Has law in America become a joke?!Are we willing to waste tax payers money and judges time by sending a case to court about someone’s boop popping out of fabric on television but we won’t impeach a president who gravely abused his powers?!
In the now infamous “nipplegate” episode involving Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake and their halftime performance during the 2004 NFL Superbowl broadcast which was watched by approximately 90 million — the actual nipple incident was seen by much less than 90 million because it happened in a flash.
Timberlake grabbed Jackson’s breast and ripped off her bustier, exposing her boob even though her nipple was actually covered by a star shaped object.It seemed to me that the entire ‘incident’ was over before anyone really had a chance to notice.But millions, by choice, caught a glimpse of Janet’s felonious boob thanks to the internet and madness ensued.Fines were thrown around, press conferences were held and the media went into a frenzy!
Today, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine over the deeply alarming image of the naked, star covered boob.
I’m rehashing the story of ‘nipplegate’ because it is ridiculous to me that a breast could be bought up on charges but George W. Bush won’t be impeached?How ridiculous is this?
I understand Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s frustrations that his colleagues in congress continue to hold hearings to investigate the Bush administration’s alleged constitutional violations, but refuse to hold President George W. Bush accountable for what Kucinich believes are High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
“How many more hearings do we need to have to prove this administration has violated the constitution, taken the law into its own hands, and condoned torture?” Kucinich said in an interview. “There is a point at which you reduce congress to a debating society which diminishes Congress’s role.”
Kucinich has spent the past year making a case for impeaching President Bush. Last year, he introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. But that effort failed. In fact, it barely received any media coverage.
On June 9, Kucinich introduced a resolution on the House floor calling for the impeachment of President Bush and then spent nearly five hours reading 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush, alleging the president was guilty of a wide-range of crimes, into the Congressional Record.
The articles of impeachment were introduced a few days after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a long-awaited report on prewar Iraq intelligence that concluded President Bush and Vice President Cheney knowingly lied to the public and to Congress about Iraq’s links to al-Qaeda and the threat the country posed to the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11.
How refreshingly honest and cute! I am waiting for ‘W’ to call a press conference to say that Daddy (#41) was misinterpreted.
There’s been plenty of second-guessing from Republican critics about Barack Obama’s large-scale public events and speeches scheduled for his visit to Europe this week — but former President George H.W. Bush isn’t one of them.
Asked today whether, as a former head of state who has a sensitivity about protocol, he has any thoughts about the appropriateness of Obama’s planned events, the former President replied, “A little jealous, is all.”
The former president, who says he’s just returned from a visit to Germany’s Brandenburg gate, added that Obama will “figure it out.”
For everyone reading this post, if you can, please volunteer to be a poll worker in your community on November 4. Contact you local election office and complete the application — please do this, it is important.
Poorly designed ballots continue to plague U.S. elections, even after Congress set aside $3 billion to overhaul voting systems to prevent a recurrence of the flawed Florida ballots that deadlocked the 2000 presidential race, a study out today concludes.
Problems with confusing paper ballots in 2002, absentee ballots in 2004 and touch-screen ballots in 2006 led thousands of voters to skip over key races or make mistakes that invalidated their votes, according to the study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
“In the big election meltdowns where thousands of votes were lost, ballot design was the primary cause,”says Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center.
Ballot designs could play a big role in mistakes made at the polls this fall because of an infusion of new voters who registered for this year’s presidential race and the introduction of new voting machines in parts of 11 states with 15 million potential voters. Since passage of the Help America Vote Act in 2002, states have spent more than $2 billion in mostly federal funds to overhaul their voting systems.
John McCain finally got what he wanted – General David Petraeus and Senator Obama met in Iraq.
The General met Senator Obama and the congressional delegation at Baghdad International Airport and flew them in his personal Blackhawk helicopter to the heavily fortified Green Zone, said Col Steve Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
During the short 10 to 15 minute helicopter ride Petraeus pointed out landmarks to the senators. The flight took Obama over the predominantly Sunni neighborhoods of West Baghdad, areas where Al Qaeda once controlled, but that today are controlled by pro-U.S. neighborhood watch groups.
Obama and the other visiting senators will meet with Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker later this evening.
During the meeting Petraues “is going to provide an honest forthright assessment of the situation on the ground” and answer the senators’ questions, Boylan said.
Security has been tightened in much of Baghdad. All civilian flights into and out of Baghdad airport were delayed for hours, according to Charlie Jones, who had gone to the airport to pick up employees for his company, Information Technology Outsourcing, a U.S. contractor in Iraq.
In Baghdad neighborhoods close to the Green Zone Iraqi cars waited in long lines to get through newly erected checkpoints where Iraqi soldiers searched every vehicle.
Inside the Green Zone, however, independent contractor Shane Hopkins said the U.S. military did not seem to have bolstered security as much as they have for other visiting dignitaries.
“Normally when VIPs visit there are a lot of little things that you notice,” he said. “The cell phones stop working, the checkpoints get a lot stricter, and it really impacts the work on the bases. Compared to other politicians’ visits, we don’t even know that Obama’s here. As of now, it’s just another day at work in paradise.”
Rewrite -- your article is NOT up to our standard! An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama.
The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's'My Plan for Iraq'has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.
'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'
In McCain's submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: 'I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it... if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.'
NYT's Shipley advised McCain to try again:'I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.'
Here is New York Times Opinion Page Editor David Shipley's full e-mail to the McCain campaign detailing why the paper rejected the Arizona senator's essay.
Dear Mr. Goldfarb,
Thank you for sending me Senator McCain's essay.
I'd be very eager to publish the Senator on the Op-Ed page.
However, I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.
I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.
Let me suggest an approach.
The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.
It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator's Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.
I am going to be out of the office next week. If you decide to re-work the draft, please be in touch with (Redacted)
Again, thank you for taking the time to send me the Senator's draft. I really hope we can find a way to bring this to a happy resolution.
If there weren’t susceptible folks who can be ‘swayed’ to believe this foolishness, this ad would be funny and could be used as a late show skit!Clearly McCain thinks that some Americans are stupid otherwise he would not run an intellectually insulting ad like this.
Does McCain remember that he scored ‘zero’ on the League of Conservation Voters scorecard for 2007!He didn’t show upnot even onceto vote for polices that would have eliminated subsidies to big oil, created a national renewable electricity standard and included $5.7 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy!What a fraud!!!
“Gas prices — $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America. No to independence from foreign oil. Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?” an announcer asks over crowd chants of “O-bama, O-bama.” Then Obama’s smiling image appears on the screen.
McCain is showing his desperation by flooding the airwaves with ads attacking Obama on ‘republican’ issues.
Hello! Bush and Cheney — two oil men are in the White Hose.Shouldn’t McCain be talking to Bush/Cheney?Isn’t this ad misdirected?
Iraq’s government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010.
Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Senator Barack Obama.
The timeframe is similar to Obama’s proposal to pull back combat troops within 16 months. The Iraqi government has been trying to clarify its position on a possible troop withdrawal since al-Maliki was quoted in a German magazine last week saying he supported Obama’s timetable.
Maliki had tried softening his position after the White House called him to reprimand him because the White House was embarrassed that the Iraqi leader favored Obama’s position.
The Iraqi government has now come back to pretty much what was quoted in the German magazine.
This is the type of confusion created when one government (Bush administration) tries to manipulate another. (Maliki’s administration).
Has law in America become a joke?! Are we willing to waste tax payers money and judges time by sending a case to court about someone’s boop popping out of fabric on television but we won’t impeach a president who gravely abused his powers?!
