Slashdot Mirror
Telecom Amnesty Foes On the Move
ya really notes a blog posting up at Wired reporting that foes of the Telecom Amnesty Bill have mounted a campaign on Barack Obama's own website. Though the group was created only days ago, on June 25, it has grown to be the fifth largest among 7,000 such groups, just short of Women for Obama. Although it is widely known that Obama changed his stance from opposing telecom immunity to supporting it, many have not given up hope of getting him to switch once again. Meanwhile, left-leaning bloggers and libertarian activists have joined forces to raise $325,000 in the fight against the legislation. "Their Blue America PAC is already targeting House Democrats who voted for the bill, including placing a full-page ad in the Washington Post [an image appears in the Wired story] slamming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who claimed credit for creating the so-called compromise bill. The coalition plans to follow-up with a Ron Paul-style money bomb, which will be used to target key Senators..."
A slashdot story where *Democrats* are the bad guy? Did I wake up in the Bizzaro universe???
This is what happens when someone promises intangible things and bases their entire campaign upon promising 'change' and 'hope,' two things which mean whatever you want, and mean different things to different people.
Too bad he couldn't actually give real promises and expectations other than 'hope' this and 'change' that.
Bloody sheep. You all deserve the hell you're creating for us.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
It's about time someone got this in Obama's face. I cannot understand how a man who constantly follows a rhetoric of freedom can possibly be in favor of teleco amnesty.
Unless....he is going to fuck America over too. Quite possible, and if he turns, kiss what's left of our country goodbye.
it's now the fourth largest.
If you believe in this, go join the group. It takes about thirty seconds to sign up, and there's only 2000 more people needed to make it the third largest. I've seen more comments than that on many political posts, so I have little doubt that we can, in theory, rustle up that many people.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Campaign, fight, target, bomb... it sounds like a war for our liberties.
On an unrelated aside... 7,000 groups? That's a lot. Someone let me know when the group count IS OVER 9000!!!!!
As a person who grew up in a democratic household, i would be remiss if I didn't request you put the proper party logo for today's democratic party. The Elephant with 3 stars.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
It is widely known that slashdot summaries are completely inaccurate. As Slashdot previously reported, Obama has not switched his position to be in favor of telecom amnesty. He has said he will try to have that provision stripped from the compromise bill. Now don't get me wrong, he has taken a weak position and plans to vote for the (bad) bill even if they aren't able to have the provision removed, but that doesn't make the summary any less bullshit.
but I'd rather not give money to a "Democrat" PAC. I wouldn't give money to a Republican PAC, either. If they separated this issue out from the rest of their position I'd be all over it.
I hate politics.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I agree with this guy!
He has the capacity to actually demand change, and the political clout and media presence to shame these people who think cowing to a fundamentally unreasonable demand like our fourth amendment rights is "centerist" into standing up for americans on both sides of the aisle.
He didn't, and given the words on his site "i'm asking you to believe", It's an even greater insult.
Thanks to this man I will never believe again, and I will vote republican across the board, even as a staunch progressive libertarian, until the democrats wake from their sleep.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
A bunch of officers come to your business, say, “That’s a nice phone company you got there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it. Of course, we can protect it, but you got to give us some information.” The telecoms say yes, and you want to prosecute them? They’re the victims! Don’t you see that the government has the upper hand? Why not prosecute the government for illegally getting the information in the first place?
This is a great idea, but can it really work?
A lot of times, when laws are o the verge of being passed, these groups pop up to try and get them shot down. However, how often have they ever really worked? In a lot of cases, either the politician doesn't listen/care or there isn't enough support to make anyone's head turn.
Not to mention, we look back at the story about having evidence that Representatives that took kickbacks to change their votes and have to wonder if they will listen when they have companies lining their pockets.
There is greed and corruption going on at some of the highest levels of our government, and can a small group of people on an Obama website really change that?
Crackin' Wise - Blogging about whatever we want
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike
Sad, I thought that he was brighter than that.
This is what happens when someone promises intangible things and bases their entire campaign upon promising 'change' and 'hope,'
John Lennon nailed it:
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Anyone know if there is a nonpartisan organization trying to do the same thing as the Blue America group? I'm so sick of the partisan nature of the political discourse that I have a real problem donating any money to a clearly partisan group. This is a constitutional problem that should cut across party lines, and I can't really in good conscience donate to this group. On the other hand, I can't sit by and let this happen...
AT&T took down their ad, but it was pretty funny in a sick sort of way. If you didn't catch their new ad, it was on their bill-pay site last week. I kept a little archive of it here. Enjoy.
Reid
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
Yeah right. You got extreme right and extremist right and that is it.
Far left in the US, what a joke.
Oh and what you are basically saying is that Obama should become yet another middle of the roader, neither left nor right. That doesn't work, it only leads to the slow ruin the US is currently experiencing.
It doesn't really matter if a country is run by the left or the right as long as they stick to it. Try to appease everyone and you end up with a complete mess.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Immunity? Where are the Riggs and Murtaugh attitudes going to be when we need them?
I know, I know, keep the boxes in order, but our candidates using diplomacy with us and the misdirection is getting very old. Obviously the soapboxes to date are not giving us more then choices between the lesser of two evils in the ballot boxes. If they keep failing we may have to change boxes unless we stand on more of them and speak loudly enough to be effectively heard.
Senator Obama's promise to "fix this" when he becomes president is grossly illogical and pompous (not elitist). What if he loses the election? Then what will he be left with? A vote for a bill that he doesn't support and no chance to "fix it." If you don't agree with the bill, DON'T VOTE FOR IT!
If this issue is important to you, take the time to join this group and make it the biggest group on Obama's website. Then take the time to write your senators about this issue. I wrote both of mine:
Senator, I was filled with dismay as Democrats in the House of Representatives caved in and voted to give telecoms retroactive immunity. I feel that the representatives did a better job of representing the telecoms than they did of representing the people.
Ours is a country of laws. Where every man and woman is considered equal. A land not only of opportunities, but also a place where people are held accountable for their misdeeds.
Perhaps you and others feel that we should drop the pretense of being a fair and noble country and let President Bush and the telecoms off the hook given the president's short remaining time in office.
I would argue that this is precisely why we need to hold firm on this bright-line issue -- people who break the law should be held accountable, companies that break the law should be accountable.
Be assured that my vote depends on your decision.
How long before this turns into a bush-bashing post?
Other than calling the populace 'bloody sheep' there was no name calling. There was certainly no distortion. He hit the nail on the head with regards to Obama.
This is retarded. How is giving more money and rewarding more vote switching going to solve anything. We need to look a little farther than in front of our noses here. I'm sick and tired of these people in office and we need to implement a scorched earth policy and vote out every incumbent we can.
Money is the root of all evil?
the ACLU is a non-partisan organization out to protect our civil liberties.
Of course to Fox News, civil liberties = liberal = traitor = KILL!, but yeah, they are a non-partisan organization.
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don't write them. The cloture they put this though earlier means they vote for it on the 8th.
call them, and keep calling them.
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Never thought the day would come when a professional wrestler would represent our best hope as President.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Strange, your quotation cuts Obama off in the middle of a sentence:
...while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.
I wonder why you would do that. Did the second half of the sentence not fit your world-view?
...if you weren't reading his books or listening to his speeches (as opposed to the sound bites), I suppose you could miss it. The "new kind of politics" he discusses isn't a change in what he as a Democrat supports; the change is in how he goes about supporting it.
If you've been paying attention to American politics lately, you'll notice that you've got the Left and the Right, and they pretty much hate each other. The Left paints the Right as being a bunch of religious war-mongering nutjobs who hate people having freedoms their religion proscribes, and the Right paints the Left as being a bunch of new-age peacenick nutjobs with no regard for personal accountability who hate their religion.
The 'change' Obama speaks of isn't in terms of what he votes for, but how he gets support for it. No more using religion as a wedge -- or trying to avoid it altogether. No more using fear to try to drive votes ("but the terrrorists will get you!"). Read A Call To Renewal, and appreciate how its message different from the way Democratic politicians have behaved in the past. Obama is promising a presidency which is serious about the "uniter, not a divider" thing, even while still effectively backing the Democrats' agenda -- by coaching that agenda in terms that speak to more than just the Democratic base. For someone young enough to have never seen American politics that aren't divisive, that's genuine change.
The 'hope' Obama speaks of is getting past all this petty divisiveness and reversing the actions which have destroyed our reputation in the world. Except for the getting-past-the-divisiveness part, that's something all Democrats want to do. This is neither unrealistic or poorly defined.
So there you are -- real promises and expectations, described by 'hope' this and 'change' that.
the only way to get that bill passed for the future (with a President who's sworn to veto anything w/o the provision and a Republican party with enough votes to prevent that veto from being overridden) is to forgive what happened in the past.
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness
So the message is: Your masters can get away with anything.
No wonder Cheney can hunt the most dangerous game with impunity, he knows damn well that even if he shoots people in the face, there's nothing the People will do about it. That would mean the "left" would "won"! Can't have that!
Slaves to their "sides", sheeps, argh!
You can't take the sky from me...
This is a BRILLIANT move. It allows him to pick up votes from people who felt who wouldn't be "tough on terror" (Yes I know giving telecoms immunity doesn't make us safer but unfortunately a large portion of the US population does). Once he becomes president there is absolutely nothing keeping him from having his AG nail the telecoms to the cross.
If the goal is to punish the telecoms which would you rather have? 1.) Obama votes against amnesty and looses the election because of it, leaving McCain in the whitehouse to ensure the telecoms never get prosecuted.
2.) Obama votes for amnesty now gets a seat in the white house and then proceeds to have his AG go after everyone and anyone involved in domestic spying.
This is a matter of the least bad choice, from his perspective. I'm sure he would like to have the telecoms prosecuted but making a stand now is not in the best interests of the ultimate goal of prosecuting them.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Assuming that you are dem, then all candidates except for HRC and BHO had dropped out early. So, you are left with a full amnesty, or a partial.
Assuming that you wanted amnesty (i.e. let the criminals go totally free), than what hell did BHO cause?
OTH, Assuming that you do not want amnesty, then you are left with the option of full or partial, of which only BHO supports the partial.
and yet, you blame him for causing chaos.
With logic like that, I am guessing that Yyou are a neo-con republican.
Last-second grass-roots feel good lobbying: because the fuel to make a molotov cocktail is just too expensive.
-I feel the puppet on the left hand shares my beliefs.
(Bill Hicks)
You need more psychedelic art in your life. rhesusmonkey.deviantart.com
That raises an interesting question. Where is the parallel movement to get John McCain to oppose this bill? Why is it a foregone conclusion that people who oppose immunity must be liberal? There have to be like-minded conservatives out there somewhere. Why aren't they putting pressure on Republicans? Are Democrats truly the sole defenders of our liberties?
"This is retarded. How is giving more money and rewarding more vote switching going to solve anything. We need to look a little farther than in front of our noses here. I'm sick and tired of these people in office and we need to implement a scorched earth policy and vote out every incumbent we can."
AMEN to that! Get all the fat, lazy, worthless, scumbags out! We need ALL NEW blood in congress. With fewer Democrats and Republicans!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
left-leaning bloggers and libertarian activists have joined forces to raise $325,000 in the fight against the legislation. "Their Blue America PAC is already targeting House Democrats who voted for the bill , including placing a full-page ad in the Washington Post [an image appears in the Wired story] slamming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who claimed credit for creating the so-called compromise bill. The coalition plans to follow-up with a Ron Paul-style money bomb, which will be used to target key Senators..." Take if from a Libertarian - this is how the Republicans took over the Congress in the first place. Never ceases to amaze me how the Dems do themselves in. Pick your fights. This isn't worth it - it's over.
/LabMonkey09
a remarkably rare sense to compromise? Making this explicitly illegal instead of leaving it moral/legal quandary that if the bill doesn't pass you might lose anyways, his decision might actually be one to cut his losses and make sure a screw up like this won't happen again in the future. Cause if this bill doesn't pass now, it won't come up until the next screw up.
Oh honey look... How cute... an angry slashdotter!
There's a lot more information about the Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right my.barackobama.com campaign on the Get FISA right wiki. Check it out, and please join the group! Mike Stark's Will Obama feel the sting of social networking? on OpenLeft gives some great context on the campaign. And there's a Facebook group too. Are we web 2.0 or what?
"Do you honestly think the republicans are the democrats' biggest enemy?"
They are, irrefutably. The only intelligent way to describe one's "biggest enemy" is either by size or influence, and the Republicans are the tops on the list of enemies for the Dems in both categories.
The fact that they won't really stop the Dems (or vice versa) doesn't change the fact that the Republicans are the only ones who have the power to do so.
I've got to take issue with raising money for senators so they will vote a particular way. Our taxes pay their salaries so they will vote according to the electorate AND the constitution. Since when did obeying the constitution become a la carte? These people took an oath to uphold it. Now it only applies for the highest bidder.
I think a much more cost-effective measure would be to exercise our constitutional freedoms.
I am a huge patriot, even an Eagle scout. In scouts we took oaths and we held them. We were told our leaders were doing the same. We were told to hold the constitution high, and to believe in our government.
I draw the line at a bidding war for votes. If that really is the situation, then we need to clean house. And senate.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Senator Obama is starting to seem way too much like Harold Saxon.
Promising change.
Was essentially "nobody" (come on - 1st term Senator?) prior to the current election cycle.
Has a nearly irrational following, seeming to mesmerize the people.
If he makes any announcements about first contact with an alien species after he's elected, we know we're in deep trouble.
McCain has been in favor of it all along, and is kind of stuck. If he votes for it, he keeps in with the Republican party but loses credibility with the conservatives and "tough on crime" folks. If he votes against it, he gets the conservative and "tough on crime" support, but loses some Republicans. No matter what he does, it's approximately a wash.
If Obama votes for it, he loses in pretty much every way. Republican voters still won't support him over McCain. But if he votes against it, he'll get some credibility with the hard anti-crime, rule-of-law folks. He'll pick up some conservatives, possibly (no guarantees, but it could happen) even the few conservatives remaining in the Republican party.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Brewster's Millions "None of the Above" option when you really need it?
Awesome!
It was actually the people who voted for Bush who did that.
FRA: STFU GTFO
THe current bill would allow the telecoms Immunity from CIVIL suits while leaving the option for criminal suits...that would mean that Bush could grant a pardon to EVERYONE involved and thus protect them from ANYTHING Obama might want his AG to do. WIth Civil Immunity the"PEOPLE" couldnt even get any sort of justice.
In addition to your representative and senators, you should contact Senator Obama and let him know how you feel about the pending FISA legislation.
Washington D.C. Office
713 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-2854
(202) 228-4260 fax
(202 228-1404 TDD
How can we expect Obama to be "the leader of the free world" if he's unwilling to defend freedom as a U.S. senator?
Why not prosecute the government for illegally getting the information in the first place?
Prosecute the government? Who is going to prosecute the executive branch for violating a federal law? The Justice Dept, that's who, except they're part of the executive branch, and have already said they don't think the President broke any law*. So prosecution is right out.
Instead, someone could sue the government for violating their civil liberties, except since nobody knows whether or not the government actually spied on them, nobody has the standing to bring such a case against the government.
Thus the civil suits against the telecoms. The ultimate purpose of these suits, other than to redress their wrongs**, is to cause information on exactly what they did and who they tapped on behalf of the government to be revealed in discovery. Thus those who were spied on can know that this happened, and then have legal standing to sue the government. I don't the legal reason why the telecoms suits don't have the same standing issue, I just know that the suits against the government were blocked by the courts immediately due to standing, while the suits against the telecoms weren't.
So you see, the telecom suits are merely a stepping stone to reaching the real target, which is the federal government. This is also why telecom immunity is not about protecting the telecoms, but protecting the government itself. By preventing lawsuits, they're preventing the discovery that could reveal the government's hand. That's why telecom immunity is so reprehensible.
* Ludicrous on its face, since from the President's only words his program performed warantless wire tapping against parties in the U.S., which is unambiguously against the law. It's another case of the "It's not illegal because the President doesn't have to obey the laws" reasoning, which will never stand up in court, but the goal is not to have it tried in court.
** I can appreciate feeling pressured by the feds, but seriously, if they can't even be bothered to show a trumped up warrant, how can you justify cooperating with an obviously illegal act? Qwest didn't, and what terrible consequences befell them for daring to stand up to the government?
The enemies of Democracy are
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I sent a message to Ben Cardin telling him about H.R. 6304, and asking him not to support the Senate version.
His (or rather, his office's) response was kind of funny. Remember, HR 6304 is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and talks about wiretaps and telecom immunity.
I'm wondering whether to vote him out next election... his response follows, complete with inexplicable extra spaces.
Towards the Singularity.
The "Get FISA Right" group has moved up from #5 to #4:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group?show=members
7297 members as of now, and still growing!
If you want to understand a shooting war, consider the war between ITT (vis a vis Pinochet) and Chile, when Allende nationalized their copper mines. Or consider the war between ITT and the US, during WWII, when ITT was making the German bombers, and the US bombed the German planes.
Or consider the war between the World Bank and Zaire, when Mobutu fled to France with all those IMF loans, Kabila declined to make payments on Mobutu's stolen funds, and within *3 months* there was a mobilized army led by the son of the IMF's representative to Zaire, which kept a shooting war going until *3 months* after Kabila said "okay, we'll start paying on Mobutu's money."
Note, too, that in both the case of Allende and Kabila, they were murdered, probably just to show the people that the corporations, not the citizens, are in charge.
Corporations are all too ready to commit murder and mass murder to claim power. Think before you act.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
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You'll notice that none of the people who are angry at Obama over this scrap are trying to get McCain to change his position. For most of those people, it's because they support Obama. They don't consider their vote for him to be a waste, but they consider this move to be a bad decision. "If you vote for someone you don't really want to see in charge then you're screwing up the system." Well, these people want to see Obama in charge, and so they want him to hear what they think. Except for the real hypocrites here, of course: the McCain supporters, who look for any way to paint Obama as not being true to his message, while McCain has been flip-flopping so much in the past three months that he could almost try out for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.
So what are they doing now? They're doing kinda what you're supposed to be doing in a Democratic society. Rather than sitting around whining about the evils of the two parties, they mounting a strong campaign to let their selected nominee know that he is not representing their interests with this decision and are trying to get him to see the light. You know, they're participating in government. Rather than just putting in a vote for some libertarian candidate and saying, "Well, my guy didn't win, so you can't blame me," they're actually trying to change the landscape. That's what activists do, y'know - they're active.
To keep spouting this adolescent "lesser of two evils" crap is getting tiresome. In this election, there is A LOT OF FUCKING DIFFERENCE between the two candidates. There is a lot of difference in the way they want to run the war, there is a lot of difference in the way they want to run domestic issues. I apologize that Americans are still a bunch of sheep who can't get John Wayne or Eric Cartman or whoever your perfect candidate is supposed to be elected to the White House, but in this election, a vote for Obama against a vote for McCain is seriously going to mean something, and I'm sorry that the 25%-less-of-a-tool candidate that the DNC is running still isn't enough for your tastes.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
+1 Insightful. Immunity is about protecting the crooks in the White House.
k
From So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams:
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
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See this is the problem with bills like this. The mainstream media isn't covering this! I hear about this on NPR, BBC, and here, but no where on the four majors.
98% of the people reading this have made up their minds about who they are going to vote for, and switching votes is something inconceivable considering "well, the other guy will only do a worse job." At worse, many here will simply not vote, and Democracy doesn't work at all when you don't vote.
The US public doesn't know much about this bill, and most of them don't care. If Barack keeps his vote to yes, he won't take a major hit in the polls unless the story gets out there and people start caring, and the story won't get out there because people won't care and it won't rake in eyeballs on money grubbing TV stations.
However, if he's getting a major campaign contribution, or political favors, or some other capital he can use to win something else in the future, he'll use it.
I'm a Barack supporter, and I'm only praying that this is some kind of political tactic where he's lulling the Republicans into a false sense of victory and he'll sweep it way from them in some Aaron Sorkin kind of way. But if it's not, I'll still be voting for him "because the other guy will only do a worse job." See how that works?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Did anyone bother to read the full text of Obama's statement in the Wired article?!
Is reading comprehension that much in decline?!
The typical scenario is:
Some pressure group presses congress (any legislative entity) to pass some law that even the average non-lawyer can see is unconstitutional on its face.
Some other entity sues to block enforcement and otherwise invalidate the law.
The Supreme Court rules the law unconstitutional and the law is invalidated.
What troubles me is that nobody is sanctioned for the constitutional violation. The legislator that proposed the law does not go to jail. The legislators that voted for it do not go to jail. The pressure group, and all its members, do not go to jail. -- WTF is wrong with this picture! -- You'd think that since virtually all members of congress and the senate are lawyers by training and trade, that they'd know better.
Free speech is one thing. Violating the constitution to get a tyrany of the majority, or at the squeaky wheel, is just plain wrong and amounts to treason.
Am I alone here? I could be wrong, of course. Does anyone else think this way?
For the last 8 years, Bush has been breaking laws as he saw fit, and encouraging, bribing, and even bullying others into breaking them for him. Change is no longer sufficient. We need more than just a new way, we need to send the message that the old was unacceptable. We need our constitutional rights restored, and we need those who ignored those rights, or actively stripped them from us, to be punished.
If telecoms can break the law and receive retroactive immunity, it will be a a message to us that the law no longer holds sway over those with power in this country. It will be a message that the rules are for the powerless people. To tolerate this immunity is to say to the American people: Your government is above the law. Your corporations are above the laws. The laws are for lesser men.
>The goal isn't to vote for who you think will win, you don't get points for picking the right one.
I wish more people understood this. I had a conversation once with people who insisted they were intelligent and independent-thinking but wouldn't vote for a third-party candidate:
Me: Do you understand that a vote isn't a bet about who will win?
Them: Yes.
Me: So why not vote for the candidate you prefer?
Them: You're throwing away your vote.
Me: How are you throwing away your vote if it's for a candidate you want?
Them: He hasn't got a chance.
etc.
There is however a real problem with simple plurality voting, as opposed to more sophisticated and accurate voting systems. A vote for your first choice is a vote against your second choice. If diphtheria and smallpox are on the major party tickets, your vote for vaccination on a third-party ticket can help smallpox win. A system like range voting would allow you to express your preferences without having to guess the outcome, but the current system is like a bad UI where you have to tweak your input to get the right results out.
In a plurality system like we've got, if there are two major candidates, then unless the two are interchangeable a third-party vote can have paradoxical results.
Quoting Obama's talk at Google (0:45:45):
"What I've leaned about how Democrats lose? Democrats lose when they are not clear about what they stand for. Democrats lose when they are attacked and because they don't know where they stand they end up getting defensive instead of going on the offensive."
I don't see how this strategy is likely to win him more votes. I hope he changes his mind.
I work with the telecommunications industry. Most of them would be happier not releasing data or supporting eavesdropping. They've got enough work without chasing after stuff for government types or dealing with litigious types looking to attach their lawsuits to their capital funds and suck money out. If they need an amnesty, it's because they did what they thought was right for our country and then we changed our minds about what was right. If you're unhappy with the NSA, DOJ or the President, take it to them. The carriers are just trying to get along with everyone else. If you've got a beef with AT&T, etc., then address that problem directly.
Put aside the political issues of whether the government should be spying on it's own citizens, whether this bill elevates the interests of the telecoms over citizens, or if President Bush will violate this law any less than the current laws.
Senator Obama should understand that the founders of this country took specific action to prohibit Congress from passing retroactive laws. It really can't be any more clear than how it is stated in the constitution.
He obviously hasn't looked through ANY of my previous postings.
I am for:
socialized medicine
corporate accountability
geopolitical isolationism.
yeah.. i'm SOO republican.
stupid fucker.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
A "compromise" requires that the original demands be reasonable on a fundamental level.
Abrogation of the 4th amendment is not a partisan issue, nor is it reasonable.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Senators are generally back in their home States this week.
Print out a copy of the FISA Amendments Act, 114 page pdf and track down you Senators appearances, Parades, Fundraisers, etc. Ask if they've read it, and if not, physically hand them the printout, ideally after highlighting the sections you consider problematic. An accomplice video is nice.
"I've read it, Senator, shouldn't you?"
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
I call it a flip, since McCain's political opinion was, on 21 May 2008, "John McCain would not support immunity for the telecoms that aided the Bush administration's warrantless spying program, unless there were revealing Congressional hearings and heartfelt repentance from those telephone and internet companies"; but then on 23 May 2008 became, "The Senator still supports unconditional amnesty for telecoms that helped the government spy on Americans, without being given court orders" [emphasis added]. If it's unconditional, I suppose there's no need for hearings and tearful remorse.
Those quotes are from a Wired blog: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/telecom-amnesty.html
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