Werthless wrote:You guys will love this article... whiny, out of touch rich people!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-2 ... qus_thread

category error: take it to the economics thread

jerseyhoya wrote:Holder: U.S. can lawfully target American citizens

I don't see why this is a conversation. The spin is assassination, but this is a little different the sniping a leader of a country during a public event. While that though might be morally repugnant, it is effective in some situations. When you take someone who has renounced his or her citizenship and actively orchestrated terrorism against the nation, they are traitors. I know that the treason requirement is fairly stringent as the founders did not want to turn the actions they supported against England into something outside the law, I believe that planning the deaths of innocent Americans and taking up arms against US forces meet the requirement. Execution is the prescription for treason. You go into the game knowing the stakes. Incidentally, although Nixon made assassination as an action illegal, requiring presidential approval, I am certain that every president has had a decision to make in this regard even if it was sanctioning an action by an ally.

I also cannot buy the counter argument that this makes Obama a dictator with the authority and means to kill anyone who opposes him, his policy or the military. That is just a radical edge of expanding protocol to conspiracy theory.

thephan wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Holder: U.S. can lawfully target American citizens

I don't see why this is a conversation. The spin is assassination, but this is a little different the sniping a leader of a country during a public event. While that though might be morally repugnant, it is effective in some situations. When you take someone who has renounced his or her citizenship and actively orchestrated terrorism against the nation, they are traitors. I know that the treason requirement is fairly stringent as the founders did not want to turn the actions they supported against England into something outside the law, I believe that planning the deaths of innocent Americans and taking up arms against US forces meet the requirement. Execution is the prescription for treason. You go into the game knowing the stakes. Incidentally, although Nixon made assassination as an action illegal, requiring presidential approval, I am certain that every president has had a decision to make in this regard even if it was sanctioning an action by an ally.

I also cannot buy the counter argument that this makes Obama a dictator with the authority and means to kill anyone who opposes him, his policy or the military. That is just a radical edge of expanding protocol to conspiracy theory.

Execution may be the punishment for treason, but it's only meted out after due process requirements have been met. Kinda tricky that way.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

thephan wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Holder: U.S. can lawfully target American citizens

I don't see why this is a conversation. The spin is assassination, but this is a little different the sniping a leader of a country during a public event. While that though might be morally repugnant, it is effective in some situations. When you take someone who has renounced his or her citizenship and actively orchestrated terrorism against the nation, they are traitors. I know that the treason requirement is fairly stringent as the founders did not want to turn the actions they supported against England into something outside the law, I believe that planning the deaths of innocent Americans and taking up arms against US forces meet the requirement. Execution is the prescription for treason. You go into the game knowing the stakes. Incidentally, although Nixon made assassination as an action illegal, requiring presidential approval, I am certain that every president has had a decision to make in this regard even if it was sanctioning an action by an ally.

I also cannot buy the counter argument that this makes Obama a dictator with the authority and means to kill anyone who opposes him, his policy or the military. That is just a radical edge of expanding protocol to conspiracy theory.

Execution may be the punishment for treason, but it's only meted out after due process requirements have been met. Kinda tricky that way.

Exactly, they should have held a trial in abstentia to find him guilty of X counts of treason at least.

Then again, that would be a tricky situation. How could one's Due Process/Fair Trial rights be preserved if the result is death and they weren't there to confer with attorney? I'm not sure if a Death Penalty case was ever decided in abstentia. I should check out Lexis, but research is annoying.

slugsrbad wrote:Then again, that would be a tricky situation. How could one's Due Process/Fair Trial rights be preserved if the result is death and they weren't there to confer with attorney?

In absentia criminal trials are generally not permitted in the US thanks to the Sixth Amendment.

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:You guys will love this article... whiny, out of touch rich people!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-2 ... qus_thread

category error: take it to the economics thread

I thought the comments would be political in nature. And I'm not sure anybody reads that thread.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:Then again, that would be a tricky situation. How could one's Due Process/Fair Trial rights be preserved if the result is death and they weren't there to confer with attorney?

In absentia criminal trials are generally not permitted in the US thanks to the Sixth Amendment.

I'm such an idiot. We literally talked about this last night in my Crim Pro II class. I should not post before my brain walks up. Of course you can't have trials begin "in abstentia" as reiterated in Crosby v. United States saying that although Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure allows for "in abstentia" trials AFTER the trial has begun (for reasons such as defendant flight or trial disruption) it does not apply for trials that had not begun yet. I

Werthless wrote:I thought the comments would be political in nature. And I'm not sure anybody reads that thread.

true, and truer

Regarding Werthless's article--I can easily imagine it's tough to go from a salary of 500k to a mere 350k. I mean, look at poor Lenny Dykstra.

I read that Bloomburg article last week. It would've fit in well on the Onion with some tweaks and more satire.

Some of it I can understand. New York is an expensive place to live and $350K really isn't that much in this city if you're a single income family with 3 kids. You get used to a sort of lifestyle and it is hard to cut back. The one guy lives in Brooklyn in a 1500 foot apartment, which isn't that big if you have 3 kids. It isn't even Manhattan. And his kids in private school, yeah, that's expensive and it'd be hard for them to adjust to public schools and there's the long term benefits of getting into a better college or making better connections from a private school that might help set those kids up for their adult futures. I get that too.

But then they started talking about the summer home and how the Porche 911 is the Volkswagen of sports cars and they lost me.

Fair and balanced:

A) Jon Stewart rips on Limbaugh and others

B) Fluke is wrong to demand Georgetown pay for her birth control pills

Concerning the article, the two passages that jump out at me are:

In her testimony, Ms. Fluke claimed that, "Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school." That's $1,000 per year. But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month's worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. "That's the price without insurance," the employee said. (It's also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)
...
Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first-year law student should know where the Constitution comes down on that.

For some reason, this bit of fact-finding (that pills at the pharmacy across from campus cost $9 per month) swayed me. Yet, if the issue is one of rights, the cost should be a non-factor. Should cost matter when we're talking rights? Personally, I think it is smart for an employer to offer this kind of coverage, but this issue puts conservatives in a tricky situation, exacerbated by Limbaugh's obnoxiousness. I see the widespread use of birth control as one way to reduce the number of abortions, but then again, I'm not too worried about the degradation of the country's moral fabric.

I have been wondering about that 1,000 number. I've had some uninsured girlfriends and I remember their birth control being around 30 a month. Not quite 9 per, but way cheaper than 1,000.

lethal wrote:I read that Bloomburg article last week. It would've fit in well on the Onion with some tweaks and more satire.

Some of it I can understand. New York is an expensive place to live and $350K really isn't that much in this city if you're a single income family with 3 kids. You get used to a sort of lifestyle and it is hard to cut back. The one guy lives in Brooklyn in a 1500 foot apartment, which isn't that big if you have 3 kids. It isn't even Manhattan. And his kids in private school, yeah, that's expensive and it'd be hard for them to adjust to public schools and there's the long term benefits of getting into a better college or making better connections from a private school that might help set those kids up for their adult futures. I get that too.

But then they started talking about the summer home and how the Porche 911 is the Volkswagen of sports cars and they lost me.

He refuses to accept that everyone has to make tradeoffs. Summer vacation rental vs. nicer family home. Better public schools vs. longer commute. Flashy cars vs. flashy house. And it goes on and on. It's kind of ridiculous that he's whining about having to make tradeoffs, because that reality happens at any income. At higher incomes, he'd whine about how he has no money left over after fueling his private jet, which he NEEDS to entertain potential clients.

And FFS, spend $1000 and get a dishwasher installed.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:I have been wondering about that 1,000 number. I've had some uninsured girlfriends and I remember their birth control being around 30 a month. Not quite 9 per, but way cheaper than 1,000.

That would be $360 per year. So, it's closer to $1,000, but still not that expensive in the grand scheme of things.

I imagine not all birth control is created or priced equally, but I know nothing about it.

I guess it's probably not, but all the little pill carousels I've seen look the same

I just think it was a real bad idea for her to kind of push that more extreme number as her example. Makes her seem disingenuous

Werthless wrote:Fair and balanced:

A) Jon Stewart rips on Limbaugh and others

B) Fluke is wrong to demand Georgetown pay for her birth control pills

Concerning the article, the two passages that jump out at me are:

In her testimony, Ms. Fluke claimed that, "Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school." That's $1,000 per year. But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month's worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. "That's the price without insurance," the employee said. (It's also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)
...
Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first-year law student should know where the Constitution comes down on that.

For some reason, this bit of fact-finding (that pills at the pharmacy across from campus cost $9 per month) swayed me. Yet, if the issue is one of rights, the cost should be a non-factor. Should cost matter when we're talking rights? Personally, I think it is smart for an employer to offer this kind of coverage, but this issue puts conservatives in a tricky situation, exacerbated by Limbaugh's obnoxiousness. I see the widespread use of birth control as one way to reduce the number of abortions, but then again, I'm not too worried about the degradation of the country's moral fabric.

1) I don't recall a Target or Walmart or any other big box stores anywhere near the Georgetown Law campus (which you should remember is not at the main campus, but close to Union Station). Maybe they've built a new one since I graduated, but I don't know where they would put one in that area.

2) Here's the list of Target $9 generics for women's health. I have no idea what they are generic for. http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/pa ... _condition

Women's Health
ALENDRONATE SOD 35 MG - Tablet - - 4 12
ALENDRONATE SOD 70 MG - Tablet - - 4 12
CLOMIPHENE 50 MG - Tablet - - 5 15
SPRINTEC 28-DAY* - Tablet - - 28 N/A
TAMOXIFEN 10 MG - Tablet - - 60 180
TAMOXIFEN 20 MG - Tablet - - 30 90
TRI-SPRINTEC 28-DAY* - Tablet - - 28 N/A

My wife had to try something like 5 or 6 different brands and generics of birth control pills before she found one that she didn't react badly to. Sometimes the brand would work, but she reacted to the generic. I don't know if the one she found is one of the ones on Target's list above. I don't think it is. When we weren't insured for a few months, her prescriptions were like $80 a month, so that's the $1,000 a year.

Just because Target or Walmart offer $9 generics instead of a $90 prescription, doesn't mean that Fluke could've used any of those that Target offered. Every person reacts to different medications differently. Maybe the one that works for a certain woman's body isn't on the Target $9 generic list. So you punish her for that?

I don't think that just because a big box retailer or drug store offers cheap generics makes the $3,000 in 3 year of law school argument invalid or wrong.

lethal wrote:Just because Target or Walmart offer $9 generics instead of a $90 prescription, doesn't mean that Fluke could've used any of those that Target offered. Every person reacts to different medications differently. Maybe the one that works for a certain woman's body isn't on the Target $9 generic list. So you punish her for that?

I don't think that just because a big box retailer or drug store offers cheap generics makes the $3,000 in 3 year of law school argument invalid or wrong.

This is sort of where I'm on the fence. Does $9 or $90 actually matter? If she could buy it for $9 instead of $90, is she now out of line? This is where I'm struggling, because it's a very distracting red herring in my opinion. The main issue at hand is whether Georgetown should be compelled to offer this type of medication in its insurance plan, and so I think the cost should be a separate consideration. Eh, I dont know exactly what I think.

Werthless wrote:And FFS, spend $1000 and get a dishwasher installed.

I doubt its a money thing. The building is probably older and the plumbing can't support a dishwaher or there's no space in the kitchen for one (I read it again, its only 1200 square feet he lives in. Kitchen might be tiny.)