In this instatnt case I think the candidate who is not supported could sue for defamation or fraud and his damages are lost endorsement and possibly lost election based on misinformation tp voters. The fact that it is on an opinion page does IMO give the paper more leeway..but they should at least allow for the candidate to make a rebuttal...
I myself am sick of all the lies and false promises by candidates who after election turn 180 degrees-(mcamnesty come to mind? Obama?) we the people need a method and means to call them on their bullcrap without having to wait till the next election when memories sometimes fade...now that would be real campaign reform....
I am sick of all the lies and false promises by the Parties themselves. The GOP knowingly put McLame against Hussein knowing that BOTH has serious eligibility questions. One would have thought that after Obama and Hillary smoozed over McLame’s NBC, I was waiting for the GOP to slap Hussein with a congressional inquiry but that didn’t happen because they were in on it all along. The GOP didn’t want this election and had McLame stumping for Hussein’s campaign the entire time. Just look at how they treated Sarah. Then we were told we didn’t have to be afraid of Hussein. Yep, it was all there but the sheeple never saw it and the media did a masterful job of covering it up.
After this flap the candidates all rushed to the microphone to see who could give the sweetest regurgitation of The Hutch News’ own lies regarding the eligibility issue. Sick and sad. What could have been a huge lesson in accountability became a suck-up session. Gag.
Seems to me that people tend to confuse legal accountability with electoral accountability. We CAN hold government officials accountable for any actions they do, by voting them out. But they can inflict a lot of UNLAWFUL damage between elections. The people have to have a way to hold the politicians LEGALLY accountable. With all the laws being broken, the problem comes in because the only people who can file legal charges against these crooks are fellow politicians.
Right.
The current understanding of “standing” basically makes it so that the people have no way to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We spent 8 years watching Janet Reno refuse to investigate Clinton after 2 different Congressional investigations (Cox and Thompson) strongly recommended legal investigations into potential crimes committed by Clinton and his administration. The crooks nominate their buddies to “hold them legally accountable” - and then nobody else has jurisdiction to do what the crooks refuse to do.
It’s like, in order to protect ourselves from anybody having the power of the “one ring”, we give the ring to whoever we elect to have power. Our electing them doesn’t make any difference to whether they can be corrupted by the power of the ring. They will ALWAYS be corrupted by the power of the ring.
Our founding fathers understood that the only way to combat the corruption inherent in absolute power is to never give anybody so much power that they can screw everybody else. That’s why we are to be governed by the LAW and not by MEN. That’s why there is due process and equal protection. If I can be charged with stealing, then so can Charlie Rangel. If somebody reports me for stealing, the cops are supposed to give that person and me, both, the due process of an investigation, etc. And if somebody reports Charlie Rangel for stealing, the same thing should happen. But it doesn’t. It gets referred to the House Ethics Committee, where the people he has mooched with get to decide whether any charges are filed.
If I reported Nancy Pelosi’s perjury right now, what would happen? Would it be the same thing that would happen if I reported perjury by my next-door neighbor?