This whole thing kicked off with a 700 billion dollar program that specifically called for no oversight and the spending of was unquestionable by any authority.

Here's how you can tell there's no chance: Institutions that were given money were given the money under the rational that they were too big to fail. By definition a company that is too big to fail is too big. Hear any talk of breaking up any of these companies so they no longer pose a threat to the country? No.

American Fascist

I would be arrested and branded a sex criminal

While I'm sure that's true, (and I don't even want to know what disgusting illegal pervert behavior you get up to) what does that have to do with this story?

Lets bear in mind he's being judged against the backdrop of Fox News.

Keep in mind in this piece here, railing about the hatred not based on fact, that people think Obama is a socialist/marxist non-u.s. citizen thats destroying the country he never calls out that his own network is spewing these non-facts out by wackaloons like Beck and Hannity daily.

Also in the earlier piece where Shep, garnering praise for what would be for any other journalist on another network merely just doing their job, connecting the reaction to the DHS report to recent events, Shep refers to the report mentioning extremists. Nice but he conveniently left out that the report referred to right-wing extremists. It matters.

Yeah, compared to Beck/O'Reilly/Hannity and the morning crew Shep looks like a master of critical thought... but he ain't. He's merely slightly less than ok. (which admittedly in modern american journalism, isn't bad)

When vegetarians point to the damage that meat eating is doing to the ecology/environment (and it is) I have to point out that the culprit is not that we're eating meat, its how agribusiness satisfies that demand. 6 billion plus people can't be fed regularly on this planet, with a mindset geared towards increasing that demand annually without it having an negative impact no matter what the dominant food source is.

If everyone woke up tomorrow and decided to be vegetarians, in short order the demands of 6 billion vegetarians, serviced by agribusiness would be harming the environment just as much.

One of the major customer groups of chains like TGIF is the cowardly American tourist, who far from home, perhaps unwilling to risk a meal at an unknown, and potentially way overpriced local restaurant, knows exactly what they can get to eat at the franchise of their choice. Naturally as the economy has slowed, so has the American tourist industry I assume.

I don't have cable but I have a dtv tuner for my pc. I'd gotten it hoping for clear pic PBS but could never pick it up. (Its great for watching the NBA finals on ABC though in HD!!) I'd been told I might need a better antennae but I should wait til the switch over since broadcasters would be turning their HD broadcasting equip up to full power. Well an hour after the switch I'm getting all the PBS HD channels OTA, in HD clairity. Whoopee!

Throwing arabic translators out of the military because they are gay is as counter to national security or protecting our troops as you can get. Its sickening.

Another hearty thanks to George Bush for destroying another moral high ground America is forced to secede due to both of his elections.

Are you saying I should withhold criticism of the actual real president who may do things I don't approve of, because of your imaginary presidential bad story?

"Words like "embryo" and "fetus" allow for dissociation from their growing baby"

Being a man, I can't obviously speak for women, but I'm going to go out on limb and say under normal circumstances not too much, least of all semantics, can disassociate a women from the baby growing in their body. And to think that it could demonstrates not only a profound insensitivity but an embarrassing lack of understanding of women in general.

Just going by the headline, that people would need to be told why its a good idea for a parent of any gender or role to spend more time with their children is sad and pathetic.

Does it matter as far as Cheney goes? If one single period is redacted, he'll be able to claim that is the vindicating part.

Didn't read all the preceding letters, so sorry if this has been covered but I think its about liablitly: "...implications for several reasons, including the fact that torture is illegal under U.S. law..." Since torture is illegal, NPR is afraid to call it torture until someone is convicted of it.

Mark my words, once someone (oh please oh please, but I'm not holding my breath) is convicted of torturing, and its beyond the 'bad apple' stage (totally not holding my breath. Not suicidal) you'll hear the media wailing about the evils of torture, and I predict that sadly they'll also claim that justice was done with the ending of the trial.

As per my previous post, if you get a chance to question any of these media people about not using the word torture, especially the NPR Ombudsman, ask them this hypothetical: If, based on what we know now, senior members of the Bush admin were convicted because a court found the 'harsh interrogation techniques' to be torture, but all the members of the Bush admin, even those presumably sent to prison for it denied it was torture, would you then refer to it as torture?

Stop trying to think your way thru to the most pragmatic solutions that ruffle the least amount of feathers. Some things are just plain wrong and need to be ended. And if their are consequences, then they surely need to be paid.

Up to how many months along do you think Nixon supported abortion for bi-racial people? I'm guessing its open ended.