Kennedy

It doesn't depend, it just needs requirments that fit the job. Wouldn't you want the driver strong enough to control the engine, and stong enough to uncap hydrants and move hoses? Whatever the appropriate standards are, I want them to apply to everyone who needs to do the job. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

How about something simple, like wrestling a 250 pounder to the ground so he can be cuffed and hobbled? If it's you and one other cop on the scene, would you rather have someone who can do the physical requirements, or someone who was passed unfairly? witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

I beat you to the punch on this one. See "Chirac intolerant?" thread. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Are you saying the NRA would start slinging mud at all republicans? I doubt it. They would want to inform everyone that this person no longer stands for what they believe in. (remember, there are basically only two parties, much as I would prefer otherwise). There are republicans the NRA grades an F and democrats the NRA grades an A. All this does is exclude the public from political discourse, leaving only the media and the candidate/parties. Nothing keeps them from mud slinging. That's already illegal. Has been for some time. From a number of angles. No one is objective, that's the point of advertising. To my deep sorrow, congress and the supreme court agree with you. I do not. I think political speech by unaffiliated groups should not be restricted. But, like so many other things involving government, they DGAS what I have to say. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

are we counting cult classics as B movies? Either way, my vote is for Boondock Saints. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Right, tell me you've never done that and then pulled them down to fix it, or tried to take a drink and forgot to take the cap off first. [it is a funny pic though ] witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Am I going to hear outcries of intolerance? witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

I just call it the Journal. Like Clay loves to say, once you realize most people are stupid, the world just makes more sense. Personally, I'd be surprised if politicians ever have to use a restroom for all the bs they spout off how full of piss and wind they all are. Rhetoric is a dangerous thing. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

WSJ? Roosevelt was known to do the same thing. He also basically cut the state dept out of all decisions and called them all incompetents to their collective face. Clinton was just too busy defending himself from real smears to fake others against anyone else. Andrew Jackson did kick someone's ass in the white house. Politicians get underhanded and dirty on a daily basis. I can't believe that would surprise you. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

You should see what comes with a Ruger. Some pistols actually have it stamped in the metal that they can be dangerous. Ah, stupidity at work. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

...just like every president since at least Woody Wilson. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

One running problem we have is the tendency to use others to do our dirty work and then being/acting surprised when they turn on us. Nicaragua, Iran Contra, bin Laden. Our track record in South America sucks. Saudi Arabia is not peaches and cream and everything sweet, but they sell us stuff we need so we put up with it. Making it out any other way is distorting the truth. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Like philly, I'm all for the donation limits monitoring of how campaigns spend money. This is about informing the electorate. We've already established that public education is a miserable failure most of the time, so, sadly, it falls to sound bites providing information. My theory is that between 50 and 80% of people don't care about a given issue. What was voter turnout for the last presidential year election? If, say 4 million Americans feel a certain thing is important and the news isn't covering it, why shouldn't they be able to air a commercial raising the issue? witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

That wa a good one, but I liked Really? I thought they were trying to figure out what the hell the city was talking aobut and get their hands on enough information to defend themselves. Silly me, trying to use common sense in a courtroom. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

No way!! witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Like this? witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

What, you mean they disapprove of post whoring? witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

I wonder if you hit something new at 20,000. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

ROTFLMFAO !!!!! witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Holy crap Clay... "Posts: 19630 (22.7 per day) " and dropded, I'm aiming to get just a little banned when I hit pooh bah status. You know, a little time in the penalty box (without getting tossed from the game). witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Eh, I knew it couldn't last. From the Santa Fe New Mexican: witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

Well would you look at this: more good news, this time from the Jersey Journal witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

ooooh, sharp tongues at the Washington Times . Muzzling democracy By Bruce Fein The history of constitutional law is the history of faddish intellectual currents. Neither the language nor purpose of the Constitution regularly defeat foolishness fortified by orthodoxy. Thus, a razor-thin 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court last week blessed a staggering assault on the First Amendment's protection of "soft money" speech by political parties, profit and nonprofit corporations, and unions in McConnell vs. Federal Election Commission (Dec. 10, 2003). Time-honored principles celebrating political advocacy and an informed electorate succumbed to voguish myths sermonizing about the alleged evils of money in politics. Congress enacted the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) amidst a crescendo of carping against a spiraling of "soft money" in federal elections. The term generally refers to corporate or union monies employed for either of two purposes: donations to the Republican or Democrat national political parties; or, independent issue advertising to support or oppose a candidate without expressly urging electoral victory or defeat. Handsome corporate and union soft money have funded an escalating share of national party spending. In the most recent election cycle, the political parties raised approximately $300 million — 60 percent of their aggregate soft-money funding — from only 800 donors, featuring a minimum $120,000 contribution. The largest corporate donors routinely contribute to both parties. The latter's soft money expenditures, however, were praiseworthy: voter registration, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and issue advertising to support or oppose candidates. Corporate and union soft money in federal elections have been comparably beneficial. In 2000, approximately $350 million of soft-money issue advertising was attributable to the two major parties and six major interest groups. Bribery laws addressed potential soft money evils by criminalizing the making or receipt of a contribution in exchange for a legislative favor. Human nature inclines politicians and the public to discover scapegoats for manufactured political ills. A decade ago, term limits were summoned as the panacea for allegedly corrupt and unresponsive legislators. When time discredited that elixir, soft money was indicted as the bete noir of perfect government. The polemics, however, wildly diverged from facts, in borrowing from the crusading Republican Party guru Elihu Root more than a century ago. As the McConnell majority noted, Root championed legislation to ban corporate contributions to prevent "the great aggregations of wealth from using their corporate funds, directly or indirectly," to elect legislators who would "vote for their protection and the advancement of their interests as against those of the public." The prohibition, according to Root, would "strik[e] at a constantly growing evil which has done more to shake confidence of the plain people of small means of this country than any other practice that has ever obtained since the foundation of our government." But democracy both contemplates and salutes the right of citizens, either solo or in corporate or union combinations, to devote their resources to elect candidates who echo their political desires. Root's distinction between a selfless "public" legislative interest and selfish private interests is illusory. All individuals and organizations are self-interested in politics, whether princes or paupers, the Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-CIO. That phenomenon of factional division was understood as inevitable in a democracy, as elaborated by James Madison in Federalist 10: "By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community... [To seek elimination of faction is] worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency. The Founding Fathers successfully checked faction's mischief by dispersing power among rival interests, not by suppressing advocacy. Notwithstanding Root and his McCain-Feingold disciples, the law has not been captured by aggregations of wealth. The federal government collects approximately 30 percent of income taxes from the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The lion's share of the federal budget transfers income from the most productive and industrious to the less productive and diligent. The nation's most powerful legislative lobby is the AARP (originally, American Association of Retired Persons), not a club of millionaires. Moreover, neither corporations nor unions enjoy the franchise. Incumbents would lose elections if soft money dictated their actions contrary to the wishes of their voting constituents. The McConnell majority conceded that although soft money may purchase access to officeholders, its ability to influence the course of legislation is dubious. The blunderbuss prohibition in the BCRA was nevertheless justified, the majority maintained, because soft money might tempt officeholders to "decide issues not on the merits or the desires of their constituents, but according to the wishes of those who have made large financial contributions valued by the officeholder." The Constitution, of course, empowers Congress to buttress an officeholder's inherent self-preservation resistance to soft money temptations by punishing bribery. But to strike directly at the temptation by suppressing political speech mutilates democracy in the name of saving it. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

A little update from the Boston Globe "Elections must not be tainted by corrupting influences like information. The Supreme Court says so." Taking First Amendment battle online By Hiawatha Bray, 12/15/2003 Despite the best efforts of Congress and the US Supreme Court, the First Amendment survives -- online. Last Wednesday, the US Supreme Court upheld the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, which deliberately trims citizens' First Amendment rights. Among other things, the law limits the ability of groups like the National Rifle Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the like to broadcast radio and TV ads in the run-up to a federal election. The court said that such ads, paid for by big corporate contributions, could distort the political process. You bet: They might actually cause voters to throw the bums out, and we can't have that. "Whatever you think about the First Amendment, this is pure incumbent protection," griped Joel Gora, associate dean of the Brooklyn Law School, who represented the ACLU in its failed effort to have the law ruled unconstitutional. But the reformers weren't paying attention to the Internet when they drafted their bill. There's nothing in McCain-Feingold about restricting the use of the Web, or e-mail, or streaming audio and video. Which means that we're about to enter the golden age of Internet politics, as millions in cash that can no longer be spent on TV and radio ads will make its way online. "This is bound to spur development of the Internet, not only as a fund-raising tool but as a way of getting candidates' messages out," said John Samples, director of the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Already, political pundits and Internet mavens alike have hailed Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, whose grass-roots Net campaign has transformed him from an obscure New England governor to the party's probable candidate in 2004. Now the political pressure groups being forced off the airwaves by McCain-Feingold are getting set to leverage the Net like never before. The NRA already runs a daily video broadcast on gun-control issues at www.nralive.com. The group's chief, Wayne LaPierre, said this is just the beginning. "We're going to do full-scale news programming on the Internet," he said, as a counterweight to mainstream news broadcasts that LaPierre regards as "antigun." While such a broadcast won't draw nearly the audience of a network news show, it could still attract plenty of eyeballs. According to the ratings company Arbitron Inc., 50 million of us viewed some kind of video on the Net in August. The NRA isn't giving up on TV ads. The group plans ads that will get out its message and rouse opposition to McCain-Feingold at the same time. The TV spots will state that federal law prevents the NRA from saying certain things about certain candidates, and will urge viewers to visit the NRA website for details. LaPierre hopes the ads will not only keep the NRA's issues before the public, but also spawn a backlash against McCain-Feingold among censorship-hating Americans. The NRA's guerrilla media tactics are just the beginning. Consider the potential of Internet radio. Millions of Net users already tune in to audio services like Live365. Political lobbying groups could take advantage by creating their own Internet radio stations. They wouldn't run nonstop political ads. Who'd listen? Instead, they'd run music, news, or talk, interspersed with pitches for their cause. The NRA could do a country and western channel, playing Alan Jackson and Garth Brooks tunes, mingled with scathing attacks on antigun candidates. The ACLU could mix alternative rock tunes with denunciations of anti-abortion candidates. Some shrewd politician could set up five or six different channels, each offering programming aimed at a different pool of voters. And none of it would come within reach of McCain-Feingold. Not yet, anyway. Don Simon is general counsel for Common Cause, a political reform group that backs McCain-Feingold. Simon isn't sure whether McCain-Feingold's advertising limits should apply to the Internet, but he's open to the idea. "Should the Internet become a loophole to undermine the federal laws meant to protect the integrity of the electoral process?" he mused. Indeed, critics say there's nothing to stop its being applied to the Net. "Maybe if Congress cited a couple of examples where people used the Internet to say people should write their congressmen, [the High Court] might say, `Yeah, we've got to regulate that,' " said the ACLU's Gora. Samples of the Cato Institute agrees the Net is the next target of the reformers. "If it's used against incumbent members of Congress, and it's effective, they're not going to leave the Internet alone," he said. Still, it might be for the best. Elections must not be tainted by corrupting influences like information. The Supreme Court says so. witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*

to dehijack the thread: good news for a change coming out of DC NRA Press Release witty subliminal message Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards. 1*