Bits & Pieces Orwellian News Media Strikes Again -- Cheney May Have Been Drunk During Illegal Hunting Excursion In 1984, the protaganist worked for the Ministry of Truth erasing history. Someone has the same job today working for the pro-Republican, corporate media. By now everyone knows that during a hunting trip to kill poor, defenseless, little birds, Dick Cheney shot one of his hunting buddies in the face and chest. To me, it's just another example of how stupid guns are. Accidents like this are unavoidable and if you want to worship killing machines, you've got to accept that things like this happen. The man still has 6 to 200 shotgun pellets still lodged inside of him due to Cheney's misfire. There are two interesting things about this story other than the fact that it serves as yet another piece of evidence of the inherent stupidity of gun use. First, Dick Cheney was committing a crime. He did not obtain a stamp on his hunting license giving him the right to shoot quail. As usual, the Republicans have no respect for the rule of law. Indeed, they believe they are above the rule of law. Second, the Orwellian news media is helping engage in a coverup. The possibility exists that Dick Cheney shot his friend in the face because he was drunk. MSNBC originally had this paragraph in their article about the Cheney shooting incident: Armstrong also told NBC News that she does not believe alcohol was involved in the accident. She says she believes no one that day was drinking, although she says there may have been beer available during a picnic lunch that preceded the incident. "There may be a beer or two in there," she said, "but remember not everyone in the party was shooting." Subsequently, MSNBC erased this paragraph from their website. Why? To protect their corporate overlords at the Republican party. This is a disgraceful example of why the corporate media doesn't provide "news", they provide press releases for the Republican party. Scalia Calls Opponents of his Extreme Views "Idiots" Justice Scalia is the epitome of a corporate tool. He uses all sorts of rationalizations and theoretical tools to justify his support for nearly every single right-wing cause that comes through his court. Perhaps most arrogant and pompous is that he publicly speaks as if he is the one who is true to the law and all of his liberal cohorts are activists. This ignores the fact that Scalia frequently flip flops from issue to issue when it helps support conservative causes. (For example, Scalia held that the commerce clause gives the Federal government the power to regulate medicinal marijuana, but that it doesn't give the Federal government the power to stop violence against women, which has much more profound effect on interstate commerce and is empircally proven.) Scalia potentially committed a crime when he abused his powers and selected George Bush as the President in 2000. So the latest example of Scalia's evil emerged at one of his regular talks at those not-at-all-non-partisan folks at the Federalist Society. Speaking directly to Justice Breyer's concept of "Active Liberty," which posits that the liberty interests guaranteed by the Constitution are not limited to those specific rights recognized 200 years ago but are rather limited to those our system of government implicitly authorizes in the Constitution, Scalia told the flock: "That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break." "But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things." Scalia skipped this part of the Constitution, I'm afraid. It's called the Ninth Amendment. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Translation: the people "retain" some rights and the lack of the enumeration of those rights in the Constitution doesn't mean that the people don't retain them. Anyone who selectively chooses to read some parts of the Constitution and ignore others is an "idiot." Justice Scalia is gaining power now that two other right-wing ideologues have joined the court, and this man's assault on our liberties should now be watched more than ever.