Letters to the Editor
skyeman
Published Letters: 85 Editor's Choice: 6
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First Amendment
[Read the article: Veterans group comes out in favor of antiwar vet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Who more qualified to exercise the right to free speech and free assembly than one who has honorably made the sacrifice required by duty and is lucky enough to have survived?
I imagine a political strategist somewhere plotting to kill the career of a nascent military veteran activist, thus preventing a future Senator. Kind of a pre-emptive Swiftboat thing...
The concept that being furloughed out to the Ready Reserve means the government still owns you and controls your behavior is sinister and absurd. That a military review board is considering downgrading this Marine's discharge status due to acts occurring post his discharge from active duty is deeply shameful; particularly when the rights to these acts are express in the U.S. Constitution.
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@ufansius
[Read the article: Veterans group comes out in favor of antiwar vet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My earlier comment indicated my general moral outrage rather than a specific interpretation of military code. If you want equal application of the law, if I show up at a protest wearing fatigues from the local surplus and remain within my rights, the Marine who is not wearing insignia is dressed the same and should remain unmolested as well. The application of the Military Code of Justice on a discharged soldier for acts as a civilian is just extra-special treatment, don't you agree?
Scooter and this guy? Apples and oranges, my friend. By the by, Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice -acts which successfully prevented anyone from being charged with identifying Mrs. Wilson's employment status... which has been verified as covert...which fact is a crime to knowingly reveal....the complete defense to which is a denial of knowledge of her status 'I never knew'- another version of 'I don't remember'.
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The Measure of Mass Appeal
[Read the article: Quote of the Day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Rudy? Charming guy at a party, I'm sure I'd love to quaff some martinis with him.
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Really, this is good
[Read the article: McNulty: I was out of the loop]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The storyline so far from the AG is that he relied upon the recommendations of others, primarily those of his Deputy, as opposed to DOJ employees doubling as Rove's political operatives. McNulty is speaking up to dispute the record of testimony. This is the way evidence is gathered, laboriously, one piece at a time.
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From Bartleby's Respectfully Quoted Website
[Read the article: White House refuses to comply with subpoenas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Full quote and context, with historical underpinnings:
NUMBER: 1065
AUTHOR: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787.—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).
A related idea was later expressed by Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac in a speech to the French national assembly, January 16, 1793: “L’arbre de la liberté… croît lorsqu’il est arrosé du sang de toute espèce de tyrans (The tree of liberty grows only when watered by the blood of tyrants),” Archives Parliamentaires de 1787 à 1860, vol. 57, p. 368 (1900).
And much earlier Tertullian had said: “Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum (We multiply whenever we are mown down by you; the blood of Christians is seed),” Apology, trans. T. R. Glover, pp. 226–27 (1931).
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I can hear it already..
[Read the article: The House takes on clemency]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jimmy Carter did it too! We are continuing the great precedent of granting amnesty to draft dodgers. Can we now move on and let the past be the past?
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!
[Read the article: The disappearing protests]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You mean like the MILLIONS of people WORLDWIDE that came out to protest the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq? Why keep up the pretense? There were simply very few regular people in the world who thought this was a even close to a good idea - and they were hoodwinked by pusillanimous "patriots".
I think Matthews has been drinking his own bathwater.
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How Soon They Forget
[Read the article: Mr. Humble]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This nimrod was the Speaker Of the House, and with the talking points provided by Limbaugh, created the odious Contract With America. Though marginalized later, he was the vanguard for the unsavory collection of body parts now known as our Administration. All because no thinks that an ineffectual, puffed-up, arrogant asshole could possibly be a threat.
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My 2 cents
[Read the article: The man who sold the war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I keep reading posters citing, without attribution, anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 Iraqi war casualties. This may be the product of needing to minimize the horror of what our country has been jerked into doing; or the continuing lack of real information from U.S. media outlets. HOWEVER, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted an extensive mortality study published in Lancet in 2004, followed by another conducted in 2006. The link is here:
http://www.jhsph.edu/refugee/research/iraq/
The article citing the findings says, in part: "As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes—violent and non-violent—are over and above the estimated 143,000 deaths per year that occurred from all causes prior to the March 2003 invasion."
That means, if the numbers keep pace year for year, that Iraqi deaths resulting from invasion and occupation will likely reach 875,000 sometime this month. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 - 3% of the population of that country no longer with us.
And to Xavier - short of resort to armed insurrection, what would you have had us do? I don't buy your premise that it is our fault because we "let it happen". It is all on the men who conveived in their hearts to usurp the rule of law under our Constitution, and violate their oaths to defend it above all; to lie, lie, lie to the citizens while serving an agenda that would seem only to enrich a few corporations. These hucksters drove the bus where it has never been before, I never voted for them and neither did you - they still got into office and sucked all the air out of the room ever since.