Wow, you can hear people thinking? That's a first.

Oh crap ... now they're going to be on me like flies or mosquitoes or other insects wanting blood !

Sshhh ... let's try to keep this between you and me, ok ?

More like, exagerrating the truth or extending it. Of course some lie, some report it exactly how they see it or heard from others, which could also be an exageration or extension of the real truth.


Well, comparing this case to OJ's is just f**king stupid. There were literally dozens or more witnesses and a cop who happen to have put 4 bullets in the shooter and she lived as another eye witness. I'm pretty sure she (the cop) shot the right guy with two guns in his hands, especially when he returned fire back at her and wounded her.

I don't see that big a difference between overwhelming forensic evidence and overwhelming eye witness evidence. Either way a rational person is certain that the accused comitted the crime.

If the OJ jury had acquitted him because they were the common idiots who have no understanding of the difference between science and magic, you might have a point. But they didn't acquit him because they failed to understand he had been proven guilty. They acquitted him because the defense made them believe a purposely incorrect verdict would be an effective protest against racism.

Compare instead to the acquittal of El Sayyid Nosair for the murder of Meir Kahane. There was overwhelming eye witness evidence, including from other victims who survived being shot by the murderer moments after the murder, and he was caught still holding the gun. As with the OJ jury, a jury with not even a shred of doubt about facts acquitted as a political statement.

No rational person would take the jury verdicts in either of those cases as a reason to doubt that the accused committed the crime. In both cases the message is that a stupid jury and an inept judge can allow a skilled defense lawyer to convince the jury to issue not just a political verdict against the facts of the case, but an evil political verdict against basic decency.

If this were a jury trial (I don't know those laws in this case) there is plenty of room in the Hassan case for a skilled lawyer to effectively "blame Bush". A fake temporary insanity defense would be supported by lots of evidence (real or fake) of how evil it was for Bush to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. A jury could be smart to see the rational planning that makes this crime an act of hate rather than insanity and even more clearly not temporary. But that same jury could be tricked into believing that an honest verdict is an endorsement of the wars and thus they would pretend to believe temporary insanity.

First Amendment protection is not restricted to the press or any other professional news or media organization. Fox enjoys the same protection as any other business, and will continue to.

But it separately mentions the press, so the press has been given more than the "freedom of speech" available to other businesses. That is especially significant since the Supreme court rulings on McCain-Feingold have effectively eliminated freedom of speech protection for conservative political speech.

Once they have that little protection, they will be eliminated. Freedom of conservative political speech by businesses is basically gone already as a result of McCain-Feingold.

The Supreme Court has not found against freedom of the press in upholding McCain-Feingold, only against freedom of speech by "non press". McCain-Feingold has so far only been used against conservative media where the designation of press could be contested. They can (and obviously intend to) attack Fox by claiming it not "press" rather than ask the Supreme Court to ignore even more of the First Amendment.

They aren't yet saying you can't stand on a soap box and shout your conservative views. But if you want to make your political views into a movie or buy air time to broadcast them, they can only be liberal views.

The problem is that you are not a psychologically informed person, I have a psychology qualification in my long list of qualifications and I know that eyewitness testimony counts for jack. Did you know that in the 60's a group of psychologists were unlucky enough to see a black man being shot at by a white robber, when the police came to apprehend the men eyewitnesses stated that the black man was trying to rob the white man with a gun because this was the 60's and cultural stereotypes affected peoples memories, there are lots of studies that contest eyewitness testimony (when I'm drunk I always think im a model citizen and picture of higher society britain, unfortunately my testimony versus others more accurate and plausible testimony just leads to hilarious anecdotes about the actual events years later)

The man may or may not be guilty, I think he probably is not due to the sporadic nature of the crime, his proximity to the victims before the incident and that I do not trust that an official statement has not been issued. People hear soldier they think gun and that is the one thing I believe this man is guilty of and I know being a soldier is not a crime.

As it will be a military trial, I don't think we can expect a replay of the two cases you mentioned. We may also get far fewer details about the proceedings.

Would you please cite a source(s) for the Supreme Court rulings? I try to follow the USSC but simply don't have time to go through everything.

I know that Hollywood and many major media outlets tend towards the left, but I respectfully disagree with your assertions here (at least in the absence of sources).

I also know that my friends and family routinely throw massive amounts of religious and rightist propaganda at me. I am tired of explaining why I don't take Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh seriously. I am tired of them (some friends/family) trying to convince me that I will go to hell if I don't accept Jesus into my heart and become a Christian.

So, even though it does not (and should not) change the fact that Fox is entitled to the same free speech rights as anyone else, I simply have no more sympathy for them.

The recent case still possibly in play is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. But this is past being about whether the FEC can prevent conservative views from shown in a movie. In that case the FEC already did prevent conservative views from being shown in a movie and Supreme Court precedent from earlier cases was used in lower court rulings that the FEC is within its rights to enforce a clear political bias as part of McCain-Feingold.

I read the older cases as they were reported and remember the decisions, not the names. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not very expert at backtracking (find the pro FEC lower court rulings that led to the present incarnation of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and then find the names of the cases that were precedent).

Somewhere in between "McConnell v. FEC" (which decided to ignore the fact that the whole law is blatantly unconstitutional) and "Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc." (which put some small limits on the growing lower court precedent of allowing enforcement against conservatives far beyond the literal words of the law into imaginary intent of the law) there was some case that I can't find at the moment explicitly supporting the FEC's right to biased enforcement of the law (you maybe can stop them from enforcing beyond the law against conservatives, but you cannot even try to make them enforce the same laws against liberals).

I'm a Jewish Atheist (probably should skip the sidetrack into why I think that is a meaningful combination). I think Bush's "faith based initiatives" were a terrible assault against the constitution. I am opposed to most things that the right wing in this country stands for. But I recognize that with the continuous control of the federal bureaucracy (regardless of who is in the White House at the time) plus control of the media, the left presents a much greater danger to our liberty.

Thanks, I'll try to look those cases up.

Just because of Bush/Cheney's antics, I am not prepared to say that one side is more or less dangerous than another. They all have bizarre agendas, though, and that seems to sum up current American politics. You can't vote for anyone or any party without having to make at least one very ugly compromise on a critical issue.

I apologize to everyone for diverging so significantly off-topic.