I'd Piss on Your Diploma if you were "educated" at any of these "schools".  

Seems to me that Bush called it a "G.D. piece of paper" and was all for pretending it did not exist at times.
Obama is a former Constitutional Law scholar and has some respect for it...
I think that you are mistaken when you say that he said it was an outdated document...
If he seems to be for a more liberal interpretation of it... It would be one that would grant more Constitutional rights for all peoples by taking into account as the writers of the Constitution wrote and said that they intended it to be taken into account, the record of case law and potentially the expansions of society...
In this way things like privacy which were granted, although not specifically so under the 4th ammendment right to illegal search and seizure and against illegal intrusion into our personal affairs can be extended to cover not just the documents and letters that existed at that time but also the telephone conversations and the emails that now exist.
With a conservative interpretation of the Constitution as set forth under Bush, the Government has more ability to take away powers and rights from the people and not less...
This is something that some people do not understand...
as they think that the liberal view has something to do with social values or the lack of it.
I am against abortion but for a liberal view of the Constitution as it makes sense.
The Conservative view strips you of most rights and liberties while strengthening the Federal government and the liberal one gives you more liberties and weakens the Federal government.

The Conservative view strips you of most rights and liberties while strengthening the Federal government and the liberal one gives you more liberties and weakens the Federal government.

That is the most abysmal understanding of conservatives and liberals that I have ever seen.

0bama and the Democrats have increased the federal government more than every single president and Congress in the history of this country. 0bama has spent more in 7 months than Bush did in 8 years and 2 wars.

one more thing: 0bama is on record as saying that the Constitution doesn't give the government ENOUGH power.

The man has NO respect whatsoever for the Constitution. If he did he wouldn't be trying to force government healthcare on a nation that clearly doesn't want it.

The liberal view of the Constitution does in fact want to preserve the right to privacy, the right to due process, and other things that the conservative view does not provide...
Both sides have their strengths and their flaws...
Read this rather objective look at the Liberal and Conservative stances on the law and you will find that to be true.
http://www.objectivistcen...

I as a former newspaper reporter who chose to abide by ethical standards learned about the right to privacy and did my best to insure that I respected it... Bush and Clinton trampled over it. And Bush also had the gall to at the same time increase government secrecy even prior to 911 making us more transparent to the government and the government less transparent to the people.

Obama appears to be acting in the full view of the people on the net, radio, TV, etc. trying to inform people rather than hiding and is apparently not making as many things classified as Bush did. He has not rid us of the things that Clinton and Bush imposed yet... I am hoping that they will be lifted.. as the right of privacy, although it is not important to those who are of the conservative view of the constitution, is important to me under the liberal view of it...The right to due process, the right to free speech and other things are also important under the liberal view but apparently are not important under the conservative view...

I was not misinterpreting this dicotomy...

There are merits on both sides...

I do not by the way judge Obama by the House bill as that was a poorly constructed attempt at a compromise in the House and was not Obama's bill at all... I have a wait and see attitude on this whole health care issue...

I am one of those who are for a public option of some sort as I have the misfortune of wearing two hats at once... that of an uninsured person who has not received any health care in the last three years (at the age of 49 I know that has risks) and that of an independent contractor at a non-profit counseling center seeing clients who are insured under HMO and PPO insurance programs... I have also worked for county mental health doing 5150s on those who were a danger to themselves and others or gravely disabled due to psychosis and have worked for a regional center caring for developmentally disabled children and adults, as a therapist in foster care group homes, etc. I have seen the need for a revamping of the health care system ... I have seen the people who are not getting the care that they need... I have also saw the lines of people waiting to receive health care in the Los Angles Forum when a group of volunteers who normally travel to Third World countries to provide health care in disasters went there... Thousands of people showed up there... waiting from 3:30 a.m. until the clinic closed to get health care as they were under insured or uninsured. It was a sight to behold... not a good one.

The truth is that people do want better health care... The lack of it is harming people, ruining businesses and causing bankrupcies and foreclosures, causing homelessness and reduced productivity...

Perhaps people are displeased with the the thought of a government option but the insurance companies are not meeting the needs of many people who are now losing their jobs and cannot afford cobra, those who are forced to become independent contractors and part-time workers due to their inability to find full-time benefited employment through no fault of their own...
these are American Citizens I am talking about ...
and it is patently unfair that in this advanced nation, there is not access to health care for all Americans and that people value one group of people over another when God created us all equal and gave us all the same inaliable rights.
Seems to me that we as a nation can do better.

Are you kidding me? 0bama VOTED FOR the Patriot Act. 0bama is shaping up to be the least transparent president in history.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202875

Just because he's still in campaign mode and getting overexposed on TV doesn't mean he's keeping everyone in the loop. In fact, all he's doing is distracting the sheeple and giving them a false sense of being involved while he and his cronies strip our rights and liberty. And apparently it's working on you.

From the link you posted:

On the other hand is a liberal jurisprudence that reads the provisions of the Constitution that grant powers to the federal government—particularly the Commerce Clause and the so-called General Welfare Clause—so broadly as to give Congress virtually unlimited legislative powers and thus permit the federal government to regulate almost all aspects of Americans' daily lives.

I'm sorry, that doesn't sound at all like the liberal view respects individual liberty at all.

Liberals believe it's the government's job to take care of everyone and in order to do that they must control those they care for, and that means stripping individual liberty in favor of the "common good". In other words, your right to privacy takes a back seat to the needs of the community.

Seems like the right of privacy typically gets more protection under liberals...
Or so it has in the past...
It was the liberals who protested against illegal wiretapping , invasions of privacy in emails, phones, etc. The reason most liberals did was because it is a priority...
Some conservatives protested governmental intrusions too ... but not enough...
Unfortunately as the privacy legistlation was used to legalize abortions and the conservative judges knew this, they valued privacy even less...
This was problematic for all of us...
The erosion of this right, not explicitly in the Constitution but inferred in it under the Liberal view, is something that those who come after us will not be thankful for.
Unfortunately there is the tendency for things to be like a slippery slope...
One President does something.. like Clinton did, Bush worsens it, and then Obama either will worsen it still further or try to back track but the damage to the privacy rights has been done already...
The people did not rise up enough in that area.
Hoping they do before versichips or other things occur in general use on people.

The Democrats proposal for healthcare would be the greatest violation of privacy rights ever seen in this country. No liberal can say the care about individual rights as long as they support government involvement in the private lives of citizens.

Remember it was liberals who supported eugenics.

It seems that the conservatives and liberals alike have cheapened the right to privacy...
First Clinton, then Bush
and not enough people protested...

Those who protested the Patriot Act were labelled as traitorsby those who valued fleeting security over long-head American Constitutional freedoms and most of the Democrats at that time, feared that label and acted in a cowardly manner... including Obama. It was not the his most noble action...

If Obama does anything, he will do it in the open
and people like you will protest it...
Bush did most of his bad actions in secret and classified many of them...
marking 5 times as many things classified prior to 911 than Clinton did in all of his years in office.

Seems that Obama is trying to reverse this trend...
He though may find that some of his advisors, who by the way are not necessarily liberal, will not support him in being as transparent as he would wish and he will perhaps have to modulate his behavior.

You should know that Bush made your credit records available to the CIA, and that AT&T even when it was in danger of reprisals due to siding with Bush in what should have been ruled as illegal activity planned to open up all email packets of all people to look for copyright infringements when it thought that its ability to use its now used monitoring equipment was threatened...

Perhaps in the area of medical record privacy you should look at this and obtain more information... It seems that you do not understand that most medical records (diagnosis information, treatment dates and times, amounts paid for treatments, provider name, etc.) are on line already with the insurance companies having access to them and also with many people you do not know having access to them... financial institutions, employers, advertisers, and yes the Government...

There has been a push to have medical records on line for many years... and both Republican and Democratic politicians have pressed for it... This has been going on for some time... and the discussion about the need for health care privacy has been going on for a long time...I found discussion of on line medical records being used and having privacy concerns about their use by the insurance companies in 1999.

There is a HIPPA in place which talks about portability of health care resources... and attempts to insure some privacy
http://www.hhs.gov/hipaafaq/index.html

But you should know that presently as things are now, your health care information is on line and is far from being private...even though we would like to think that it is...
The government is already able to access it.
Financial Institutions, your employer, schools, etc. have some access to some of your health care information...
Read this and be informed...
Seems like you are afraid of what is already occurring...
Your diagnosis information, payment information,treatment information, etc. is already out there...
The barn yard door is open and the horse has already fled...
And getting angry at Obama for it is not exactly going to help you as he wasn't responsible for it...
But he might be able to help the already bad situation be better
as he actually does seem to value privacy.
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs8-med.htm

The real issue of costs and benefit analysis of this plan to make all health records computerized is as follows...
http://money.cnn.com/2009...

The test is in the works on a small scale:
http://www.pbs.org/newsho...

A computer guy's explanation of what is being proposed:
http://blogs.computerworl...

google would like to have its system used and be more web based but this would probably threaten your privacy more:
http://www.nextgov.com/ne...

People like myself who have joined organizations in an attempt to increase the privacy of our medical records which are presently anything but private have had some successes and we can only hope that we will have more success in the future:
http://www.bloomberg.com/...


I am hoping that Obama will really do what he can to help us regain some of our privacy which is presently already being violated more than you know.

In regard to your comment regarding Eugenics... That has some rather diverse meanings... Everything from stem cell therapies which both liberals and conservatives have protested and approved off or
the actions of people like Republican John La Bruzzo who proposed sterilizing poor women
Lhttp://www.nola.com/news/...
or perhaps this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXIQifruK08
Seems that the hands of the these Conservatives are not at all clean.

Whiteheron, I'll agree with you that both republicans and democrats have taken their toll on our freedoms. So why should we trust Obama, Pelosi or Reid with them anymore.

You're wrong about Obama being open. Name one time when he was? He said that he would have the most transparent adminstration ever, yet he has yet to start any open policies. He promised that all non emergency bills would be posted online for 5 days from the time they made it to his desk, yet he has yet to make that reality.

He has in fact put a lot of things out in the open..
I have a feeling that he will put more out in the open than he has ...
Give him some time...
There were so many years of secrecy and some of the people who remain in office and in various agencies would like to keep it that way...
He has to do things gradually.

I frankly trust the government a lot more than I trust private insurance companies when it comes to my privacy... as advertisers are not as likely to get information from the government as they will be to get it from the insurance companies...

"He has in fact put a lot of things out in the open..
I have a feeling that he will put more out in the open than he has ..."

Name some of them then!

"Give him some time..."

We have already given him double the time he gave the Auto industry and Financial industry before he Unconstitutionally seized them.

"There were so many years of secrecy and some of the people who remain in office and in various agencies would like to keep it that way..."

I thought Obama was supposed to be about "Change", so why do his supporters insist on defending him by pointing out that he's no different?

"He has to do things gradually."

He didn't seize control of the auto or financial industry "gradually". He didn't funnel billions to his cronies "gradually".

"I frankly trust the government a lot more than I trust private insurance companies when it comes to my privacy..."

Please explain to me why?

That is the most pro tyrant statement I've read in a while.

Regarding the privacy of records... the insurance companies have many people who have access...
All records are computerized... payment information not covered under HIPPA by the way... open to financial institutions presently and perhaps your employer...
Diagnosis...
Treatment codes...
professional treating you...
location where you have received treatment...
and the insurance companies have problems at times maintaining this information...
leaks, system errors and other problems do occur...
I have heard many horror stories about what is presently occurring.
A lot of personal information getting into the wrong hands and getting used against those who are insured.
If there was one system of maintaining the records which had more money funnelled into it to make it less prone to hackers and with more restrictions against people profiting from selling the information to third parties...
our privacy might be better maintained.

The government presently has access to all health care information.
Yet has not the ability to safeguard our privacy as it relies on a hodge podge of insurance companies and providers to work together to safeguard it and to utilize it effectively...
Unfortunately, they do not do this well.
I believe that the government because it has more funds and can afford to perhaps hire better experts than the private sector and because it would use a system that is not hack resistant would be better at maintaining privacy than the private insurance companies are...

If the government is good at classifying information and keeping it hidden from public view, don't you think that it could do the same thing for medical records?

Again... under HIPPA laws now on the book the government has full access to all health care information if it wishes now...

There is no reason not to allow the government to safeguard what is already in its domain...
seems stupid to have them already have access to it and not be able to help us protect it.

The HIPPA is a fact accomplished...

It is not part of the debate... so that whole privacy argument basically is nil... finished before it even starts...

The issue becomes... the government has access to the information already... would you rather them safeguard it well or continue to have the insurance companies which have not the skill attempt to do so and continue to fail?

You already know my answer.

oops...meant to say that it could afford a system that was more hack resistant than the insurance companies.

There is a difference between leaks and the government illegally and unconstitututionally demanding your private records.

You tell me that there are problems with the current medical coverage system, then you go on to say that you would rather the goveryment run the same problems.

How is it fixing anything if the same thing is done, only the names of the people are different?

Let's come up with solutions that fix problems, not just the name of the problem.

btw, no the government doesn't have access to medical information without your authorization. Not even if you're on medicare/medicaid or VA.

Sorry to say that it does...
Read HIPPA...
It can get access to your personal medical information without your permission easily...
Directly or indirectly...
And much of the information that is gleaned by the government now will not even be covered under HIPPA as it is financial information which is Not protected... services, diagnosis, treatment codes, provider...


I think that perhaps the government would be better at securing it from advertisers, hackers and others who have bad motives...

I would prefer records not to be on the computer at all but given that they are already there... I would like to have maximun safeguards... I am thinking that the goverment will be better at that than private insurance companies are...and that is only if it does the work is has said it will do to increase the security of the information...
This is some of why I say what I say... It seems that now that our records are not protected very well...
I would like them to be.

http://mix.epicfu.com/pro...

Ok, criminals like you who abuse the system maybe. But only Nazi cows like yourself would want it done openly and legally.

Is there nothign about freedom you respect for anyone other than yourself?

No wonder you're in the incompetent press. You are as vile as the worst of them.

I hope they are keeping you far away from kids, you are a threat to them all!

Man, you do have the problem with calling people names when you get upset... and it does nothing for your arguments as you don't get the facts right then. Steady.If you read anything I said, I am respecting freedoms for everyone...
The fact is the Government already had access to all information but is not presently helping to safeguard it from hackers. If I thought that it was going to be newly having that power, I would be as furious about it as you are. But the right is muddying the waters... The fact is that Government that you fear has already gotten into the barn... The horse of privacy has already escaped... Now, the question is who else do you want to be able to get into the barn to go after the rest of your horses of privacy... I would like to avoid having advertisers get into it....There is no reason why CVS should be able to market medications you might have taken elsewhere to you, no reason why a financial insitution should know your medical conditions but they often do as HIPPA does not protect your payment information which indicates provider, date, service, service location... and right now, there is also the hacking issue. My hope is that fewer people that you and I both do not want in our records will be prevented from being there. It could be that there are other ways of doing this than the plans that are being presently proposed. We will have to see what new plans arise as frankly the house bills seem to be trial balloons as they have many more in the stable ready to go and as the senate bills appear to indicate that many things in the house bill which the public has complained about will not be in the final bill.

So let's fix the problems instead of giving the government unconstitutional authority to make them worse!

Your contempt for us is noted...

...that's ok though, I expressed my contempt for these anti freedom, anti US institutions, I respect your right to show the same contempt for our military.

White Heron... seems to me that no one could ever prove that Bush ever said that line about the "GD piece of paper". But I'm sure you didn't care either way. This isn't about Bush, this is about the cesspools that our elite universities have made of themselves.

Yeah...I could never get anyone to show any proof that Bush made that comment, unlike 0bama's comment about the Constitution not giving the government enough power. There's plenty of proof he said it.

If you can't prove he said it, then it should never enter into the debate.

As a woman who loves children and believes that there are always better options than warfare, I cannot think otherwise.

Really? So are you inferring that anyone who doesn't think like you doesn't love children? And what about all those children whose lives have been saved BECAUSE of war? Like the Civil War and World War II? I guess all those slave children and Jewish children didn't matter if it took a war to save them?

Let me make myself perfectly clear... I have no contempt for the military but do have contempt for recruiters who lie to young people and to those who over the opposition of parents try to get the kids to sign up.
There are young men and women who make their decisions with open eyes and I honor them for their service... and I honor those who presently serve...
I though do not honor those who mislead people in order to have them enlist and I think that often the recruiters have done this in the past. If they are straight with the young people and give them all of the facts about enlisting without promising them that they will see the world when they will only see Iraq or Afganistan or a base on a desert somewhere, then fine... If they promise them education and deliver on that promise, fine.
If there was a guarantee that recruiters would follow some code of ethics, if there was a guarantee that young kids would not get told lies and manipulated to join up... fine.
Is there though such a guarantee... No, I do not think so.

This is just one of the sourse of information on Bush and constitutional law...
Seems interesting...
Not the proof that you asked for... although there is reference to the conversation in which that comment apparently occurred.
It is interesting to look at the quote by a Judge supported by Bush who said that the Constitution was out moded... This was interesting to me...
It is a piece of American history...
http://whitehouser.com/po...

I am saying that is who I am...
I am not saying that those who have alternative views do not love children...
That is your leap... not my words nor my intention in saying what I said.
It is a sadness that Hitler was at war with his own people... killing them, brutalizing Jews, gypsys, the disabled, anyone that he disliked for any reason...
There was perhaps still an option perhaps when it was first seen that he was as he was...
But people waited until a war was needed...
Would it have been better for it to have been nipped in the bud prior to that... Yes indeed.
Was there enough of an attempt ... no there was not.
Were he to have been removed from office, were the people to have cared enough quickly enough, perhaps things could have been different...
And in the Civil War, which my relatives fought in on the Union side by the way... Would it have been better for brother not to have engaged in battle against brother and for the people to have been able to recognize the humanity of all people regardless of race, creed or religion from the beginning yes... Could there have been better ways to acheive that than war yes...
Was that war really though about slavery... if so, why did they blacks not really attain full freedom until later. Why did they not get to vote until later in many areas? Seems that it was even more about states rights...
My point is this... Sometimes there is a race to war... without thought or negotiation...
This is unfortunate... and is a waste of human resources.
If there be a need for a war after all else has been tried and failed, then fine...
But to embark on war when it is immoral, when it is not to rescue people, when it is not even to defend the nation, but is for reasons that are not altruistic is not as honorable than perhaps other actions.
There is in many cases more of a need for negotiation than warring... as warring causes more problems normally than it solves... again note the word normally as there are and have been some exceptions.

You've painted all recruiters with the same brush. Because some of them have lied that means all of them lie, right? A recruiters are evil and our children have to be protected from them, right?

And I'm sure 500,000 Kurds appreciate Saddam Hussein being gone...

Re: the recruiters...
Protecting children from them does sound like a good idea...
especially children who are easily persuaded into things...
and when there is often an attempt to make them enlist against the will of their parents and other loved ones...
In every documentary, even the ones that were more supportive of recruiters this attempt to convince young people to enlist against the will of their parents and other loved ones did take place.

Sometimes people should not enlist... and I think that the recruiter's recruitment quotas make them a bit too gung ho and make them use poor judgement about who should be enlisted...
One tried to enlist a I know. Now, that youth had wanted to be enlisted. That recruiter was so anxious to recruit that client that he was very rude to that person's mother when that person's mother said that she would not give permission for him to be recruited. He talked about that client having his right to enlist, etc. until she informed him that the client, although he had answered yes to all of that recruiters questions and thus seemed like an ideal candidate, was brain injured, mentally ill, and did not understand the questions he was asked or even for that matter know his own address and telephone number.

In my own family...
I had one uncle who proudly served in the Army a part of Merrill's Marauders and that military involvement was great for him. But I had another uncle who came back from war a broken man, in and out of psychiatric hospitals with the label of: "shell shocked" but most likely PTSD was the culpret...
His life was ruined due to his involvement in the military...
Those who enlisted him did not do him or his family any favors as he did not have the disposition for it.

If a person has a desire to enlist... has a passion for that career and a desire to serve the country and is suited for military work, then fine, let him or her them enlist when he or she is mature enough to do so and without being persuaded to by recruiters on high school or college campuses who perhaps have more desire to meet quotas than to really care about the needs of the students.

Re: the kurds...
Oddly enough it was the British who first gassed the Kurds in the 1920s...http://www.iraqwar.org/chemical.htm
I was looking at other things on the net and just saw this... thought it was an amazing and sad bit of world history...

It is a pity that when it was in our Country's interests to do so we supported Saddam Hussain and allowed the genocide of the Kurds to take place. Reagan blew it here.
http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html

We still are not totally loyal to the Kurds even today:
http://www.washingtonpost...

It is true that they may be better off since we went into Iraq but there is also the truth that there is a risk here of another conflict brewing...
http://www.time.com/time/...

I hope that the kurds get some more assistance from us as they are
presently in danger--
http://www.atimes.com/ati...

But Heron, you wish Iraqis were still being raped and murdered by Hussein.

You wish that UN officials were still getting hundreds of millions in blood money from Hussein.

It was a wrong thing that Hussain did what he did but... one has to also look at the fact that ten of thousands of people have died since the war began... much more than Hussain ever killed...

The war has left the majority of those that remain alive emotionally scarred, in grief for those who have died,still without adequate infrustructure, poor, angry and unfortunately likely to blame us for their condition... This could result in another conflict in the future...
if we are not careful...

The war was embarked in with caprice... poorly planned (fire, ready, aim) and poorly executed.
The majority of the world's religions stated that it was an unjust war because it was entered into when we were not directly under attack by Iraq...
I and many others wrote to Bush warning him that if he did this the chances would be that it would decrease our favor in the world community, cause economic problems here and elsewhere (which I did itemize and which did come to pass), give us less credibility when other countries were at war as far as negotiations and peacemaking go (this also did happen,etc.

Whatever good that the war did, seems to me to be reduced in its effect by the fact that so many people have died, the fact that it was not Just or morally correct to begin with; the fact that lies were told to the public to get us there, and that we still are not quite sure what to do with Iraq now that it is no longer as stable as it was under the horrible Hussain.

We perhaps also should talk about the fact that there are many other places in this world where we are continuing to back dictators which have just as many crimes against humanity on their hands and that we are propping them up because there is a desire for oil or funds, or because there is perhaps a belief that any uprisings toward more Democratic governments in those areas would result in less stability for large companies that would like things to remain the same. If you want, I can find these for you...
There are many...

We do not have a great track record in this area... as our economic and political interests conflict often with our desire to be compassionate and our desire to assist those who are oppressed by dictators.

I had not heard about the allegations against the UN as I am one of those people who do not listen to television news especially not on Fox preferring to obtain it from more credible sources which go into more detail on the subjects they cover... print or even lots of net resource...
As a former print journalist, pardon me for wanting to double check things and not to take what you said at face value...
I went to this website and others.
This one looks at the charges and points at the inaccurate information...
It seems that Fox did a smear job...
http://mediamatters.org/research/200502160007
Oh well...
It figures...

Officials in the Useless UN were getting billions in blood money to look the other way with Hussein's attrocities. Even though he never once complied with their demands, he was given increases in his farce "Oil for Food" program.

He built palaces and his military instead of hospitals and clinics.

But being a former member of the incompetent press, I question your integrity.

The so-called oil for food program was supposed to assist those who were poor and hungry in that area and was supposed to compensate for the damage that was imposed on the people by the embargos and sanctions...
This was not based on his actions but again on the will to provide humanitarian relief.

I notice that once again... you resort to pettiness by questioning my integrety and by labelling the press as incompetent...
Interesting that you do this...
wondering if it is a bit of projection on your part...
Either way, a pity.

No, the oil for food program was supposed to allow Hussein to raise funds to get food and medical supplies for the people of Iraq. Something he never bothered doing. If you had your way, the people of Iraq would still be abused by Hussien and the blood and horror of his administration would still be raging.

You can't tell me that you give a crap about people as long as you wish Hussein was still in power.

I question the integrity of everyone in the incompetent press. I know there must be some honest people in the incompetent press, but they apparently don't get much say in what goes on.

I have never been on a disaster scene where the press reported anywhere close to what was actually happening. The imcompetent press has blown the reporting of EVERY major disaster in the last 25 years. Nothing that is reported in the first 72 hours after a disaster is accurage beyond maybe that the disaster happened.

The incompetent press allowed Nagin to literally get away with murder with the floods following Hurricane Katrina. They reported one rumor after the other, but never once reported that Nagin released people from the shelters without doing an assessment of the area. He KILLED hundreds of people, with the direct aid and support of the incompetent press.

You can lie all you want in defense of the incompetent press, but if you say that they have done even a passible job in the last 25 years, that is all you are doing... LYING!

The press is only as good as its sources...
The real press rely on people to provide them with information and try to do their best to fact check...
In a disaster, how are the sources of information?
They are rattled, jarred, upset, and scattered...

Often the sources of information do not know anything but they do not wish to appear stupid so they tell the press something, anything to avoid having that feeling...

The press innocently parrot it because in that crisis situation they are dependent on that source. They trust that source to be accurate...
And thus it happens...
Incorrect information gets out which has to be retracted later.

You dislike people who do their best to fullfill the function of distributing information from other sources to you...
The Fourth Estate, while it is far from perfect, does not deserve your scorn. If they are ethical, they do not invent news...They can only report what they hear, see or are told. And they are supposed to try to do their best to be fair and to keep themselves out of the news.

People like you who know nothing about the job of a reporter, nothing about what it is like to try to get accurate information to pass on to the people who are demanding it,
who know nothing about the deadline pressures,
the need to please editors and indirectly the need to refrain from troubling publishers and advertisers,
get upset because the job was not done perfectly.
All I can say is, you try it sometime.
Get your hands on those computer keys while in the midst of a disaster after racing around to interview six or seven people and see how well you do at writing an accurate and complete article that answers the question who, what, where, when and why with some objectivity and detail... I think that you would not do it even a quarter as well as most of the reporters out there now.

I covered police, fire, city counsel and planning commission meetings, and also covered the business community and community groups for a local weekly newspaper. My sources liked me because I quoted them accurately...
and those in the community liked me because I provided them with good information because I got good information from my sources: the city counsel, the mayor, the police, the fire men, the business community and those who live and work in the area. I got and read a lot of press releases from a lot of organizations and must admit that I covered quite a bit of events because of those press releases.
Yet I was lucky in that I never had to cover a major disaster... the closest I got was a 21 car and truck pile up and that was not easy as I interviewed all of those who survived the accident.

I don't know how I would have been were I to be caught up in Hurricaine Katrina when all of the people were running around like crazy, when the normal sources of information did not have any to provide and when those who provided information provided incomplete, inaccurate and poor information to the reporters who were often unfamiliar with the area and the sources there and there was not the ability to fact check until later. Give the reporters a break for heaven's sake. They do the best they can with the information they have available to them... They are not to blame if their sources either intentionally or unintentionally lead them astray... Yet they are responsible once they know they have made a mistake, to do their best to correct it in their newspapers or radio or television shows, as this is ethical behavior. Unfortunately, this is not always done. It should be.

Did I say that I wish that Hussain was still in power, no I did not. I will though say that removing him was not the expressed reason for going into Iraq...

We were told it was chemical and nuclear weapons, etc. and none were found (whether they were there recently or not is a matter for debate... There is the possibility that they were moved to Syria. There is also the possibility that he pretended to have more things than he did as he was wanting his neighbors to fear him in order to further prop up his government... I do not have enough information to tell.)

We were also told that Iraq was in part responsible for 911 iniatially as there was an Iranian source of information who might have convince Bush and members of the CIA that Iraq was responsible for his own reasons. That was inaccurate information...

The removal of Hussain was not mentioned as a motivation for entry into that Country and could not be... as that would have caused international outrage if it were discovered as it would have been interfering in the affairs of another Nation.

If you remember correctly, I mentioned that Hussain was horrible... I also stated that when he was even worse, during the times it was to our benefit to do so, we supported him. We are presently supporting others who are equally bad or worse. That unfortunately does not seem to end anytime soon.

In Hurricane Katrina, the incompetent press reported over 100 murders in the Super Dome shelter. The fact is, 3 people died there.. none from murder. What would it have taken a couple of "reporters" to go down to the basement freezers and verify the story? 10 minutes? Over 100 murders in an open shelter would have been noticable in and of itself.

The fact is, almost every dramatic story reported in the first days were wrong.

That is how disaster reporting goes. Nothing reported in the first 72 hours should be taken with any credence whatsoever. Some of that, as you point out, is the realities of disaster scenes. In Emergency Management we know that it really takes about 72 hours to do a good assement and put a workable recovery plan in motion. So why does the incompetent press insist on reporting on things they know aren't reliable?

CNN had reporters in country prior to the 2003 invasion. They had reporters who were tortured by Hussein's thugs.. but they kept it quiet. Their stated reasoning was because reporting on it would have jeopardized their presence in Iraq... what good is having the press in Iraq if they aren't going to report on anything?

The last presidential campaign season was press incompetence at it's worst. Obama gave orders and they obeyed, without hesitation. When anything negative was reported by anyone, the press went after it like rabid hyenas. We weren't supposed to ask anything that questioned Obama's campaign platform, and that was that.

On the other hand, every lie that belched from the DNC about Sarah Palin was reported by the incompetent press as gospel. They abused her kids with the heart of a child molestor... and were no better than one.

Sorry if you aren't among the worst of them... and if you are among the best, I implore you to please save your profession. It is dying on the vine, with no one to blame but itself.

Bush clearly stated 4 reasons for returning to hostilities with Hussein's regime.

1 WMD
2 To enforce the terms of the ceasefire of 1991
2 His support of international terrorism
3 To liberate the people of Iraq

True, WMD weren't found in the amounts that Bush thought.. but then again, Hussein also thought he had a viable chemical weapons program.

The incompetent press went to work on this too. While Bush clearly stated all four reasons in his State of the Union Address of 2003, the incompetent press (working with the DNC) left all the others out of the picture, as if WMD was the only thing Bush ever mentioned.

So please don't treat me like an idiot. Please don't try to convince me that Bush only mentioned WMD.. that was the incompetent press's doing.

More recently, how much time or ink did the incompetent press dedicate to reporting about the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities? How many stories were broadcast on the turning over of all security operations to the Iraq Defense Force?

Most people have no idea it even happened. That should be considered an embarrassment to everyone in the press.

The press started dropping the ball when Walter Chronkite LIED to the world about the US losing the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam war...and I highly doubt they have cared about reporting facts ever since.

The disasters pose a major problem... find trusted sources, deal with the surviving the disaster itself and then please the editors and the public who want information, any information...There is a lot of pressure and not that much time to think about what is happening....One just races to print or to camera as that is what one has to do... It is not an easy life.

I left that profession awhile back... Got tired of going from story to story, getting to know people and then having to leave them. I am a Marriage and Family Counselor now but I must say that I resent your comments directed at the press as they are harsh and lacking in understanding... It is easy to put reporters down ... They are an easy target... Yet it is their sources of information that are mostly to blame for their troubles. Most of them try to follow the ethical standards as written here: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp Too bad that the talk show hosts who elicit this behavior of yours--- lambasting the press without knowledge of what they do--- do not have to follow any ethical standards. Too bad too that you, a person who does not have the experience of covering the news has the gall to call those who do "incompetant" Too bad too that you call those who disagree with you "liers". (You requested to be my mylot friend... and yet you do this namecalling. It does not sound as if you are honestly wanting friendship with me does it? You accuse others of lying and it seems that is because you do.)

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I do not know the information regarding that individual that you keep on mentioning... Seems like you had a traumatic experience going through what you did.
Sorry that you had to go through that time and that anyone caused anyone else to die or suffer.

I somehow question the reporter's knowledge of the truth that was perhaps obvious to you...as sometimes, unfortunately, a reporter can get sucked into the web of a dishonest source and not see that he or she is being lied to until much later...
so what you may have been seeing was someone who was being duped.
Such things happen.

The reporter is dependent always on his or her sources for information... they funnel information from their sources who often have private motives for sharing or not sharing the information they share.

Reporters are supposed to fact check the information they get from asking questions from a variety of sources but sometimes they get sloppy and take their sources at face value... This is a mistake. It is though one that could easily get made when there is a disaster and when there is deadline pressure.

Sometimes they cannot find others to interview who will provide them the needed information (People like you laughed and did not come forward to correct that reporter so you were in part responsible for his continued error...Perhaps he would have learned something were you and others to have told him what you knew and would have shared that information you told him with the public... There is a strong possibility as the reporters are usually eager for information if it comes from a trusted, informed, involved or responsible source.)

It is possible that they were tired, lazy, duped or that they perhaps know more of the truth about the situation than you saw.... It is possible that things were not quite as they appeared to you as you were so involved in one segment of it that you may not have seen the bigger picture... This is possible even if you do not believe it to be true.

I don't know... There are so many variables here... more than you or I know.
To say that the reporter lied knowingly, was incompetent, vile, or did not care is to me a stretch... as you are incapable of getting into that reporter's head to know what was going on there... all you have is appearances and they are deceptive.
Again...You are judging another person not knowing anything about them or what they are facing...

I am sorry that the events that you were in were not covered as well as they could be and even more sorry that anyone was killed or injured.

I disclaim any responsibility for that though as I was not there and as I did the best I could in my area to cover the news and did not have such complaints except perhaps on the college level when I was trying to cover the Lebanese students on campus in connection to an international news story of their election of a president who was later assasinated. I hunted everywhere for Lebanese student, just asking people on campus for several days until I found a Lebanese student group. I found only a few students to interview and then after writing the article had one student who was no where to be found when I wanted any Lebanese person to interview complain because I covered the story in what she called a biased manner... I was upset about that. I had tried so hard to get information for that story. I had days to do it, not a short while like the daily newspapers and the radio and television news people do and found it to be very difficult as people did not wear stickers that said "Hey I am Lebanese" and the Jordanian PLO supporting women I asked if they were Lebanese to almost spat at me and looked as if they were ready to hit me just for asking if they were Lebanese. I just wished that the woman who complained about my story being biased had been anywhere around when I needed her information for the article but could not go backwards... Her comments were published in a letter to the editor and I felt horrible about the whole thing but again, I had no choice but to go with the information that I had because that was the only information available at the time. The story once it had been approved by the editor had to get written for the edition it was written for... that was predetermined...

I am sharing this with you so you know more about the profession... Most people just assume they know about. It is a hard profession. You go from place to place talking with people, hoping that they are being straight with you, not ever knowing if they are until after you go on air or in print...There is no time to think often. Relationships suffer often. Often there is a feeling of disconnect from the story or a feeling of being overwhelmed by it. They witness things that you cannot imagine, go into areas that most people cannot go into all to provide information about what is going on to the public but at all times they are constrained by what they see, hear, and what others tell them is the truth. And sometimes there is in effect the result of that old game in which someone says something and that something is passed on to someone who hears it inaccurately and repeats it to someone else and when the person who originally told the story hears it there it is nothing like what had originally been shared. At its best you get the truth, from multiple sources. At its worst, you get the results of that game... something in which the truth cannot be recognized...

You, my guess is, still rely on the press to give you information about everyday events... That is if you listen to the radio, television or read the newspaper...
I am thinking that you take much of what they tell you for granted... while verbally criticizing it intensely.

I am a much better counselor, I believe than I was a reporter... My clients get better and tell me that I helped them... There is in the counseling field a way to really help. It give me a chance to deeply know people and to express caring in a way that I could not do as a reporter. I am not having to move from place to place going after the next story, the next source, the next... and skimming the surface... There is instead the very intense feeling of going in deep with people... and helping them understand themselves so they can act in ways that help them and their families...
Here I have been debating with you... as this seemed to be the place for debates. (enough)
I do not debate with my clients.

One would only hope you don't debate clients. As a paramedic, I don't know how many times I sat and just listened to someone, being there for them because that was my job... but also resisting the urge to just go off on them. ;~D

But apparently it is ok for the "professors" at these cesspools to lie to the students, indoctrinating them in anti US BS.

Btw, lying is not "encouraged", in fact, I know recruiters who have been punished for blatant lies. Aren't you glad YOU aren't punished for your lies here?

Yes, these cesspools will take government money as tuition payment, but they have a basic hatred for the military and refuse to offer majors to students interested in the military as a career.

The bigots are as vile as any other hate group.

So you have been in the classroom of one of these schools and heard this first hand? hmmm...didn't think so.

So nice you think colleges are cesspools because their main focus is educating their students and not handing them over to a lieing recruiter, to be used as fodder on a battle ground.

You claim recruiters don't lie and then you say you have known recruiters who have? So which is it? And all recruiters have a quota they must fill or they get punished for that, gee I wonder which punishment is more severe for them, getting caught in a recruiting lie or not meeting their quota. Plus because the way the recruitment system is set up it is very hard to prove a recruiter lied to someone they enlisted.

Recruiters lie all the time and you think for one minute they don't then maybe you should do more research. Recruiters tried to lie to my sister for years to get her to enlist but thankfully she didn't listen to them. Recruiters tried to lie to my mom to get her to enlist when she was 16 but luckily her step father refused to sign the paperwork allowing it because he knew what lies the recruiter was telling her, he had already gone through it himself.

Gee what lies did I tell? None. It is you who is lieing. Telling everyone you know for a fact these schools tell their students lies yet you have no evidence. You have no reason to hate these schools or their students other than the fact that they got a better education then you.

Gee what lies did I tell? None. It is you who is lieing. Telling everyone you know for a fact these schools tell their students lies yet you have no evidence. You have no reason to hate these schools or their students other than the fact that they got a better education then you.

No, I haven't sat in one of the classrooms, but you have never been lied to by a recruiter, so we're both talking about second hand information, right?

I never said that no recruiter has ever lied, I'm saying that they get punished for it.

The ironic thing is, ROTC programs are great ways for people to see what the military is like long before they make any commitment. But these elitist schools don't care about such facts, and niether do you.

Why do you support the anti US, anti freedom propagandists that have destroyed our most elite universities?

Did you know that it was only a few decades ago that these universities encouraged military service?

Oh because I DON'T agree with you all the sudden I am anti freedom. These schools use their freedom of choice and now they anti-american because you say so? You need your head checked.

There are a lot of lies the US military tells potential recruits. Also the ROTC program that was at my high school they had the kids sign up for early/delayed enlistment before they were allowed in the program, how does show them what's it like before they enlist because technically they are enlisted when they go into the ROTC program. The Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine recruiters at my high school use to all get together once a year and tell the senior class how the we had it was mandated we all had to take the ASVAB test before graduating and a date would be set aside for the senior class to take it. They had the school principal claim we had to take and if we didn't then we would fail for the year. They use to tell this to every senior class that went to the school until my senior year when one of the students father exposed the lie. The test was not mandatory and it was illegal to make it mandatory. The school was only saying it because the recruiters would told the principal if the test was not taken by 90% of the senior class or more that the school would lose government funding.

When the truth finally came out the school had to make the test voluntary and one of the recruiters tried to make a stink and claim the kids father must of have been a hippie draft dodger. The recruiter was removed from the school when it was found out the kids father was not a hippie but an enlisted solider who served in vietnam had a purple heart and scarring from agent orange all over his legs. He wanted the truth known because he didn't want his son lied to and he wanted it made perfectly clear the ASVAB test is voluntary.

The recruiters were lieing so they would make their numbers that is how the system is set up. Any quota system encourages lieing.

You want to live in your own little world and think recruiters don't lie then go right ahead and live in your imaginary world with your imaginary "do not hire" blacklist.

Well you didn't seem to care that at one point these schools allowed recruiters on campus, all you care about is now they don't now and you want to blacklist them for it. The schools saw through the recruiting lies and booted the recruiters off campus.

Once again there are plenty of recruitment centers out there. The recruiters don't need to be on schools campuses to find willing people.

So you have no defense so you start name calling, good one. That just shows when someone proves you wrong you stoop down and resort to name calling. It is apparent by your lack of social skills that you are just jealous because others have been afforded the opportunity to go an Ivy League school and it is obvious by your vile distaste for anyone with a better education than you that it eats you up inside. Get over yourself.

By the way yes I have been lied to by recruiters but then again you would ignore that post.

The ROTC program in my high school was most certainly connected to recruiters. I had more than one friend in ROTC and they told me what they had to do to get in so yeah I do know. They had to sign paperwork agreeing to join after high school the paperwork was for delayed enlistment. If they were going to college then they went in the reserves after high school but it was still delayed enlistment paperwork.

Idiot, I didn't say anything about High School ROTC... nor did I say anything about High School at all. Jr ROTC is high school, ROTC is college.

Only idiots think they "won" when they didn't even make a point.

Yeah because calling someone names clearly means you won at least in your imaginary world with your imaginary do not hire blacklist. So sad that you are so blinded by your jealousy of people who went to a better school than you. Keep calling the names it only shows how uneducated you really are.

oh I see your first post calling me names was deleted. Looks like name calling is not something mylot wants to one their boards. Maybe you should watch what you say before you get put on mylots REAL blacklist.

Some of us can make a point and call names at the same time. It's too bad you are too myopic to understand that.

The only point you've made is that you are a jealous person who has inferiority issues if you think someone is better than you. The moment you start name calling is the point when everything say holds no water or truth.

How does me calling you a name negate anything I say at all? You only use that as an excuse to be lazy in your responses.

I told you already that there are a lot of people who I greatly respect who are alums of these schools. It has nothing to do with jealousy. It has to do with my resentment of their blatant bigotry and hate towards our military. A bigotry and hate that you have demonstrated quite well in yourself.

That's ok, your right to hate us is one of the rights we defend.

It negates it because it shows how you would rather call someone names then actually have a decent discussion with someone, it also shows where your points come from, they come from ignorance.

You said yourself these schools at one time did allow military recruiters on campus. That shows they do not oppose anyone who has served in the military and they don't discriminate against any of their students who have been in the military.

Your "reason" to dislike anyone who comes from these schools is just a front for you to justify your jealousy of anyone who has gone on and gotten a better education than you.

I give reasons and arguments. I simply add the truth about you, which is that you're an idiot. Why do you say I don't bother with arguments when they are plain for you to read?

You call names, make no valid points, and show how easy it is to upset you. All someone has to do is not agree with you and you get bent out of shape, call them names and become unpleasant to talk with. It is all in hope the person who disagrees with you will go away and you can go back to your imaginary world with your imaginary black list. Your excuse to dislike anyone from these schools is a thin veil of your inferiority complex when you think someone is better educated than you.

Wrong, I make points, call names and have fun making fun of idiots like you who are almost too stupid to breath.

Who said I was upset? I'm laughing at your stupid attempts at logic and your lies about me.

So far, all I get from your blather is, you hate the military, you would rather call me a liar than actually discuss anything.. and even though you aren't above calling me names, you say that I should be.

What a hypocritical waste of human flesh!

No wonder you're liberal, I guess to you, thinking is something the goverment should do for you also.

Tell me, has the place you lived through so many Cat 5 hurricanes ever recovered from any of them?

Wow you are so worked up and upset about me confronting you about your igorance and your inferiority complex that you can't even keep what discussion you are responding to straight.

Funny how people who call people names and show their ingorance get so confused so easily.

Are you going to answer the questions or are you going to sit in your dirty diaper telling me how worked up I am while I laugh in your pathetic little face? ROLF!

Your question is asked in the wrong discussion and no I'm not going to answer your question because you don't deserve an answer.

Oh and by the way I never said I hated the military I just happen to think they don't need recruiters on school campuses becaues there are plenty of recruiting centers for someone to go to if they want to join the military and they don't need recruiters lieing to people, maybe they need to change their quota system so recruiters won't get pressured into lieing.

And I am sure you will some response that only shows your ignorance and inferiority complex.

Oh, I wouldn't piss on them, just their credentials. There are only a handful of people so detestible that I would piss on the person. Although for that handful, it would be a terrible insult to the piss.

For the record, there are a lot of people I have great respect for that are alums from some of these schools.