Even More Ann Coulter...

[Gidan]

A judge’s decision can be overturned by another judge. There is a reason we have more then one judge. However someone has to be the ultimate say. I feel it should be the Supreme Court that should have the ultimate say on whether a law is constitutional or not.

I have a problem with relying on the people passing laws to admit to their own mistakes and repeal them, or worse yet see their mistakes and still not repeal them.

[Gidan]

So the checks and balance system is a balance between the legilative and executive branches? Each watches over the other, the judicial branch is a powerless observer.

No, and don't be ridiculous. Without judicial review, the courts are hardly "powerless observer[s]". Answer the question, who provides checks on the judicial review process?

The legislative branch provide checks on the judial system. They can pass constitutional amedments which the Courts MUST adhear to.

Congress cannot pass Constitutional Amendments, they can only propose them. And an Amendment doesn't even require congressional approval.

Technically your right, congreess does not pass the amenment, the states do. However to get it to the states requires a 2/3 vote in both the congress and the senate.

It is true that an amendmant can come from the states and not require a congressional vote, However there has never once been an amendment that was created through a Constitutional Convention.

One of the reasons this is such a long complicated process is because these laws are above everything. It goes directly onlg with this. These are laws which our courts MUST adhear to.

However if a law is important enough that they deem it should be beyone the courts to question, its an option they have.

[Lyion]

It is not an option they have. It does not require Congress.

Again, its not something congress can do. Stop insinuating it is. It's a States measure. Stick to the true powers each branch has in the arguement, Gidan.

Amendments are not one of them.

[Gidan]

ok I will rephrase it. The legislative branch has the power to propose an amendment, and have it sent to the states for ratification.

[xaoshaen]

A judge’s decision can be overturned by another judge. There is a reason we have more then one judge. However someone has to be the ultimate say. I feel it should be the Supreme Court that should have the ultimate say on whether a law is constitutional or not.

I have a problem with relying on the people passing laws to admit to their own mistakes and repeal them, or worse yet see their mistakes and still not repeal them.

Oh, sweet irony!

You're placing the only check on judicial power in the hands of the judicial system, and don't see how this compromises the system of checks and balances within our government?

[xaoshaen]

ok I will rephrase it. The legislative branch has the power to propose an amendment, and have it sent to the states for ratification.

Which means precisely bupkus in excercising a check on judicial power.

[Gidan]

A judge’s decision can be overturned by another judge. There is a reason we have more then one judge. However someone has to be the ultimate say. I feel it should be the Supreme Court that should have the ultimate say on whether a law is constitutional or not.

I have a problem with relying on the people passing laws to admit to their own mistakes and repeal them, or worse yet see their mistakes and still not repeal them.

Oh, sweet irony!

You're placing the only check on judicial power in the hands of the judicial system, and don't see how this compromises the system of checks and balances within our government?

As I said before, the legislative branch can impeach a judge if they believe he is abusing judicial review.

At some point, someone needs to have the final say. I don’t think the legislators should be that final say, I believe it should be in the hands of the Supreme Court.

[xaoshaen]

As I said before, the legislative branch can impeach a judge if they believe he is abusing judicial review.

Impeaching a judge is also an impractical method of balance. Witness the number of judicial impeachments in the past century. Not only is it almost impossible to execute, but if done, does nothing to rectify previous abuses of power.

At some point, someone needs to have the final say. I don’t think the legislators should be that final say, I believe it should be in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Ahh, it all becomes clear. You're just against the entire concept of checks in balances. In such a system nobody has the final say, let alone a selection of appointees that the people (you know, the folks the government is supposedly by, for, and of?) have had no hand in selecting.

[Gidan]

There is always somone or some group with a final say on an issue. If there was not, nothing would get done.

When your asking a question like, is this law constiutional. You can not go back and forth with yes and no forever. At some point, there needs to be a final decision put forth by somone.

For example, congress and the senate have the final say in whether a law is passed or not. This does not mean there is no system of checks and balances to attempt to make sure that things are handled properly.

Also, people have jsut about as much controle over who becomes a supreme court judge as they do in who becomes president.

[xaoshaen]

There is always somone or some group with a final say on an issue. If there was not, nothing would get done.

Untrue.

When your asking a question like, is this law constiutional. You can not go back and forth with yes and no forever. At some point, there needs to be a final decision put forth by somone.

Yes you can if there's not a concensus. The entire point of a checks and balances system is that one branch cannot act unilaterally to enact the laws of the land.

For example, congress and the senate have the final say in whether a law is passed or not. This does not mean there is no system of checks and balances to attempt to make sure that things are handled properly.

Congress has the last say in whether a law goes on the books, and only after requiring progressively more difficult checks to enact it. They do not have the last word as to its enforcement or enactment. The judicial system has no such restrain upon it.

Also, people have jsut about as much controle over who becomes a supreme court judge as they do in who becomes president.

Patently false, even if people were to go about killing off judges when their choice for President is in office.

[Gidan]

You realize this is an endless argument that is going no where, and from what I can see, it will not really go anywhere. Why dont we just agree to disagree on this.

On a side note, if this is such a problem. Why does congress not propose a constitutional amendment to clearly state either for or against Judicial Review. I doubt it would actually get passed but they could try.

[Lyion]

Back on Coulter Target

http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ucac/2005 ... red/nc:742

When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post.

When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey's nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story.

When Isikoff was the first with detailed reporting on Paula Jones' accusations against a sitting president, Isikoff's then-employer The Washington Post -- which owns Newsweek -- decided not to run it. The American Spectator got the story, followed by the Los Angeles Times.

So apparently it's possible for Michael Isikoff to have a story that actually is true, but for his editors not to run it.

Why no pause for reflection when Isikoff had a story about American interrogators at Guantanamo flushing the Quran down the toilet? Why not sit on this story for, say, even half as long as NBC News sat on Lisa Meyers' highly credible account of
Bill Clinton raping Juanita Broaddrick?

Newsweek seems to have very different responses to the same reporter's scoops. Who's deciding which of Isikoff's stories to run and which to hold? I note that the ones that Matt Drudge runs have turned out to be more accurate -- and interesting! -- than the ones Newsweek runs. Maybe Newsweek should start running everything past Matt Drudge.

Somehow Newsweek missed the story a few weeks ago about Saudi Arabia arresting 40 Christians for "trying to spread their poisonous religious beliefs." But give the American media a story about American interrogators defacing the Quran, and journalists are so appalled there's no time for fact-checking -- before they dash off to see the latest exhibition of "Piss Christ."

Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas justified Newsweek's decision to run the incendiary anti-U.S. story about the Quran, saying that "similar reports from released detainees" had already run in the foreign press -- "and in the Arab news agency al-Jazeera."

Is there an adult on the editorial board of Newsweek? Al-Jazeera also broadcast a TV miniseries last year based on the "Protocols of the Elders Of Zion." (I didn't see it, but I hear James Brolin was great!) Al-Jazeera has run programs on the intriguing question, "Is Zionism worse than Nazism?" (Take a wild guess where the consensus was on this one.) It runs viewer comments about Jews being descended from pigs and apes. How about that for a Newsweek cover story, Evan? You're covered -- al-Jazeera has already run similar reports!

Ironically, among the reasons Newsweek gave for killing Isikoff's Lewinsky bombshell was that Evan Thomas was worried someone might get hurt. It seems that Lewinsky could be heard on tape saying that if the story came out, "I'll (expletive) kill myself."

But Newsweek couldn't wait a moment to run a story that predictably ginned up Islamic savages into murderous riots in
Afghanistan, leaving hundreds injured and 16 dead. Who could have seen that coming? These are people who stone rape victims to death because the family "honor" has been violated and who fly planes into American skyscrapers because -- wait, why did they do that again?

Come to think of it, I'm not sure it's entirely fair to hold Newsweek responsible for inciting violence among people who view ancient Buddhist statues as outrageous provocation -- though I was really looking forward to finally agreeing with Islamic loonies about something. (Bumper sticker idea for liberals: News magazines don't kill people, Muslims do.) But then I wouldn't have sat on the story of the decade because of the empty threats of a drama queen gas-bagging with her friend on the telephone between spoonfuls of Haagen-Dazs.

No matter how I look at it, I can't grasp the editorial judgment that kills Isikoff's stories about a sitting president molesting the help and obstructing justice, while running Isikoff's not particularly newsworthy (or well-sourced) story about Americans desecrating a Quran at Guantanamo.

Even if it were true, why not sit on it? There are a lot of reasons the media withhold even true facts from readers. These include:

# A drama queen nitwit exclaimed she'd kill herself. (Evan Thomas' reason for holding the Lewinsky story.)

# The need for "more independent reporting." (Newsweek President Richard Smith explaining why Newsweek sat on the Lewinsky story even though the magazine had Lewinsky on tape describing the affair.)

# "We were in Havana." (ABC president David Westin explaining why "Nightline" held the Lewinsky story.)

# Unavailable for comment. (Michael Oreskes, New York Times Washington bureau chief, in response to why, the day The Washington Post ran the Lewinsky story, the Times ran a staged photo of Clinton meeting with the Israeli president on its front page.)

# Protecting the privacy of an alleged rape victim even when the accusation turns out to be false.

# Protecting an accused rapist even when the accusation turns out to be true if the perp is a Democratic president most journalists voted for.

# Protecting a reporter's source.

How about the media adding to the list of reasons not to run a news item: "Protecting the national interest"? If journalists don't like the ring of that, how about this one: "Protecting ourselves before the American people rise up and lynch us for our relentless anti-American stories."

[Zanchief]

Only one liberal. She must have gotten laid before she wrote that.

[Tossica]

She needs a liberal dose of some cack.

[Eziekial]

She cracks me up. "(Bumper sticker idea for liberals: News magazines don't kill people, Muslims do.)"

[veeneedefeesh]

You people keep refering to the media as liberal, they arent liberal, they are CONTROVERCIALISTS say it with me now CON-TRO-VER-CIAL-IST. Controversy sells papers/magazines/airtime. It just happens that the country is currently in a red-neck phase and so in order to stir shit (ie sell papers) they have to post liberal points of view. Believe me if the country was in a liberal phase and the gov't were controlled by a democrat majority then they would be posting how blowjobs cause cancer.

[Lyion]

Controversial, but I agree with your point, Venee.

[Zanchief]

Controversial, but I agree with your point, Venee.

I've been saying ot for years and now he listens.

[veeneedefeesh]

It was cause I mentioned blowjobs in my post :p

[Lyion]

word. add a picture of a hooter girl as your avatar and I'll actually read your posts, Zan. Or at least look at your avatar....

[Lyion]

This thread must not die! More Ann for her #1 fan, Arlos!

WHAT LEFT-WING P.B.S. BIAS?
May 25, 2005


Bill Moyers, the lamented, demented former host of the PBS program "Now With Bill Moyers," referred to the American-led war in Iraq as doing "to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us."

He called American flag pins "a little metallic icon of patriotism" comparable to Mao's Little Red Book being displayed on every Communist Party official's desk in China. This is silly. The metallic icons of patriotism that Mao used to keep the masses in line were considerably longer and sharper, and were usually applied to the back by a fellow "comrade."

Moyers denounced Condoleezza Rice for her ineptness in not preventing the 9/11 attack, despite a clearly worded memo stating: "Bin Laden determined to attack the United States." In other breaking news: Waitress in L.A. Determined to Become Actress. As Condi said, "I don't think you, frankly, had to have that report to know that bin Laden would like to attack the United States."

In his lengthy diatribe against Rice, Moyers said she had cried wolf, intentionally misleading "America and the world about the case for invading Iraq." Apparently Rice had said Iraq was "a part of the war on terror" on the grounds that Saddam was: (1) supporting terrorists, (2) a weapons of mass destruction threat and (3) "a tremendous barrier to change in the Middle East."

But as regular viewers of PBS know, in fact, we invaded Iraq for oil.

Yes, precisely. That's why U.S. forces seized Iraq's oil fields right after Baghdad fell, confiscated their vast oil reserves, and now we can buy all the gasoline we want here at home for just pennies a gallon any time we want. Sorry, we what? Folks, my switchboard is completely lit up and this isn't even a radio show.

Moyers responded to the 2002 midterm elections in which Republicans bucked history by gaining seats in both the House and the Senate by warning Americans of the coming Rapture: "(I)f you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture." As Moyers described the horror that was to come: "That agenda includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to surrender control over their own lives."

I'm pretty sure even the harshest anti-abortion laws would only prevent a woman from killing her baby, not send her to a slave labor camp. But with his broadcast career crashing down around him, Moyers took a brave stand against the internment of pregnant women.

Moyers also said the agenda of the coming theocracy "includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich." (And we'd appreciate it if you poor people would fold the bills a little more neatly before mailing them in next time.)

As the extra little cherry on top, all Moyers' nut conspiracy theories were being broadcast on PBS, subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer. Not only that, but Moyers takes a cut of every video of his show sold, and he has family members on the payroll. Let's see now: a corrupt, partisan demagogue and his family caught feeding at the taxpayers' trough. Let's just hope he never took a free golfing trip to Scotland!

When Ken Tomlinson, chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, suggested that PBS was maybe a smidgen left of center, Moyers began his lengthy public nervous breakdown. Already well-known as an insufferable jerk, it turns out Moyers is also a crazy megalomaniac, too.

In a recent speech to the the National Conference on Media Reform — a conference dedicated to increasing liberal representation in the media from 94.6 percent to 99.8 percent — Moyers responded to his critics by reading from his fan mail, reading favorable news articles about himself, and comparing himself to Jesus Christ or, as he put it, "one of our boys." If it were possible that he actually believed in God, PBS would be doing a special report on Moyers after a remark like that.

He said his critics were "obsessed with control, using the government to threaten and intimidate" — almost as control-obsessed as 45 senators trying to tell 55 senators which judicial nominees are acceptable. The threat is: Provide balanced programming or stop expecting subsidies from the U.S. taxpayer.

Moyers also noted that his critics were the ones behind the bin Laden-like attack on Iraq in order "to make sure Ahmed Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq's oil." (And that's why gasoline is so cheap!) Yep, it's all right there on the Project for a New American Century's agenda: (1) invade Iraq, (2) somehow get Bill Moyers' PBS show canceled, (3) invade Syria, (4) invade Iran ...

Moyers has clearly reached the next-to-last stage of the megalomaniac's life cycle: the persecution complex. We'll know Moyers has reached end-stage megalomania when he begins to exhibit an inordinate fear of germs.

According to Moyers, the reason these right-wing radicals focused on him despite the fan mail he gets — to say nothing of favorable write-ups in the mainstream media — is that he "didn't play by the conventional rules of Beltway journalism." (That and the giant piece of tinfoil on his head.)

These contemptible "rules of Beltway journalism" apparently consist of reporters completely ignoring important conspiracy theories regularly featured on Moyers' program and instead functioning as "government stenographers" — as Moyers called one reporter for The New York Times, no less.

Moyers did live by one rule of old-media journalism: He believed he should not need viewers to have a TV show. During fund-raising drives, scores of local PBS affiliates would drop Moyers' program for fear of driving away donors. Let me say that I personally believe this was a mistake. Moyers' show was the one PBS program that made the pledge drives seem interesting.

But the absence of an audience is no concern for liberals. After all, Air America is still on air. How about making George Soros pay Moyers' salary? Then at least he'd have a little less money to spend on wrecking the country. Hey — maybe that's what Moyers meant about the Republican government transferring money from working people to the rich.

[Narrock]

Bill Moyers is an idiot. I was completely unimpressed with him after reading his drivel with Joe Campbell's "The Power of Myth." Freak.