Aaron Swartz was offered less than a year in prison

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  March 14th at 02:00 PM  | 

Aaron Swartz committed a modern crime: he unlawfully used the MIT computer network, automated the download of many, many copyrighted works from JSTOR, and then infringed on the copyrights of those works by engaging in mass redistribution.

Swartz then, to the great sadness of those who knew him, killed himself rather than face possibly decades in federal prison. That act has infused the entire situation with great emotion, driving left-libertarians out to campaign against copyright. It’s also encouraged some on the right to make the best argument there was against the Swartz prosecution: that it was a case of an overzealous government official seeking to destroy a person, as an example or a feather in a cap.

It turns out that wasn’t the case at all, though. It turns out Aaron Swartz was the only one looking to make an example out of Aaron Swartz.

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Huffington Post Expo, “What Is Working”

By: Breeanne Howe (Diary)  |  August 30th at 05:30 PM  | 

Yesterday afternoon the Huffington Post hosted a nonpartisan panel and lunch to discuss the issue of jobs and the best ways to create more opportunities for the more than 20 million people who are currently unemployed or underemployed.  The event titled, “What Is Working,” included panelists such as Ohio Governor John Kasich, conservative political commentator Laura Ingraham, Judith Rodin from The Rockefeller Foundation, and Tom | Read More »

99% Malarky

By: Repair_Man_Jack (Diary)  |  March 5th at 01:00 PM  | 

Hate is so much easier than truth, reason or imagination. It motivates people, gets them doing irrational things with no particular concern for the consequences that lie in waiting. To give you an idea of just how motivated people get via hatred, here is a recent story from Kansas City, MO. A 13-year-old boy who police say was doused with gasoline and lit on fire | Read More »

Post Labor Day Political Analysis: The Arrogance of “the One” has Caused Him to become Undone

By: Dan Perrin (Diary)  |  September 6th at 06:29 PM  | 

As Perry solidified his lead for the GOP nomination, the opposite has happened to “the One,” who, in short, has become obviously and glaringly undone — in a way that has been so dramatic that even the main stream media cannot ignore it, downplay it or talk around it. Basically, if there is a credible pollster, Obama has hit that pollster’s all time low, including | Read More »

Huffington Post Sells to AOL for $315 million

By: Ben Domenech (Diary)  |  February 7th at 10:27 AM  | 

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Friday’s unemployment numbers, Super Bowl ads, and AOL’s purchase of the Huffington Post. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We | Read More »

To Sexist AP, HuffPo Inanely Bashing Palin Is More Important Than Helping Haiti

By: Lori Ziganto (Diary)  |  December 14th at 11:30 AM  | 

Every time I think that the “Press” can’t sink any lower than the rock bottom they’ve already hit, they somehow manage to burrow themselves further into the earth’s mantle. As is so often the case, this most recent gutter-dwelling example has to do with Sarah Palin, who dared to go on a humanitarian trip to Haiti. This does not suit! You see, how can the | Read More »

An Easy Way to Stop Filibuster Reform

By: Brian Darling (Diary)  |  December 6th at 07:30 PM  | 

Liberal Democrats are going to take a run at the Filibuster in January.  The have adopted idea that the Senate is not a continuing body and that the rules can be changed with a simple majority of Senators voting in a new Congress, in January, to adopt new rules.  This interpretation of the Senate rules ignores the clear rules of the Senate and long tradition | Read More »

Obama vs. Obama – Afghanistan edition

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  August 10th at 04:26 PM  | 

Huffington Post Video Editor Ben Craw has put together a devastating video of President Obama debating Senator Obama about Obama’s Afghanistan war strategy. Craw accomplished this fete using clips of Senator Obama questioning Rice about Iraq in January 2007 with comments President Obama has made about his own Afghan exit strategy in a speech in March 2009, an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” in March | Read More »

Today in Washington – May 11, 2010

By: Brian Darling (Diary)  |  May 11th at 05:00 AM  | 

Yesterday, President Obama rolled out Elena Kagan, the current Solicitor General and nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.  The left wing noise machine distributed talking points to fight the argument that Kagan’s lacked necessary judicial and legal experience for the Supreme Court.  Nobody, right or left, really knows anything about Kagan’s judicial temperament or philosophy, because of her absence of a body of legal writings.  | Read More »