Posts by Tom 13

Re: OK can put this into simple stupid terms for me..

The FCC has no right to regulate interstate trade. The State of Tenessee has enacted a law regulating intrastate trade, which is fully within its purview and has been constructed so as to encourage interstate trade.

What you're missing here is that with regard to the US, Tennessee is to the UK as UK is to the EU, that is, it has significant legal rights as sovereign. In this particular case, the power to regulate interstate trade has been delegated from the sovereign states to ONLY the Congress. The FCC =/= Congress, therefore it's rule is unconstitutional.

Re: if the Chattanooga voters want the city to run an ISP

On a philosophical basis only:

IF the Chattanooga voters wanted it, and were willing to cover all the costs regardless of the outcome, you might have a point.

HOWEVER, the integration of state and federal money transfers has completely annihilated any chance of that ever happening. Therefore the people of Tennessee have the right to circumscribe what the voters of Chattanooga can do with their money.

On a Constitutional basis, Tennessee is correct and the FCC is wrong. If we had a non-politicized court system, SCOTUS would slap down the FCC so hard it would make El Reg commentard heads explode.

@Hans 1

When you start with the wrong assumption, you cannot arrive at a correct conclusion. The FCC does not have the authority to regulate interstate commerce. Period. End of discussion.

Re: Bogus argument

No, the pertinent argument here, the one Tennessee will make in court, is that the FCC =/= Congress and therefore has no authority to override the State.

Re: I'm just disgusted

You shouldn't lie like that. Conservatives everywhere would expect, and in this particular case applaud the Israeli's for taking the alleged action. The Big 0 has made it clear that he will not facilitate the Constitutionally mandated oversight of treaties. So Congress needs to avail itself of whatever means it can to obtain the appropriate information.

Re: Here's an idea to get the Loretta Lynch nomination

Oh, please, please please let the damn fool take your advice.

Such action is about the ONLY thing I can think of that would actually get those lazy bastages off their incompetent butts and impeach, convict, and remove the SoB the way they should have after Fast and Furious, or the IRS scandal, or his incitement to riot in Ferguson, or Benghazi.

Re: Isn't there a grand treason there somewhere?

Actually, there is no violation of the law for handling classified documents, even if you assume the reports from the liars in the WH are true.

If you assume Israel was spying on the US negotiations, Israel developed the information on their own. No violation of handling the documents. Since Israel controls the classification and disclosure of their intel, it was not illegal for them to reveal the information to anyone they choose, including John Boehner. Assuming Boehner saw the Israeli documents, since they weren't US documents, he didn't mishandle US documents. That's before we get to any sitting legislator being exempt from the law. No, really they are: They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses... Yes, there is an exception for felonies, but the courts have held that as the ability of the President to press such charges interferes with the legislative process, all such charges must go through the a committee designated in the appropriate chamber. Given the overview authority Congress has on the Executive Branch, any charges that receiving such documents is tantamount to Treason wouldn't get very far in court.

Re: Pot...kettle...etc...

I wouldn't even say it's "one rule for the US Government as far as The Big 0 is concerned. It's one rule for HIS appointees and a different set for everybody else, especially elected Republicans.

Re: With the low rate of conviction on sexual assault

If it were a normal sex assault case, yes. But it isn't normal. This is about TWO high profile feminazis in Sweden taking down a Designate Male Predator.

He's not wrong to fear conviction in Sweden. He is wrong to blame the whole thing on the US. But hey, it worked the first time. And the second. So why not stick with a proven plan?

Re: Surely this doesn't apply

Depends on the jurisdiction. In fact the whole mess around Clinton came about precisely because of Statue of limitations. Hearsay was printed in a national publication. Paula Jones decided she was defamed. She couldn't sue the publication because of oddities in the US law and the fact that they were quoting someone. She couldn't sue Clinton because the statue of limitations had run out on that part. So instead her lawyers attempted the sexual harassment charge because that one didn't have a statue of limitations.

As a wise man once noted, "The problem with common sense is that it isn't."

so it's not like he can now claim Sweden is this terrifying banana republic, just lining up to export him to Gitmo.

Except, that's exactly what he's been claiming for the last four years.

I don't think his paranoia is entirely unwarranted. I do expect that when he goes to Sweden they're going to convict a non-guilty man of a crime he didn't commit. But none of that has anything to do with whether or not he gets extradited to the US, which is where he continues to successfully redirect the story.

That's not executed. Dead yes. Executed no. Your language has some precision built into it. You should learn it.

@ LucreLout

I'd concur with your sentiments if they filed the charges immediately after either encounter. But they didn't. In fact, they both bragged about how good it was. Until they met up with each other. At which point they both started singing the same song about being raped. I'm sorry, but if you didn't suspect it was rape at a time when you were not subject to mind altering drugs, it wasn't rape. This I think is the only true thing Assange has ever asserted.

But he made his fame and fortune by associating with the sorts who don't give a damn about whether or not something is actually true so long as it advances The Cause, so as far as I'm concerned he's been hoist on his own petard. This is one of those rare cases where I do truly wish that when all parties were before the judge he'd throw them ALL in jail for making a mockery of justice. Yes, that includes all the lawyers except the actual prosecutor(s) who got saddled with the case.

Re: I guess it's muddled enough

There's nothing muddled about it at all. Enough foolhardiness to embarrass a couple hundred million normal people, but not much actually muddled. The only question of any import will be "are the feminists lying their butts off" when they testify in court.

Re: I suspect he *does* have something to hide

I suppose that depend on what you mean by "have something to hide."

I suspect that what he'd guilty of is being male and a cad, which was compounded by being fool enough to have sex with ideologically fanatical feminists. I suspect it was not what logical people would think of as rape, and have my doubts that it even was even rape by Sweden's definition. But given their ideological bent, I wouldn't want to find out whether or not the feminists would be willing to perjure themselves in court, especially if I was the only witness.

All that being said, he's still in a stew of his own making and needs to pay the piper.

Re: I rather like that idea.

At first glance I did too.

Then I realized we have no right to inflict Assange on an innocent piranha or boa constrictor.

Re: demanding they immediately hand over CCTV recordings

If you're car was stolen there, yes, with the caveat that it has to be between the time you parked your car in the lot and the time you noticed it was stolen. The area is public, they've recorded something in that area, and the recordings are material evidence in the commission of a crime.

Re: So why don't they

Because even now they can't afford to admit they perjured themselves in the Netscape case.

Re: Another nail in the BC coffin?

Meh. Call in the appropriate agency and use some of the coin they seized from something like seizing Silk Road. Then trace the perps. Whether they intentionally targeted a school or not, send in the black helicopters after the perps have been found.

Re: Good for them

Yes and no.

Yes, it's good that unlike so many other durn fools out there they have backups.

But it still sound like they had some serious holes in their security since the malware was able to take down the whole network, including the cash registers. I'd also want thorough forensics to prove no personally identifiable information was exfiltrated from the network.

Re: There's a limit to how cheap oil can become

Long term yes, short term no. While he's overdone the rhetoric, what he's describing is the classic collapse of an oligarchy once the government controlled market is freed from control. And he is correct about the near term storage problems. At the moment we're still producing oil faster than we're using it, and we're running out of places to store it. This will all sort itself out in the next couple of months.

Re: Wellcome Trust to invest heavily in big tobacco

If it were a good investment, yes. But the ethical nazi's have turned it into a bad one, so no.