate?