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http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/michelle-obamas-princeton-classmate-is-executive-at-company-that-built-obamacare-website/

Link says it all.

Very interesting little tidbit indeed and if true it only goes to show how bad the crony back scratching is getting in both Canada and the US. This same bunch of college grad mba powerpoint gurus dominates much of the contracted IT work up in Canada as well. They code nothing, they sub contract everything and all they do is scmooze their contacts for lucrative government work.

for those who do follow links here is the gist of the story;

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the contract to build the failed Obamacare website.

Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company.

Townes-Whitley and her Princeton classmate Michelle Obama are both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.

Toni Townes ’85 is a onetime policy analyst with the General Accounting Office and previously served in the Peace Corps in Gabon, West Africa. Her decision to return to work, as an African-American woman, after six years of raising kids was applauded by a Princeton alumni publication in 1998

George Schindler, the president for U.S. and Canada of the Canadian-based CGI Group, CGI Federal’s parent company, became an Obama 2012 campaign donor after his company gained the Obamacare website contract.

As reported by the Washington Examiner in early October, the Department of Health and Human Services reviewed only CGI’s bid for the Obamacare account. CGI was one of 16 companies qualified under the Bush administration to provide certain tech services to the federal government. A senior vice president for the company testified this week before The House Committee on Energy and Commerce that four companies submitted bids, but did not name those companies or explain why only CGI’s bid was considered.

On the government end, construction of the disastrous Healthcare.gov website was overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of longtime failed website-builder Kathleen Sebelius’ Department of Health and Human Services.

Update: The Daily Caller repeatedly contacted CGI Federal for comment. After publication of this article, the company responded that there would be “nothing coming out of CGI for the record or otherwise today.” The company did however insist that The Daily Caller include a reference to vice president Cheryl Campbell’s House testimony. This has been included as a courtesy to the company.

OR YOU CAN WATCH what Cheryl Campbell's testimony was on CNN they blast it out every half hour or so.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/michelle-obamas-princeton-classmate-is-executive-at-company-that-built-obamacare-website/

Link says it all.

The files are PAPER FILE FOLDERS. With notes ON PAPER. The very first thing in the article is a PICTURE of said PAPER FILES. On PAPER.

"But it wasn’t until a month later, on Sept. 10, that Hudson was informed by Bosch that five files including her handwritten and typed notes from interviews with numerous confidential sources and other documents had been taken during the raid."

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/exclusive-feds-confiscate-investigative-reporters-confidential-files-during-raid/2/

What were they all doing?

Lobbying?

Here are a few key points from the original story in The Daily Caller:

Warrant Basis:

The document notes that her husband, Paul Flanagan, was found guilty in 1986 to resisting arrest in Prince George's County. The warrant called for police to search the residence they share and seize all weapons and ammunition because he is prohibited under the law from possessing firearms.

Militarization of Police Angle:

At about 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 6, Hudson said officers dressed in full body armor presented a search warrant to enter the home she shares on the bay with her husband. She estimates that at least seven officers took part in the raid.

Document Seizure Justification:

Diaz explained that the files were taken because they found official government papers, which Hudson had obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"During the course of the search, the CGIS agent discovered government documents labeled FOUO - For Official Use Only (FOUO) - and LES - Law Enforcement Sensitive. The files that contained these documents were cataloged on the search warrant inventory and taken from the premises," Diaz said.

"The documents were reviewed with the source agency and determined to be obtained properly through the Freedom of Information Act," he said.

Document Seizure Counterpoint:

But Hudson doesn't buy the explanation: "That explains the one file they took but does not explain why they took four other files with my handwritten and typed interview notes with confidential sources, that I staked my reputation as a journalist to protect under the auspices of the First Amendment of the Constitution," she said.

They Did Have Guns:

During the raid, the officers also went after Hudson's three pistols and three long guns, which she obtained legally.

"I'm a Kentucky girl," she said. "I come kitchen trained, and firearm ready. I grew up with guns and I've always been around guns."

She Is A "Real" Reporter:

Hudson has been a reporter in Washington, D.C. for nearly 15 years and was nominated twice by The Washington Times for the Pulitzer Prize. She is a freelancer for Newsmax and the Colorado Observer.

Her Investigative Reporting:

While at the Times, Hudson reported extensively on the air marshal program - specifically about whether Homeland Security officials had lied to Congress and reported protecting more flights than they really were. Using her sources inside the government, Hudson has also reported for years about possible terrorist "dry-runs" on airplanes.

Unlike some other reporters whose sources have been targeted in recent years by the government, Hudson said none of the information she had was classified or given to her by someone who broke the law.

"None of the documents were classified," she said. "There were no laws broken in me obtaining these files."

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

I'm more concerned, though, about who the NSA is really working for these days, and I'm frankly alarmed about who apparently clueless contract administrators like Alexander and Clapper are allowing to actually run the programs and who THEY are sharing data with. Military signals intelligence is one thing, but when a country's military is spying on its own citizens en masse, and sharing the data with everyone from law enforcement to political parties' campaign apparatuses to muck-raking journalists formerly employed by known CIA-controlled/manipulated news orgs to your friendly local mafia^H^H^H^H^H media advertising group, well, then something is definitely very, very wrong. Especially when you see the Feds doing things like this.

And at least Carter has tried to make up for it, often acting as an envoy, or making sure that elections aren't rigged in third world countries.

He needs to check out elections in most US states and organizations that are helping to allow people to undermine the system.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/10/new-okeefe-video-obama-campaign-staffer-caught-helping-activist-vote-twice/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/19/ohio-poll-worker-who-admits-voting-twice-obama-may/
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-09-14/news/bs-md-wendy-rosen-withdraws-20120910_1_wendy-rosen-maryland-democratic-party-general-election

And it's funny how the DOJ goes after states that try to enact voter ID laws because it will somehow disenfranchise voters. It's one person, one vote.

There's no proof there was only a single bid. But a spokesperson from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) told the Daily Caller, “CGI did not receive any sole source awards. They competed for the work on our multiple award contract.”

But don't let facts get in the way of your rant by all means.

"Then maybe you should be looking more closely at the actual science, as the IPCC AR5 review upgraded their assessment of the majority of climate change being human-caused to "extremely likely" (95%+ probability). And while a few specific effects of climate change are now considered less likely, others such as polar ice melt have been outstripping projections."

If you want to pay attention to the "actual science", then you should not be paying attention to the summary, because as Dr. Richard Lindzen rather gleefully points out, as the actual science in the IPCC reports has been progressively offering weaker and weaker evidence of AGW, those summaries have become ever more alarmist.

Your comment is really just more evidence of what I was saying.

Another fun fact is that there's no actual "debt ceiling" right now. At all.

The fiscal deal passed by Congress on Wednesday doesn't actually increase the debt limit.
  It just temporarily suspends enforcement of it.
We the people just gave a bunch of politicians a blank check.

Sure, but it's a blank check to pay the bills those same politicians have already incurred. The debt limit doesn't stop Congress from spending too much money, because by the time it gets to that point, it's already far too late.

Try the same thing with an AWGer and you will get disasterous results. Point out the Phil Jones ignored FOIA requests and when it looked like he would be forced to hand over his data for peer review he had it all deleted. Point out how the predictions of the last 12 years have been completely wrong. Point out how despite being wrong and there being no warming for 15 years, the IPCC concluded their research was 96% accurate and ignored how far off their previous predictions were.

AWG has become a laughing stock to people who understand science, yet no matter how much you point it out the "true believers" still call you names because they fail at discussing the facts.

Even previous IPCC members have claimed the latest IPCC report is a joke yet I'll be called names for point that out.

It is easy to show "savings" if you double count them.

HHS Secretary Sebelius admits to double-counting in Obamacare budget

Obamacare Remains a Budgetary and Policy Disaster

CBO now projects that Obamacare’s Medicare and Medicaid cuts will reduce federal spending by over $700 billion over the coming decade. (Most of the cuts come from Medicare, although CBO did not break the estimate down by program.) However, these cuts are being double-counted.[4] The cuts are being used to replenish the Medicare trust fund for hospital and other institutional care and pay future Medicare claims. Over the next 75 years, this will add about $8 trillion to the government’s unfunded liabilities. Over the next decade, when the double-counted cuts are taken out of the equation, Obamacare adds at least $340 billion to projected budget deficits.

Medicare’s chief actuary has repeatedly pointed out that the cuts themselves are very unlikely to be sustained over the medium and long terms, because they would cause severe access problems for seniors. Defenders claim that Obamacare will slow the pace of rising Medicare costs by implementing more efficient ways of delivering services. However, Obamacare’s Medicare savings come from blunt, across-the-board payment rate reductions that are implemented without regard to the quality of care provided to beneficiaries.

The fiscal deal passed by Congress on Wednesday doesn't actually increase the debt limit. It just temporarily suspends enforcement of it. We the people just gave a bunch of politicians a blank check.

I still don't get it. You say that (a) a few fraudulent scientists are acting as a gateway to bad data, and (b) I can look at the data and see for myself. It seems to me that, if I can look at data, numerous other scientists can too. Most of these are going to be honest (since most scientists are honest), and many are going to see the opportunity to write a paper that gets them some attention.

Scientists are writing papers that point out that the Global Warming consensus is wrong. They get labelled as "deniers". This is a classic tactic of the political Left and their allies (of which the environmental movement is an undeniable part), the tactic is: "Do not address the facts, but slander the message bringer".

For example, Richard Lindzen of *MIT* finds the IPCC report "hilarious":
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/29/top-mit-scientist-un-climate-report-is-hilariously-flawed/
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/mit_scientist_says_new_climate_report_is_hilarious_incoherence.html

"You have politicians who are being told if they question this, they are anti-science. We are trying to tell them, no, questioning is never anti-science."

What matters is not whether there is or is not global warming. What matters is that a particular political view (which in this case, happens to come from the Left; but would be just as wrong as if it had come from the Right) is trumping science. The [Cultural Marxist] Politically Correct view is that there is Global Warming. Now that the evidence is against Global Warming there is no big pronouncement that the models were wrong. Instead, the Politically Correct terms is changed to the scientifically meaningless "Climate Change" (nb: the climate is *always* changing - being alarmist about this natural and normal process is anti-scientific, and well, political).

So, unless you can explain my observations of the scientific community, I'm going to continue to accept its consensus.

As you wish, but understand this is a *political* decision, and not based on the observed data. Like I said, look at that lovely sinusoid - alone it is enough to *destroy* the Global Warming hoax): http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/nasa-spokesman-reacts-to-the-spectacular-growth-in-arctic-ice/
And there are plenty more predictions of the Global Warming Theory that have not met observation (eg. *zero* hurricanes in the US in the last season; global warming theory predicted larger and more frequent hurricanes; then there was a record number of states in the US that had below average winter temperatures; then we have both the Arctic and Antarctica putting on more ice; sure, we have variability like my own New Zealand having a very warm winter this year - but one year is natural variation. When it is 15 years without global warming that is a trend.

A scientist must change their position based on *all* the observations. If the observations were for global warming I'd be more than happy to promote this theory. I have nothing ideological nor political against global warming theory. All I can say is that there are significant sets of observations that are against global warming - that means the theory cannot be accepted as is. Then I couple that with the fact that it is now known that scientists have been manipulating data (indicating that their case is very weak). That leads me to conclude Global Warming is, at best, an unproven and weak theory - and there is a higher statistical probability that the null hypothesis (no warming) is correct than the probability that warming is happening (when evaluating the untampere

For some reason people want health care that won't bankrupt them. They look at what citizens of other industrialized nations get and want the same.

You mean eight hour waits in ambulances to game national healthcare system metrics, going to the US for treatment to avoid waits, and crackdowns on treatment for immigrants? Americans don't want the first, the second is redundant, and Obamacare will probably rule out the third.

You dont know much about the UK.

I wasn't asking.

If you did, you wouldn't rely on the Daily Tele(graph) for accurate information.

In the UK, they wont send you home to die simply because your employer doesn't have insurance, or enough insurance. This is what people in the US want. Basic care in the UK or Australia isn't glamorous, but it's far cheaper than the most basic care in the US. In fact top hospital cover in Australia is far cheaper than the most basic care in the US.

People want to know they can go to a hospital with serious problem and not have to worry if they have the cash to pay for it. This is the assurance you have in Canada, the UK or Australia.

Also, you'll find the vast majority of people travelling overseas (out of the country) will be for elective surgery which is usually not covered or not covered completely and optional.

Finally, am I the only one who sees the notion of your employer providing health care akin to indentured servitude? Preventing you from changing employers at will or even taking time off (a sabbatical)?

For some reason people want health care that won't bankrupt them. They look at what citizens of other industrialized nations get and want the same.

You mean eight hour waits in ambulances to game national healthcare system metrics, going to the US for treatment to avoid waits, and crackdowns on treatment for immigrants? Americans don't want the first, the second is redundant, and Obamacare will probably rule out the third.

Of course in the UK you're free to engage companies like BUPA to give you private medical care.

The average person in the UK pays $3,433 per year of medical care. The average person in the US pays $8,233

That leaves plenty of money for a £170 pcm ($3600/year) "Comprehensive plan" with BUPA. With a $800 "deducatble" that drops to $2300/year, if you wish.

For some reason people want health care that won't bankrupt them. They look at what citizens of other industrialized nations get and want the same.

You mean eight hour waits in ambulances to game national healthcare system metrics, going to the US for treatment to avoid waits, and crackdowns on treatment for immigrants? Americans don't want the first, the second is redundant, and Obamacare will probably rule out the third.
   

I think you give Obama too much credit. He saw how to exploit this just like he saw how to exploit the IRS and use it against his political enemies. Obama railed against raising the debt limit when he was senator calling it unpatriotic and now he insists on no negotiations to lower the deficit as a condition to raising the debt limit. (yes, I know that is a political add, but it has Obama's own voice in it).

Despite amending or doing away with it, Obama could also through legitimate power as the head of the executive, ensure that US agencies used the power the Patriot Act gave the government in ways that we would not be concerned with today. Instead, he used that same power to expand the surveillance and even justify that expansion through the Patriot act.

He and the democrats did nothing because they saw it as a way to increase their power and objectives. They took the ball and ran because they wanted to. If you look at how Obama was elected to senator, you would see that It has nothing to do with being beholden to anything other then their ideology. The entire Obamacare debacle proves this. Harry Reid himself called the medical device tax a stupid tax yet he refuses to consider anything to repeal it or any changes to the Affordable Care Act out of ideological persistence.

Yet, I have no problems with believing either side will attempt to be against the other side when they are in power. It's all ideology if you ask me.

This same thing happened in the US. I forget the new station, but they released stats on the election days before it happened. whatever, no one would ever believe it happens here though...

Here's the story. It was KPHO in Phoenix, Arizona. They displayed a banner at the bottom of the screen announcing the exact percentages by which Obama defeated Romney with 99% of results in - more than two weeks before the election.

The station claims it was a mistaken display of a test graphic. Could be that's what happened in Azerbaijan, too, if we want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Do we?

For me the only deciding factor would've been, which option is more expensive. Given the fact, that enforcing the closures of places like WW2 memorial or Mount Rushmore costs a lot more, than simply letting them be, the current Administration is doing exactly the opposite of what I would've done.

That it is also the first Administration to do so — most of the places in question continued to operate during all previous shutdowns — the conclusion is clear: Obama et al. are deliberately making the shutdown more painful, than it needs to be.

Given that it is Obama's responsibility, as the head of the Executive branch, to make the government operate as good as it can under any circumstances (regardless of who is "at fault"), the term "dereliction of duty" comes immediately to mind. And stays there...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/08/pelosi-loves-gerrymandering/

It looks like the personnel necessary for safety and immediate response are still on the job.

Shutdown furloughs about to hit nuclear safety agency

The 300 essential personnel who would stay on include about 150 so-called "resident inspectors." They serve as the NRC's eyes and ears at nuclear plants. They also include employees who support emergency response, investigators, a skeleton management team, the five NRC commissioners and a few commission staff members, the NRC said.

The retained group would also include employees who support emergency response, investigators, a skeleton management team, the five NRC commissioners and a few commission staff members, the NRC said.

Approximately 83% of government employees are still at work, so why is the NRC being hit so hard?

I think there is still an interesting question of how much of this is "shutdown theater" to squeeze the public as has been occurring with the Park Service. Although there has been an issue with it in the past, the current administration seems to have kicked it up a level.

Speaking of using your brain. Obama has shown zero restraint in using Executive Orders to modify laws he's been unhappy with. ACA comes to mind with his unilateral modification to extend employer mandates by a year. Something that is unconstitutional, I might add. He's trying to win by making as many miserable as he can and he doesn't give a damn who gets hurt. Oh, wait. That's Reid who's preventing any vote on parts of appropriations from progressing. Something that they should be doing under terms of a budget rather than continuing resolutions. Something the senate has been derelict in doing.

I would also point out you're the only one claiming congress passed a law to forbid parks operating during shutdowns. If that were actually the case, surely this administration would be actively screaming, "See see! These mean republicans are forcing me to spend more to close these things than they would to operate."

Have you tried calling the helpline:

1-800-F**CKYO (1-800-318-2596)

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/03/need-health-care-coverage-just-dial-1-800-fuckyo-to-reach-obamacares-national-hotline/

There's also story doing the rounds that if you don't already have health-insurance, then they'll put you on a list, suspend your driving license and place federal-liens against your home.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/obamacare-conspiracy-theory-lien-house-debunked

It's not arbitrary, it's calculated to cause pain as a political move.

Obama Forcing Shut Down of Parks the Feds Don't Even Fund

Private Air Show Stopped Due to Government Shutdown

Obama Illegally Furloughing Civilian Defense Employees at STRATCOM

PRUDEN: The cheap tricks of the game

Monuments and memorials remained open during previous shutdown

Republicans press Obama to back FEMA funding bill as storm nears

There is plenty more.

The Senate isn't being useful, but at least they did vote on something today: "... the Senate also unanimously approved a measure deeming next week as National Chess Week."

You could always get as much health care as you could pay for.

Actually you can get as much health care as it takes to deal with your critical issues, whether you can pay for it or not. The sign in our local ER is clear: they cannot refuse to treat you because you don't have money.

Once you are out of the ER, that's when ability to pay is an issue.

Someone has to pay for all those subsidies and expanded health insurance coverage.

ACA is supposed to be for people who couldn't buy health insurance. Here is the story of a UCONN law student who was paying $39/month for health insurance who went to the ACA exchange looking for a cheaper plan. He found it: medicaid. He now pays nothing at all for his health insurance, the taxpayers are footing the entire bill. So, while he's paying $39 less a month, we're picking up the tab, and it costs us all more.

And this talks about higher costs for young people overall. So "pay less" is a very localized phenomenon.

My state has over 40 options on the exchange.

And then there's North Carolina, where 61% of the counties have one option. You've described the best case scenario. The worst case one involves your employer cancelling your group plan, due solely to issues introduced by the ACA, and then finding out that your state exchange is a monopoly. The anecdotes that balance yours out are reports with a doubling of premiums from the bad combinations possible here.

Insurance providers are effectively cherry-picking only the markets where they can make good profits (ones near the upper limit of how much profit they can make under the ACA). And since some part of insurance company profit is based on extracting more money from the customers, that means the only policies that are going to be available are ones that are not that good of a deal for the buyer. Employers used to be forced into making that work anyway, because a decent health plan was a necessary component to hiring high quality workers. Now they feel it's optional and can drop it if the price is unreasonable, and insurers can drop offering plans if the price is reasonable. That's the reinforcing pair that's led to the North Carolina mess, and I expect to hear a lot more of those stories in the upcoming months.

Not a single person will lose insurance due to this law. Blatant fearmongering.

You are blatantly incorrect. Scores of thousands have already lost their insurance due to this law:

Ten states where Obamacare wipes out existing health care plans

Trader Joe's Invites Part-Timers Losing Company Coverage To Seek Additional Obamacare Subsidy

Despite Obama Promise, Many Coloradans Losing Their Health Insurance Plans

If you like the American system so damned much, I urge you to move there.

For some reason when this topic comes up, we never seem to hear much about stories like this:

Report: Thousands fled Canada for health care in 2011

A Canadian study released Wednesday found that many provinces in our neighbor to the north have seen patients fleeing the country and opting for medical treatment in the United States.

The nonpartisan Fraser Institute reported that 46,159 Canadians sought medical treatment outside of Canada in 2011, as wait times increased 104 percent — more than double — compared with statistics from 1993.

Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 provinces reported an average total wait time of 19 weeks between the time a general practitioner refers a patient and the time a specialist provides elective treatment — the longest they have ever recorded.

Ask any big hospital in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago.
Phantoms in the Snow was a political ass covering. Maybe you missed this disclaimer:

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (formerly the Medical Research Council of Canada) for this research.

The southward pilgrimage is rampant and shows little sign getting any smaller. In spite of the Obama administration trying to hide these facts, they become more clear every year.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/328561
http://www.medicaltourismmag.com/article/canadians-seeking-healthcare-abroad-why-and-how-many-.html
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/11/report-thousands-fled-canada-for-health-care-in-2011/
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/08/report-thousands-fled-canadian-health-system-in-2012/

Its proven such an embarrassment to the Canadian Government that in 2012 they undertook a massive campaign to reduce wait times. They actually made some progress. Then they realized how many major procedures they would have to add, they suddenly got very quiet.

Ask any big hospital in Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago.
Phantoms in the Snow was a political ass covering. Maybe you missed this disclaimer:

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (formerly the Medical Research Council of Canada) for this research.

The southward pilgrimage is rampant and shows little sign getting any smaller. In spite of the Obama administration trying to hide these facts, they become more clear every year.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/328561
http://www.medicaltourismmag.com/article/canadians-seeking-healthcare-abroad-why-and-how-many-.html
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/11/report-thousands-fled-canada-for-health-care-in-2011/
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/08/report-thousands-fled-canadian-health-system-in-2012/

Its proven such an embarrassment to the Canadian Government that in 2012 they undertook a massive campaign to reduce wait times. They actually made some progress. Then they realized how many major procedures they would have to add, they suddenly got very quiet.

We all know that Newspapers and even to some degree, TV and Radio are "Old School" news reporting. It is filtered and biased news sources now. People make fun of Fox News and MSNBC, and places like CNN, NYT and Washington Post for their bias, but that has always been the case, they are just getting caught more, in their lies and lies of omission. It is treating the public as infantile ignorant boobs, because that is how they view the public. Granted, a large portion of the populace is more interested in the latest misdeeds of Ms Cyrus than who is killing who in Syria.

Here is a great example of the bias in "traditional news media" http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/16/time-mag-hides-putins-success-from-u-s-voters/

While I'm aware that Time magazine often has different covers for different regions, this one is one that exposes the bias and the assumption that Americans care less about Putin (and Syria) than a sports story.

The problem is, many Americans, and people around the world, are bypassing the old guard simply because they aren't getting the "real" story, but rather one that has been massaged and twisted for easy consumption by the masses. These news organizations put forth "AR-15" during the recent shooting at the Naval Shipyard in DC, along with descriptions that were simply no accurate to who the shooter was, and are now ignoring the mental illness aspect of the story because none of that fits the narrative (bias) they want to portray.

It would be comical if it weren't so blatant. I do not trust anything that has been filtered, or run through the media machine. Things like Twitter and Blogs provide a mess of opinion and facts, but are pure and raw in a way that provides a better and more balanced view of the events as they unfold. The old guard media is still concerned with controlling the flow of information, in a world without any controls on that flow. They are going to lose.

Ugh.

So people have bought then, hook, line, etc., the total lie that Assad used gas on his own people. He didn't.

http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/1958

http://rt.com/news/turkey-syria-chemical-weapons-850/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2418378/Syrian-hostage-Domenico-Quirico-overheard-rebels-blame-Damascus-chemical-attacks.html

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/504735/20130909/syria-chemical-attack-assad-rebels-blame-hostage.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/08/syria-chemical-weapons-not-assad-bild

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/06/syri-j13.html

http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/06/obama-warned-on-syrian-intel/

http://www.voltairenet.org/article180149.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-military-and-intelligence-officials-to-obama-assad-not-responsible-for-chemical-attack/5348576

http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/29/verify-chemical-weapons-use-before-unleashing-the-dogs-of-war/

From the article at the first link:

... Last week, the ACLU was in federal court, arguing that a Miami-Dade County school board broke the law by removing from its school libraries a book entitled Vamos a Cuba (Let’s Visit Cuba), which offers a strangely luminous view of life in Castro’s island “paradise.” A federal judge has already ruled that the book be returned to the shelves until the case can play out in court.

The school board’s beef isn’t with what is on the pages, but with what isn’t. Parents filed complaints after finding the book to be devoid of any mention of the oppressive regime instituted by Fidel Castro nearly 50 years ago. Instead, its pages are filled with breezy commentaries on how Cubans enjoy chicken with rice (under the country’s subsidized ration plan, the average Cuban is allotted a whopping 8 ounces per month) and boating as a leisure activity (“boating” being a rather ironic term for the fragile, homemade rafts so many launch out onto the ocean, in desperate bids to escape the regime).

The book’s cover, available in both English and Spanish versions, is adorned with beaming children dressed in the uniform of the Pioneers, the Communist youth organization that Cuban children are required to join. They look like Cuban Bobbsey Twins.

Obviously, the Miami children targeted for this book have never been told that questioning the Cuban government is likely to lead to imprisonment that milk is far too expensive for most on the island to purchase that access to everyday activities like surfing the Internet is not only severely limited, but closely monitored by the government for any shred of dissent against Castro and his cronies.

Absent from the pages of Vamos a Cuba is any mention of the ruthless 20-year prison sentences levied on Cuban poets and journalists and priests who failed to fawn over their fearless leader. Instead, the book depicts Cubans as living as freely as they please.

I think that is a more substantial concern that you let on.

I'm not even going to follow the second link.

I think I can understand why you might find it disagreeable.

The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

Other documents released in the 1990s by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin show the American Communist Party was under the Moscow’s direct control until 1989.

“These guys were advocating a regime that arguably was the biggest mass murderer in all of human history,” Kengor said. “Where is the moral authority in that?”

Kengor told The Daily Caller he found numerous other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives that also show a close relationship between the Communist Party and the ACLU.

These documents corroborate rumors that have circulated about the ACLU’s founders and early leaders dating back to the 1920s.

The ACLU would not comment on Kengor’s research, but the ACLU’s official history describes its founders as a “small group of idealists” who began the organization amid the “Palmer Raids” of late 1919 and early 1920 against “so-called radicals”.

“The problem here is what is being left out of the narrative,” Kengor said. “Palmer, who was attorney general to Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive’s progressive, understood, as did the Wilson administration, that many of these radicals were American communists who were literally devoted to the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a ‘Soviet-American republic.’

“American communists actually stated such things in their proclamations, documents, and fliers.”

Oh no, no, no. The ACLU does not protect the rights of everyone. They are both selective and can be highly doctrinaire about whose rights they protect. They work towards a particular vision of society and only protect "everyone's" rights when it fits with their views.

The ACLU Never Forgets Its Pro-Communist Roots
The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

Encryption isn't a weapon. Period.

Encryption is no less a weapon than, for example, a bulletproof vest. And though you can buy those on eBay, you must vouch to be an American and promise not to export it...

The president didn't ask the IRS to hurt opposition's finances

Oh, but he did... Of course, he retained a perfectly plausible deniability, and there is not enough evidence for a "beyond reasonable doubt" conviction. But there is plentiful "preponderance of evidence" none-the-less...

you first kill everyone who donates money to the opposition--everybody stops giving them money, hampering their campaign. Then you kill anyone who's given any hint that they might vote for the opposition.

But how would you be able to do all of this, if everybody — including your would-be victims — can access your communications (such as the orders to kill) just as well?

Obama has already ordered the IRS to suppress the opposition, because the opposition's records weren't private, while Obama's and the IRS' still were. I'd argue, that opening everybody's records and communications would help prevent tyranny just as much as keeping records properly private.

So do you want the NSA to break Syria's encryption about their chemical weapons attacks?

I'd like us to continue treating encryption as weapons and regulate its export accordingly. Unfortunately, it is not really possibly — any enemy worth the designation would be able to get it anyway, because moving an algorithm is much easier than a gun. And, unlike guns, you only need to move an algorithm once.

So charity or privacy? What's it going to be?

I wish I had sufficient confidence in my own government to be able to sincerely pick charity... Unfortunately, I do not. If the President can already ask the IRS to hurt opposition's finances, what's to prevent him from asking the NSA to look into the opposition's e-mails? The sort of thing, that got Nixon to resign is barely an issue with today's Americans...

However, according to an earlier article about Snowden's interaction with journalist(s), PGP (with sufficiently large keys) is still unbreakable even to the NSA — at least, as far Snowden was aware:

This past January, Laura Poitras received a curious e-mail from an anonymous stranger requesting her public encryption key. For almost two years, Poitras had been working on a documentary about surveillance, and she occasionally received queries from strangers. She replied to this one and sent her public key — allowing him or her to send an encrypted e-mail that only Poitras could open, with her private key — but she didn’t think much would come of it.

So that's, what a particularly private person should be using for all of his communications...

In 2006, the ACLU of Washington State joined with a pro-gun rights organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, and prevailed in a lawsuit against the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) in Washington for its policy of refusing to disable restrictions upon an adult patron's request. Library patrons attempting to access pro-gun web sites were blocked, and the library refused to remove the blocks...

In light of the Supreme Court's Heller decision recognizing that the Constitution protects an individual right to bear arms, ACLU of Nevada took a position of supporting "the individual's right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations" and pledged to "defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights".[298] Since 2008, the ACLU has increasingly assisted gun owners recover firearms that have been seized illegally by law enforcement.

wiki Even more relevant and recently, they opposed creating a national database of background checks this year, evidently because of medical information.

You want to get rid of the TSA?

Don't fly.

Make sure you don't take a train or drive a car either. Of course the TSA says this is all a myth.

Which is why douches like Roberts, Scalia and Thomas are such a problem, none of them have any particularly firm commitment to the rule of law, only to continuing their ideologies, regardless of constitutionality.

It is inconvenient that they seem to prefer to stick to the Constitution as written. After all, if the Constitution isn't a "living document," how can you take it off in bold new directions? Certainly Justice Ginsburg isn't a fan of the Constitution.

Numerous Irish women are doing it now because the constitution of the country has been amended to make it legal.

Was this supposed to be a counter-argument?..

There's always freedom of movement - and an authoritarian government is far more likely to deny it.

There is nothing "authoritarian" about Romney in general nor in his views on abortion in particular. Though I don't share this opinion myself, various cultures world-wide believe, life begins at conception — heck, the entire China counts people's age from that point (however approximate).

you with your libertarian views will join the gays, the openly atheist and other "subversives" in the camps.

What camps? Michael Moore is still alive, free, and enjoying his substantial wealth made by criticizing and mocking the government... No one raised an eyebrow over calls to kill Bush, but simply mocking the President now may lead to the offender's losing his livelihood. NSA's surveillance blossoms, as does TSA's abuse of travelers (spilling already from airports to train stations). IRS is used — with Obama's knowledge if not outright direction — to suppress opposition. Are you sure, it is the Republicans, who are the "authoritarian" ones?

As for armed/disarmed, if you're not willing to use the guns to protect your liberties - and you here are explicitly arguing that you'd be willing to trade off a lot of them for lower taxes, more or less - then what use are they?

There may be a point, in a not-so-distant future, when the government is not quite yet able to openly use officers to kill, beat-up, and otherwise suppress opposition, but is already able to send pro-government "enforcers" to do the job, while the officers are ordered to look the other way. It happened in Côte d’Ivoire, it happened in Zimbabwe, it happened in Chicago, and in Philadelphia. Being able to resist that kind of threat is why citizens should be able to arm themselves without much ado.

"Socialist" countries with more personal liberties - like Western Europe - are doing far better than authoritarian countries with more economic liberties, in terms of how well off their citizens actually are.

Citation needed.

Oh I have no problem with managers per-se, - I just believe they should have some experience working on the factory floor so they know what they're actually asking of people

There is a good reason, most of the military officers have never been enlisted men. Being a good worker and a good manager are completely different things...

I just don't trust someone who has never in their life experienced even a hint of poverty to run a country with consideration for a population where roughly 1 in 4 people is unemployed or underemployed.

Trust? If anything, I'd trust a politician like Romney or Bloomberg — who became independently wealthy before entering politics — than the guys like Obama, who became rich as a result of being politicians. Do you honestly and sincerely believe, Michelle Obama would've obtained the position with $273k annual salary in Chicago hospitals-system, if her husband weren't a US Senator by then?

Just what makes you trust Obama? He never worked on a factory floor either, nor successfully managed anything of note, nor ever created anything other people were willing to pay their own money for.

His governing for four years was a nightmare — or should've been, if you were paying attention. He turned Bush's detentions of alleged terrorists into killings of the same people. TSA's abuse of travelers blossomed, as did NSA's surveillance. IRS is used to suppress oppostion — under Obama's direction. You may not consider Obamacare to be bad, but it is poised to fail — was designed to fail — which is very likely to lead to a renewed push for "single-payer" setup giving the government complete and utter control of our health. Whereas calls to kill Bush were brushed off as an exercise of free speech (though such calls are felonies, strictly speaking), mere mocking of the President today can cost a person their career and livelihood. Foreigners still dislike us, while the unemployment figures remain far above, what Democrats themselves condemned as "jobless recovery" only a few years earlier.

And you willingly ignored all of that because of Romney's personal views (which he was not even promising his supporters to turn into policy) on a freaking abortion? Wow...

Romney is modern nobility through and through

I bet, you supported Al Gore despite these reasons... I have no problems with nobility rising from the merchant and industrialist class. Their ancestors made their wealth be creating and selling things, that other people wanted to buy — not through warfare or even politics. I'll take that nobility over a fatherless child of an ignoble philanderer, who traveled around the world "marrying" local comfort women and siring children with them only to divorce them a few years later without bothering about the kids' welfare or upbringing.

As for abortions - that's great for your daughter. But a massive slice of the population is struggling just to get by

And that is exactly my point. Personal wealth — which Romney's government would've be

During the House hearings on this, the Democrats were given an opportunity to present any progressive groups that had suffered similar harm to the Tea Party groups. No such group was presented.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/25/gop-congressman-hits-back-against-dem-claim-that-irs-targeted-progressives-too/

So, the Tea Party groups have been complaining for years to their Congressmen and Senators, and it was easy for the Republicans to find affected groups; but the Democrats couldn't find even one.

Before the BOLO targeting started, a Tea Party group had its application processed in 90 days; after the targeting started, not one single Tea Party or Conservative group had an application approved for over 27 months. At the same time, multiple liberal groups were smoothly approved.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/05/14/irs-tea-party-progressive-groups/2158831/

This amounts to interference with an election. Political groups that were liberal were able to collect anonymous donations because they had the special tax-exempt status, but political groups that were conservative were still in IRS hell and could not collect anonymous donations. Most people won't donate if it's not anonymous, so the liberal groups had a much easier time fund-raising. It's diabolical.

You could wipe out the whole special tax-exempt status and it would be fine with me, but this one-sided unfair application of the rules is an outrage.

And if you are still okay with this after reading the above, then I hope some President named Bush gets elected to power and does this to progressive groups for a while. Then maybe you will think it is not the IRS "doing their jobs". You'll probably just say "well it's different now."

I've got lots of family in Vancouver and Toronto, and their waits are no worse than mine in Seattle. This article says that 46159 Canadians went abroad (notice it doesn't say which country) for medical care. Out of a country with a population of 33.5 million, that's 0.14% of the population. Sounds like their health care system is an undisputed resounding success to me. The people using Canada as a political talk point are just plain sad. In this age of Google there's just no excuse.

The police may, acting in good faith

No. Full stop. You must never assume that the police are acting in good faith, especially now when they are increasingly avoiding transparency and may be getting information from secret connections. Yes, that's just the DEA.

For now.

As far as we know.

Not just spying, but using this for ordinary crime. Kind of like how RICO was once upon a time ONLY for going after the mafia and then it morphed into something that applies to even the kid selling joints on the street corner.

The selling point for this program, to get people to accept it, is "terrorism", but it's already being used unconstitutionally by law enforcement for ordinary shit:

DEA Parallel Construction: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

IRS Parallel Construction: http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/08/reuters-irs-manual-instructed-agents-how-to-hide-secret-deansa-intel/

Fruit of the poisonous tree: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

This will just expand to the point that unconstitutionally gathered evidence will be used for everything down to parking tickets, like RICO metastasized into what it is now.

Are you more obedient and scared than the east German citizens of the GDR tyranny ?

We are more obedient, because our "KGB" is nowhere near as oppressive as that of GDR or USSR. Not yet, anyway. So far their targets really are terrorists and other nasty criminals. It may or may not get there — and the trends are scary, but it is still a long way to go to get there...

Not that we can't make a fast leap forward (ahem) to cover the distance... If the IRS and other Federal departments have already been used to target opposition, what's to stop the "KGB" from being used the same way? Nothing — other than morals and scruples of the actual people there. Hardened FBI crime-fighters aren't quite the same as the IRS. But that, admittedly, is a weak defense...

She's a pole-dancing acrobat!

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/17/edward-snowden-wants-everyone-to-stop-talking-about-his-girlfriend-photos/

This is yet another example of how the once great Slashdot has fallen. I can remember a time where to be moded up, you needed to have great depth in your thought or informative support with links, or really, really clever/funny. Now, apparently you just have to be gratuitously liberal.

Let me bite the cough, interesting troll for a second. How is Murdoch trying to destroy the US? By providing an alternative point of view than offered by the other 4 networks? That is bad why? I thought smart, informed people, like people who read this forum seem to think they are, LIKE to see differing viewpoints then weigh them. I thought smart, informed people would be against just a small group of people controlling all thought. It doesn't bother you that most media members with a near monolithic bias control what you read, see, hear? You want there to be less choice?

Or is it, you think Fox news is inherently more inaccurate. Like say, in the Trayvon Martin case where NBC altered the 911 tape to make it sound like Zimmerman said something racist, when he did not? Not to mention the other 3 letter networks biasing opinion by showing a picture of a sweeter Trayvon when he was younger, not the larger man he grew into. Or, failing to mention he was suspended from school, his racists facebook presence, or the fact that the neighborhood in question had been terrorized by recent crime and he was walking near windows? In the whole debacle, on Fox got it right and reported something near the truth. (whether the shooting was justified is another matter. Shouldn't we at least have the correct facts?"

Or, if you hate the uber-rich using their money so much to influence media, then can you explain the absence of complaining on these forums about George Soros giving million in grants to fund left leaning journalists. Not to mention the undue influence and bias of Hollywood/tv elite doing the same thing. Or, is it just only bad in your "mind" when people from outside your narrow perspective do these things?

Perhaps you should look in the mirror first. Perhaps YOU are the shallow minded one, who only reads from biased, dishonest sources. Perhaps YOU need to broaden your outlook to other forms of thought, and not be so very scared of challenging ideas. Perhaps YOU should understand that the US needs far more saving from the likes of NBC than FOX.

Or, perhaps I should stop even dreaming about it because this is modern slashdot, where ideas and support does not matter.

-Maize

Ps. Notice the supporting links I used were from more liberal sources?