Texas Senator Barton's Apology

Gah, the Daily Show, and America at large, has lost almost all respect in my eyes. I mean this following brilliant statement and the following completely idiotic backlash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDc0n79BdLs

Everyone is losing their shit over this, and they don't understand what's being said! Barton is right! He's not saying that BP shouldn't have paid money for damages they've caused, suffered for their failures, or even that they shouldn't have to deal with the consequences of their actions. He's not saying the 20 billion was intrinsically wrong as a punishment. If you actually bother to pay attention and think about this, you'd realize that he's following the law and the strictest legitimate interpretation of the Constitution.

If you're confused, and therefore probably not accustomed to thinking, all he's saying is that while BP is without a doubt completely responsible for this colossal environmental fuckup, they were still charged for the $20 billion prior to this very hearing where the apology took place. Why is that bad? Because this was the hearing where Congress was supposed to determine if/how/why/when BP fucked up. They were on trial. He was apologizing for that slush fund because it completely and utterly violated due process. They were being punished and sentenced before being legally proven guilty. This would be like if you were being charged with theft and were forced to pay a fine before your court date.

This is major! Don't you get it? Barton describes it as a shakedown because it's a legitimate criticism. Congress and the Executive branch know very well what a horrible mess BP is in. They have no one on their side. Every single oil exec that was asked to go to this meeting from every other major oil company all said "This spill is all BP and we have much better security measures in place than they do." BP has no friends right now and are completely at the mercy, politically, of the government. Imagine for a second if they bothered to leap to their defense against the 20 billion. How exactly would that impact what little is left of their image? The fund is, of course, being handled independently by an Obama administration official, some dude they call the "pay czar."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100616/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill

*sigh*

I mean, can't you imagine what sort of precedent it sets? Does the government now have the power to take money from anyone who is publicly indefensible? That's why it's a shake down, there's no way to say 'no' without things getting violent. And don't get me wrong, BP is a horrible and atrocious, criminally incompetent cheapskate corporation. They totally fucked up and I hope Congress takes many more billions of dollars from them. I hope they are completely financially crushed and cease to exist. AFTER A BLOODY TRIAL! You know, that THING guaranteed in the Constitution? You might be familiar with the concept, they write TV dramas about them all the damn time.

The really sad part is that he even went out of his way to openly state he wasn't speaking on anyone else's behalf except his own. He divorced himself completely from his party when he made that statement. Not that anyone won't use this as some lame diatribe against those greedy Republicans, but none-the-less, it's really impressive. I mean yes, the Republicans are a horrible, horrible organization full of corruption and racism and homophobia, etcetera. But he went out on a limb with no support and spoke his mind, the legal truth. That's pretty damn honorable. Isn't this the shit we always want to hear about? Isn't this a quality we usually want in our leaders?

Maybe we secretly have a somewhat competent government, and no one notices? Maybe our officials have realized that they can only be elected if they act as stupid as possible?

This man is a Hero.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575308440143301092.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular

This is how we need to be hunting Osama. With broadswords. $50 says the US embassy recruits him into some super elite special ops unit as soon as they get him out of prison.

Obama Seeking $50 Billion More?!!??!?!?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37665192/ns/politics-washington_post

He wants MORE money?! MORE FUCKING MONEY?!?!

I...I...

The last round of stimulus money was proven completely ineffective and only created temporary jobs! YOU FUCKING SAID SO YOURSELF!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Itn4feOO9UY

2:20 to 3:30.

I'm sorry, what measurable growth have we made? YOU'VE SPENT BILLIONS! FUCKING BILLIONS! AND ALL YOU HAVE TO SHOW FOR IT IS 431,000 JOBS WHICH ARE MOSTLY TEMPORARY?? And you want $50 billion MORE to do it all AGAIN?!

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

That sound you hear emanating from your speakers is the sound of my head smashing against a wall!!! Are you aware that as the President your job involves doing more than ASKING FOR MONEY?! Congratu-fucking-lations President Obama, you are now officially on par with the homeless people who assail me for money on the way to work. Except that you are open about how little you accomplish and how dismal the future is, even though you sugar coat it, so I guess that makes you the crazy homeless guy who's warning us about the Second Coming.

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/05/12/obama-spending-tax-trends-charted/

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown

This is NOT fine! This is NOT ok!! We aren't even half way through 2010!!!!!!!

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

And then there's the government summary, though everything past 2k10 I guarantee is bullshit.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/tables.pdf

I WANT BILL CLINTON BACK!!! YOU HEAR ME?! BRING BACK BILL! I will make it my job to kidnap and drag interns to the White House myself if it will bring him back to office!

Let's Dig us a Hole to China

http://gizmodo.com/5551916/the-gates-of-hell-just-opened-in-guatemala

Holy crap this is awesome!

Holy crap I'm posting!
Yeah, it's been a while since I've posted here; leaving a college environment seems to have almost completely dried up most of my news sources, apart from the occasional tidbit of military information (On that note, the XM25 grenade launcher is being issued to special forces in Afghanistan. Check out the link. That gun is awesome)
Then there's the issue that, whenever I look at news lately, my reaction tends to be crazed laughter rather than provoking thought. At this point it seems I have gone beyond cynic into the cheery waters where my opinion of our society is so low that I find humanity's actions hilarious instead of depressing. I'll try to start posting again, but it's likely that a larger portion of what I write will be more entertainment focused, with reviews and such, than was the case before. This doesn't mean I won't be writing serious articles; if I see something that catches my attention, I will still write about it. It's just that I find it unlikely that I'll be finding anything I can actually bring myself to take seriously for a while.

Invoke Your Miranda Rights

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37448356/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

So now you have to state openly that you're invoking your Miranda rights before they apply. It's an interesting idea that has some worthwhile practical application. It creates a clear line to stop an interrogation, making it difficult for authorities to put undo pressure on you as long as you're willing to go out and say it. Justice Sotomayor wrote the dissent, which contains the following;

"At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded."

There's quite a bit of merit in that criticism, if one approaches it from the idea that not claiming your right is the same as waiving it. I don't know if that's the case or not in truth. The way I saw it, you could only waive your rights if you held them. For example, I can't waive rights to an intellectual property I don't own. It's an interesting case that was actually brought up recently in an article I read.

http://clancco.com/wp/2010/02/16/moral-rights-copyright-artists/

What is somewhat worrisome for me is things like legal counsel. Is that, too, something that needs to be invoked, or just the right to remain silent? They alternate between using the term "Miranda Rights," which as far as I know includes knowing about the right to legal counsel, and simply not speaking. Huffington Post says you have to alert authorities if you want legal counsel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/01/supreme-court-miranda-rul_n_596012.html

Less of a good idea now. I'm beginning to see Sotomayer's point in this. Particularly problematic if one considers the issue of those who are mentally incompetent. What about a case of a murderous schizophrenic who is completely unaware of his or her rights? How would they invoke Miranda Rights to get a lawyer?

I appreciate the sentiment of drawing a line with clearly stating Miranda Rights and simply staying silent, since it forces interrogators to back off, but couldn't the right to be silent be made a special provision? It's a bit concerning if we're to assume our rights aren't actually ours until we claim them. To put it another way, if we wanted to clarify whether someone has Miranda Rights, there would have to be a default state, and would have to do something to change that status. In this case, it could either be defaulted that the Miranda Rights are invoked and a change in status involves waiving those rights, or defaulted that they aren't and a change in status requires invoking those rights. The Court has opted into the latter, meaning unless the Defendant says otherwise they don't have Miranda Rights. This is regardless of whether or not the police have read you your rights or not, which does not qualify as "invoking." Anything you say between being arrested and invoking those rights can be used against you, which happens to include anything said during, before, and after the reading of those rights until you explicitly say so. The alternative? Defaulting to the assumption that the Miranda Rights are invoked means that unless the individual makes a concerted effort to legally waive those rights with paperwork, they are protected.

There are worse legal implications than this, too. A friend of mine, Sam, brought up a concerning point. Are Miranda Rights part of the Constitution? Miranda Rights came to be from a court case, specifically "Miranda v. Arizona," settled in 1966. The details and the ruling are as follows.

"In each of these cases, the defendant, while in police custody, was questioned by police officers, detectives, or a prosecuting attorney in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. None of the defendants was given a full and effective warning of his rights at the outset of the interrogation process. In all four cases, the questioning elicited oral admissions, and, in three of them, signed statements as well, which were admitted at their trials. All defendants were convicted, and all convictions, except in No. 584, were affirmed on appeal.

Held:

1. The prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way, unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. Pp. 444-491."

Taken from Cornell University Law School's online database/library/whatever.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0384_0436_ZS.html

See, under the wording of this ruling, the Miranda Rights are understood as securing one's Fifth Amendment rights, which if you weren't aware was the right against self-incrimination. Therefore, by extension, they are part of the Fifth Amendment. By another extension, this means that a provision listed under the Bill of Rights is defaulted to "inactive" and has to be "invoked." I shudder to think what this means for the rest of our Rights. Would we have to invoke the right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment? A speedy trial? Free speech? Freedom of religion?

I'm not too happy about this turn of events, though I'm impressed with Justice Sotomayer's dissent. I'd like to see this reversed, or at least made a special provision. It doesn't seem that hard to put in as an accessory to the Miranda Rights that clearly stating you are invoking the Miranda Rights prevents authorities from questioning you.