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 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.
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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.
Don't mind me, just channelling Robert Heinlein again.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
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.
A saner course of action would be to vote for a small party, or express your disgust by not voting at all. Don't be part of the problem by keeping the duofascists in power.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
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.
Well now that sounds like a really mature and intelligent way to deal with it.
If he's going to be nothing more than a sock puppet for crypto-fascist republicans and their propaganda ministers at fox news, we are screwed either way this election. It's best to keep slapping the one party which MAY have some virtue left until it rouses at last and gains some righteous fury!
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This is an interesting point, except that the telecoms already had a relationship with the NSA, etc.. However, it should be pointed out that at the time, everyone thought invading Iraq was a good idea, too. I don't thing the telecoms are really the bad guys either.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
To put it in a historical analogy (which is bound to be a huge success), you're planning to defeat the evil Cubans by supporting the Soviet Union? Do you honestly think the republicans are the democrats' biggest enemy? They are the closest allies! The two major parties are closer to each other than to any other entity. As I said, don't be part of the problem.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
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,
When did begrudgingly accepting a compromise mean "being a sock puppet"? I swear, you people have this out of proportion.
The immunity offered by this bill is retroactive only; it does not extend into the future. People who say Obama is pro-warrantless-wiretapping don't know WTF they're talking about; he's supporting a bill which will make it illegal in the future, but 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 if we're going to heal some of the hatred between the Right and Left.
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.
Sorry 'bout the formatting; messed up my closing italics tag above.
Explicitly and unambiguously illegal, that is, in such a way that the telcos can't be told that they're going to be able to weasel out of it again.
How about letting it expire and acting on making it illegal in the next term?
The telecoms arn't the bad guys here, but they ARE guilty. I agree that the government officials responsible should be prosecuted, but the reality of the results of such prosecutions is that they are not harsh and do not stop anything. Prosecuting the telecoms WILL stop their participation and send a strong message to anyone else that would think of participating in similar activities. It sucks, but that's the reality of leadership.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Not voting at all doesn't express disgust, it expresses laziness. Voting for third party and independent candidates shouldn't scoffed at as a vote of disgust either but rather a willingness to leave the beaten path.
Personally, I'm going with the third party vote as I have in the past. No because I'm disgusted but because it's what I believe.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
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.
Fuck forgiveness.
I'm a lot more inclined to put some heads on some pikes as a warning to future generations. That'll work much better than "passing a law" as to "make it illegal in the future"... guess what, it's illegal NOW. Why do you think they're asking for immunity?
The whole problem is that the current administration has run rough-shot over the laws by violating them and then thumbing their noses at us and show us how little teeth the current batch of laws has over them. And your solution is to pass a law? Screw that. I'm all in favor of taking a tier 1 telcom company and burning it to the ground so maybe next time they'll actually protect the citizens rights instead of kowtowing to a schmuck president. After that, THEN pass a law and poeple will actually take notice.
They had a duty to us, the citizens, and they screwed us. Fuck 'em. And unfortunately, they're just a poor substitute for the REAL criminals.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
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.
Low voter turnout in the USA is regularly interpreted as people being digusted and disillusioned of the system. A politically correct name to put it is "voter apathy".
Of course not. Votes for small parties are not protest votes at all. Protest votes are mainly voting for "the other big party".
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
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?
People who say Obama is pro-warrantless-wiretapping don't know WTF they're talking about; he's supporting a bill which will make it illegal in the future, but the only way to get that bill passed for the future..
It is illegal now. Why not leave it that way?
Are you so naive to think that electoral calculations did not play a part in Obama's stance?
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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I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I'd look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this.
Exactly right. AT&T deserves to be shutdown completely and made an example of. You know, kinda how this whole site cries for the same thing to happen to Microsoft BECAUSE THEY PUT A BROWSER IN THEIR OS. The vagaries of scale on this site are just unbelievable sometimes. "Bundle a browser...lock 'em up and throw away the key! Illegally wiretap American citizens? Eh, they learned their lesson, then won't do it again..."
What's most sickening is how so many people are SCREAMING to have this bill blocked, yet the politicians are actively voting against the wishes of their constituency. They're not even pretending to care anymore.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
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.
Threatening the telecoms with prosecution will encourage them to cooperate with any future investigations into warrantless wiretapping. If they were coerced, I have no problem with granting them immunity based upon their providing testimony in court to that effect.
If, as the Bush administration claims, there was no violation of the law, then no immunity is needed. If they were forced to hand over data, then they aren't guilty and no immunity is needed in this case as well.
Have gnu, will travel.
To add some perspective to your forgiveness, as an aside to making it illegal (well, MORE illegal) it makes doing it legally laughably easy.
Is the goal to express disgust? Or to make someone lose? Those aren't the goals. The goal is to give the power to those who would use it properly, to select a prsident, and to decide which parties have enough support to be given the recognition and funding to participate in the debate.
Any party that gets 5% of the vote gets federal funding and is likely to be in the debates. Since 50% of the people don't vote at all, that's a lot of potential for the green or libertarian parties to get noticed. Heck, if those 50% just voted completely randomly, it would be a landslide change in politics.
Engrish is my forth language, but I remember an old saying....
Cutting your nose off to spite your face
...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...
Unfortunately, with the high voter turnout in the primaries, it's looking like this will by a high-turnout election in November.
That's not a protest vote. Sure, they want you to think that's a protest vote, but it's not. As you said, above, there's not a dime's worth of difference between Republicrats and Democans. Vote for one, you might as well have voted for the other, for as long as you do, nothing will ever change in this country.
IOW, people, if you want the "change" and "hope" Barack Obama is promising you, you won't get it voting either for McCain or Obama.
My blog
A saner course of action would be to vote for a small party, or express your disgust by not voting at all. Don't be part of the problem by keeping the duofascists in power.
actually, that's not the saner thing. That doesn't guarantee their defeat in the same way voting for their strongest opponent does.
Or, here's a crazy thought, instead of getting pissed enough over this to want the other guy to win out of spite, perhaps historical voting records regarding civil liberties for Obama and McCain would be useful. I'm very upset with Obama over this (Unity is all well and good, but not at the expense of the rule of law), but in no way is McCain a better choice where civil liberties are concerned.
Yes, that's the ACLU, and lots of people strongly disagree with them for various reasons. Just take their spin into account and make your own decision.
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
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.
And yet, looking through your previous postings, it is obvious that you ARE a republican, not a libertarian. Nice move. You are worthy of working with W or Rove.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
+1 insightful my friend.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Unless....he is going to fuck America over too. Quite possible,
He's from my state, Illinois, home of the world's sleaziest politicians, where we're so patriotic even being dead doesn't keep us from voting. I wonder how my other Senator (Durbin) will vote on telcom immunity and net neutrality?
If Obama's elected his stance on these issues won't matter - all the President can do when it comes to making laws is jawbone and either sign or veto. The legislative branch, which he is now part of, legislates. If he's elected President his job will be to enforce whatever laws the corporations have purchaced from the legislature.
The legislative branch writes laws, the executive brance enforces them, and the judicial branch judges them.
I'm voting for Bob Barr, depending on whether or not the Greens are on the ballot in enough states to have a mathematical chance of winning. I wonder why slashdot doesn't talk of the other political parties?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Nice in theory but they will push an even worse bill through in that time. Even if Obama becomes pres the congress is likely to still be GOP run so undoing such a bill will be VERY difficult. It's the lesser of two evils but it's still an evil.
You forget, that case stopped around the same time Bush got in office. If you want to blame Bush for the wire taping (and I think we all do) that comparison is not fair since Bush was not around when the MS case started.
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?
Screw my mod points. Time for an OT history lesson...
Roughshod \Rough"shod\, a. Shod with shoes armed with points or calks; as, a roughshod horse.
Back to the topic, I agree; burn 'em! The telcos failed miserably in their fiduciary duty to protect their customers' privacy. Ask an old-time telco engineer how much the value of privacy has declined in their industry, and prepare to get an earful...
It's simple, if he will vote FOR something that he KNOWS is wrong. That makes me question what he would do once he got in the whitehouse. I've been an Obama supporter for a VERY long time, but right now I'm questioning his motives right now. He is either for change or he is not. Voting for a Bush policy is NOT CHANGE - PERIOD. If I wanted more of Bush I'd be for McBush er.. McSame err.. McCain. If he keeps up this kind of crap I'll vot Libertarian.
Folks don't "just not vote" Vote for a party OTHER THAN the Democrats or Republicans. If suddenly all these smaller parties see spikes in voter turnout and the two big ones see drops in them I think that will be a message in itself. Let the hard core democrats vote for their master(s) and let the hardcore Republicans vote for their master(s). If everyone else that is not hard core voted for someone else I think that would show a HUGE revolt.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
"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!
The immunity offered by this bill is retroactive only; it does not extend into the future. People who say Obama is pro-warrantless-wiretapping don't know WTF they're talking about; he's supporting a bill which will make it illegal in the future, but 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.
Why does congress need to pass any bill with an immunity provision? Wait for the next president, and then pass the law. It is only six months away (Thank God!) Whoever it is, the next president will be an improvement over W. Deal with any other FISA issues that may need to be handled (although IMHO FISA is fine as is, if anything, the standards for getting a wiretap need to be tightened, but I'm not holding out hope for that in the current climate of fear.)
Another important issue is that someone needs to be held accountable for the illegal wiretapping. It is it not the telcos, then it should be the NSA and DOJ. Make the agency directors who pressured the telcos (and possibly the White House officials who ordered them to do so criminally responsible for abuse of power and for creating illegal wiretaps. Then and only then can the telcos be let off the hook.
In other words, someone need to be held accountable.
Because American elections are a winner-take-all system, granular to the district-level. Even if the Greens are on enough states' ballots, they still can't overcome every district by sheer numbers. That's just the sad truth.
I'm disillusioned on Obama as well (as much as I can be, having not really bought into the illusion in the first place). However, it'll be a cold day in Hell before I say the he and McCain are the same candidate. Do people actually think that if Al Gore had taken office in 2000, we'd be in the same mess we are now?
"Lesser of two evils" sounds very disheartening, yes. But not when there are orders of magnitude separating these two evils.
Low voter turnout in the USA is regularly interpreted as people being digusted and disillusioned of the system.
The real problem with this interpretation is that it's never seemed to really get any mainstream politician off their ass to bring the people back into the process. Third parties could reap the rewards of this kind of thinking.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
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?
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness if we're going to heal some of the hatred between the Right and Left.
Well, forgiveness is certainly what this bill is all about. FISA courts, as laid out in past, continue with or without this bill. There's no reason for the bill at all except for the forgiveness you're looking for.
However, that's not how forgiveness works. You can't legislate it. You can, however, as this bill shows, attempt to legislate an amnesty giveaway to a bunch of unrepentant crooks.
What this country actually needs is justice. You commit a crime, you admit it and accept responsibility for it, and then you get forgiveness. I don't see any responsibility being taken, here -- I see a whole lot of weaseling out and not paying for things, which has been the way of life, to an absurd extreme, of this administration, and it friends. It's also been a way of life for AT&T.
What was done during Bush's years has been illegal, and there should be justice. AT&T was paid to break the law, so they did. Why sweep that under the rug and pretend that doing so will make things better? There's no reason for immunity going forward or back.
"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.
This is one of those compromises that should not be made.
What things are we going to allow corporations to do on the presidents assurance that it is legal? Which amendments will we stop at?
It is important that the message is sent that the president can't simple say "this is legal" and congress makes it so retro-actively.
The compromise is at least as bad as the one that made Judge "torture memos" Alito attorney general. There are situations where a compromise is warranted, and the lesser evil, but there are others where the compromise still leans too far towards "strong executive" (That's the PC word for dictatorship I think) and must not be agreed to.
This isn't compromise in the sense that you get the freeway I badly need, I get the bridge to nowhere.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
you may have noticed that every House member from Illinois voted against Fisa the other week. Even the Republican, Johnson. He was, in fact, the only Republican to vote against.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
But it is immunity nonetheless, and immunity for something that many people not only believe to be illegal, but an outright assault on the rights of the citizenry.
What's worse, in my opinion, is his wishy-washy press release on the matter. If he'd focused more on the "look, if it wasn't this, the republicans and telco-owned democrats would've killed the whole thing and we'd have no progress at all", it wouldn't have been so bad.
Instead, he hid behind the "look! bogeymen!" scare-tactics and provided a waffly excuse of "legitimate threats" this and "terrorists" that without ever actually specifying what these vague apparitions lurking in the dark are. THAT, to me, is where his political colors really showed.
I think this may, very well, be the first thing that has come out to really tarnish his image. I'm not going to stop supporting his bid over it, but I certainly am viewing him with a bit more suspicion than in the past.
Weird slashbug #455
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.
or express your disgust by not voting at all
Yes because political inactivity is the catalyst for change.
Right. 2 of the criminal corporations that were treated the way you say are the asbestos industry and the tobacco industry.
Workers were exposed to asbestos for decades, while asbestos companies like Johns-Mansville knew that it was causing lung cancer, according to medical reports in their files that came out after they were sued, but they didn't warn those workers. When it all came out, they were hit with millions of dollars in damages, and went bankrupt. You don't see much asbestos around any more.
The tobacco industry is unfortunately so wealthy and politically powerful that they're almost (but not quite) untouchable. They got hit with millions of dollars in damages. The public health people who took them on were pretty smart, and they got money to pay for anti-tobacco education, publicity campaigns, etc. In a big court case, huge amounts of documents get subpoenaed, but the defendants insist on making them confidential as one of the conditions for settling (see the IBM antitrust case). This time, the public health people insisted on making the documents public, and put them in a great database, which revealed their devious methods, and exposed the people we trusted who betrayed us (search Google for "tobacco documents").
Unfortunately, the corporate executives didn't go to jail, even though they killed more people (400,000/year from cigarettes) than Osama bin Laden ever will.
Given the sentiments you expressed, you would probably enjoy reading Ted Rall http://www.gocomics.com/rallcom/, although you probably do already. He was warning us from the very first about Obama.
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.
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So, to get back at him, you're going to "vote republican across the board".
Son, you need to think it through. You've got a good heart but you're head is spinning a little too fast. I say this from love.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think you underestimate the president's "jawboning" influence. If the president says "If this bill comes to my desk, I will sign it", Congress just needs to get a simple majority, and on-the-fence Reps and Senators will be more likely to support it.
If, on the other hand, he says he will veto the bill, it jumps to a 2/3rds requirement, and in a situation where Congress is split such as we have now, that will convince a lot of Reps and Senators that the fight isn't worth it and it will die quickly.
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
To be fair to plasmacutter, this was no "compromise". It was a total capitulation.
I'm going to wait to see if this bill passes with the immunity intact before getting too exercised.
And there's no way this is going to make me even considering voting for John McCain, who is basically George W. Bush with anger issues. The world really doesn't need that goof anywhere near a decision-making position of power. We should just build a statue in honor of the fact that he crashed his plane in the jungle and made propaganda films for the enemy, and leave it at that. But president? Naw.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So let the bill be vetoed, why is passing a bad law better than having a better law vetoed. Can someone explain why we need this law anyway. Let's be honest here, the terrorist threat to America is the biggest hype job ever pulled on the American people. I mean we have had 2 major terrorist attempts on American soil (on the same building even) from foreign nationals in what, our entire histoy. Their is enough questionable information regarding 9/11 that I don't think we will ever truely know what happened or who was involved.
But that day was also the day the 4th went from a celebration to a time of mourning.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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.
It's where he showed what he's afraid of, anyhow -- being painted as yet another of those naive peacenicks. I read that as boilerplate language intended to deflect attack, rather than an appeal to his base for support on those grounds. He certainly doesn't do the "lookie, terrorists!" thing in speeches and interviews, while it's frequently McCain's first resort.
The whole thing is disappointing, I'll agree. He's still lightyears better than McCain.
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?
No. Right now, the Democrats have a small majority in the House and a single-vote majority in the Senate. An Obama victory would bring Democratic gains in both houses. In fact, even those who believe McCain will win invariably admit that the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate will grow larger.
Plus, Bush has done so much to tilt the balance of powers in favor of the executive branch, that it would be fairly easy for a President Obama and Democratic Congress to overturn this FISA law.
And, (this is important, so pay attention), this FISA bill only gives civil immunity to the telecoms. They could still be charged with a civil rights violation by an Obama Administration Department of Justice. In fact, everything Obama wrote about Constitutional Law while at the UofC (we were there at the same time) indicates that his view of privacy is very strong, and that he'd be willing to use the DOJ for this purpose (which happens to be the purpose for which it was intended).
IF this FISA bill passes with the immunity intact I will be disappointed, but it's not going to make me suddenly believe that a John McCain administration could be anything but a bigger disaster than Bush. Remember, all the same neocon extremists that have been whispering in George Bush's ear will be shouting in John McCain's ear (the good one). And because of McCain's imagined "tough-guy" image and hot temper, he'll be very vulnerable to the cowboy-culture suggestions that the neocons have used so successfully to manipulate weak leaders like Bush and McCain.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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
Are you sure? Someone else in this thread has already posted a link to McCain's ACLU scorecard, and he's been vocally pro-wiretapping from the beginning.
I'm in complete agreement, my friend. I'm afraid that every few years we're going to have to take one (or more) of these rapacious corporations and slam them up against a wall a few times, just to show them that we (citizens, consumers) are in charge, not them.
In the next ten years, we're going to see the beginnings of warfare between corporate interests and the interests of the people. With the behavior of the RIAA, I'd say that the shooting war has already started.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness
This may be true. But forgiveness applied to someone who's in denial is called "enabling". It just encourages them to do it some more. The first step to forgiveness is a confession. When the telcoms publicly tell us exactly what they have done that may have violated the law or the privacy of the people whose communications they handle, once they are willing to stand up and accept responsibility for their own actions, then we can discuss forgiveness.
He *did* ask for the warrantless wiretaps, the whole point that this article is discussing. So it started out as a Bush-bashing thread, started by Bush himself.
I was referring to comments on Slashdot, not the actions of any administration. I disagreed with the DoJ's findings in the MS case, just as I disagree with granting immunity to telecoms. The first was a sham, the second is a travesty.
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At the expense of the people who feel he won't be "tough on crime."
Nothing except the law that he's about to vote for, which will make it so that his AG can't even bring that cases to court.
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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.
Any party that gets 5% of the vote gets federal funding and is likely to be in the debates.
BS. Ron Paul got higher than 5% and his existence was barely acknowledged.
That isn't going to stop me from voting for a third party this time around, but I'm not kidding myself about what my vote will change.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
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!
So you want to get the attention of the party which MAY have some virtue left by supporting the party with NO virtue? That's the party people don't get. Vote third party at least, helping the Republicans can do no good.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Fuck Bush!
I normally don't go in for such nonsense, but I was browsing at 0 and saw this lonely little post desperately crying out for some attention.
*hugs*
Feel better?
Your brain is not a computer.
I said GOP run. I'm aware that the dems have the numbers but the GOP (for some reason I can not grasp) still seem to run the place.
Good to know. I trust Obama from what I've seen of him but the recent stuff has had me a bit worried. It's nice to know that I was right in thinking he was doing all this since it's the lesser of two evils.
Except that the current president refuses to pass a bill without telco immunity. What's to say Obama couldn't do the same, but opposite?
No, I am not an English major. My posts are subject to typos and incorrect grammar. Do not expect perfection.
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
BS. Ron Paul got higher than 5% and his existence was barely acknowledged.
Ron Paul was a Republican. Republicans got plenty of debate time.
Actually, this guy sounds as crooked as Bob Barr. I suggest he should vote libertarian after all. I, on the other hand, am a libertarian supporter -- but I cannot support Bob Barr.
I will probably write in a name, just to be able to say, "yes, I voted, and no, my vote doesn't count for anything."
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Frankly, with all the rancor on both sides, this country needs a little forgiveness if we're going to heal some of the hatred between the Right and Left.
We don't want the Right and Left to get along, because then we'll end up with an even worse "both parties are the same" problem.
The problem right now is that the stuff they disagree over - the stuff that wins elections - is mostly a distraction from the real issues.
The parties hating each other is great - it keeps our broken system somewhat in check. The problem is that the parties aren't really Right/Left. They don't win elections based on philosophy and intelligent debate, but on emotions and reactionary sound clips.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
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Ron Paul is about as close to a libertarian as you can get, and at some times has been.
However, the major media affirmed, about 2 elections ago, that they would never again give the Libertarian party or any of their candidates coverage, even if they won the presidential election. That was in the words of a network representative (I'm thinking NBC), in explanation of why they were not covering the Libertarians, at a time when inexplicably no media was giving Libertarians coverage.
So the Ron Paul comment is right on target. He had the most support of all the candidates, both cash and personal -- and yet was excluded from the debates. He also had votes in New Hampshire which registered zero votes for him, and he had control of the Nevada Caucus, which was shut down rather than allow him to have support going into the Republican convention.
This is called election fraud. It goes hand in hand with the media fraud. In addition, the denial of Ron Paul in the debates made the Fox News Fair'n'Balanced(tm) debates into a primetime multi-hour infomercial. In other words, it was a major illegal campaign donation to all those who were given coverage. Of course, even calling it the debates also violates truth in advertising laws, but this can only go so far.
I should note, that in line with this I fully expect Obama will not win, even if he gets 96% of the votes.
Combine this with the abdication of legislative power to the president, and the abdication of constitutional interpretation to the president, and basically what we are seeing is that though most of the world is moving away from dictatorships, the US is becoming a secret-police, torturing, constitutionless dictatorship.
That said, it isn't worth fighting against. Rather, other countries are moving away from it because such countries destroy themselves. They simultaneously make deadly enemies, and destroy their economy, so that an enemy army can invade and destroy what's left.
So rather than fighting against it, it's more worthwhile to simply flee to a country that is a *land of the free* and *home of the brave*. The US has been there, done that, and don't look like it's even lookin' back. For what it's worth, it is my opinion that the handwriting is on the wall that we're becoming the world's next Iraq. To quote the evangelists, our 400 years of biblical testing are done, and we probably are found way wanting.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
It's difficult to blow this issue "out of proportion."
I don't think we heal anything by sweeping crime under the rug and pretend it never happened. This isn't like Slick Willy blowjob affair.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
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.
Son, you need to think it through. You've got a good heart but you're head is spinning a little too fast. I say this from love.
:)
Witty...witty...
I'd agree, but that this isn't about taunting the democrats and telling them they're being stupid. This is, as it always is in the USA, about choosing the lesser of two evils so that the person in power causes the least amount of permanent damage. And, weak sellout though Obama may be, you can bet the other guy is much, much worse.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
It sets a precedent.
If an entity can do something illegal because it happens to coincide with some would-be dictator's agenda, that's one less thing stopping other entities from breaking laws in order to get favours from future would-be dictators.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Two major terrorist attempts THAT YOU KNOW OF.
Instead of Republican, vote Green. Lets both parties know that you're sick of them.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Fine, if they were thwarted without any public knowledge, that means the systems that were already in place were sufficient to block all but two of them. And, quite honestly, it wasn't the systems in place that failed us in those cases, it was the cronyism combined with hubris at the cabinet level that did us in.
More laws will not make us more secure.
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There are over a million registered users on this site. You'll find an extremely wide range of opinions in such a large population. There's nothing strange about finding some people who think Microsoft should be destroyed and finding some other people who think AT&T shouldn't be prosecuted.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
It's not factually wrong; it's just... selectively reflective of the truth.
The FISA bill allows warrantless wiretapping of international calls made by American citizens only under emergency protocols. It allows warrantless wiretapping of folks who aren't American citizens pretty much indiscriminately. That certainly does make the large-scale warrantless wiretapping of communications by American citizens which has allegedly occurred under Bush (we can't tell, of course, because the courts are being blocked from investigating the matter in the name of national security... which I certainly agree is bogus) thoroughly illegal on an ongoing basis.
I said GOP run. I'm aware that the dems have the numbers but the GOP (for some reason I can not grasp) still seem to run the place.
The reason that the GOP still seems to run the place is that it takes a 60% majority to force cloture or override a Presidential veto. The Dems don't have it. It takes 40% to control the Senate.
In a republic, the elected representatives are supposed to use their independent judgment as well as the screams of that tiny portion of their constituents that cares about an issue. Now if you want a "democracy" I am certain you can find a guillotine and execute all the employees and their families, just like in the French Revolution, for the crime of assuming that the Patriot Act didn't make this legal when they were told by lawyers (maybe even THEIR lawyers) that it did, because some mob thinks that they should be.
It's also an election year and he is not yet in office and he could lose everything with the swing of a pendulum. You can condemn him now but he knows if he doesn't get in, it's another 4-8 years of republican policies and wars (which have done America really well in just the 8 years they have held the presidency). You obviously understand little about politics if you think it is as simple as that. I suggest getting a real job sometime and dealing with office politics in attempting to get things done and then imagining that times a million.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Yep. Take everyone who is responsible for crimes against the American People and ship 'em off to Gitmo. Oh, wait, they own Gitmo. Well, shoot if they ain't planned that one pretty good.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I keep hoping Obama wins and uses the newly ill-gotten presidential powers of warrentless wiretapping to expose all kinds of naughty things that the Republicans are up to. Horribly wrong yet terribly amusing.
All they'll do is demand immunity in exchange for testimony, the people still lose. Get some balls democrats. Don't pass any legislation, its only six months. Don't pass immunity and after 2 or 3 independent class actions assuming any of the telcoms except qwest are still around they will learn to never listen to the government against their own legal counsel or believe politics will save their ass. They'll never trust government again, just the way it should be. The bastards broke several federal laws intentionally and violated the constitution(treason), break'em. Take away their corporate charters, sell off the pieces, and pay off the nation debt with the money.
And yes, being government sponsored monopolies they are pseudo-government entities with government affiliations making them directly bound by the same constitution prohibitions and edicts as the government. So treason is definitely possible since they supported Bush who is a direct violator of said constitution.
You haven't truly understood the implications of a precedent saying that companies can violate the law and Congress will retroactively make it OK.
There is no need to pass a bill saying that it is illegal in the future - it was already illegal. That is why there are lawsuits. And this bill doesn't keep any future Congress from passing a bill retroactively saying next time, "That was OK after all, but it is really not next time."
Now compare to passing no bill. If they pass no bill then the lawsuits go forward and the telecoms suffer in court for it. And the next time that a President asks the telecoms to do something they know they shouldn't, they will say, "Nuh uh, we remember what happened last time." And you know what? There is nothing the President can do to stop this from happening.
It is a simple matter of psychology that any parent of a 6 year old is painfully aware of. No matter how forcibly you say, "That was OK, but next time it is not" the real message delivered is, "That was OK." If you want the message delivered to be, "That was not OK" then you have to make it not OK now. Not next time.
Whether you're dealing with 60 year old CEOs or 6 year old boys, the psychology is the same. If they see that complaints get the rules retroactively changed, they will plan on that retroactive change. If they see that there are consequences for acting badly, they are likely to think twice next time.
There will always be security implications that will be pointed to. There will always be things the President can add to a bill to make it more palatable. CEOs understand this and will plan on it. Which increases the odds of future abuses.
If you want to avoid the future abuses, don't pass a law against it which nobody believes will be enforced. Instead punish existing abuses with the laws that already exist.
If you think that the GOP control the Senate, why haven't the Bush tax cuts been made permanent, or Social Security privatized?
Because they are not good ideas and it gives Bush a windmill to tilt at.
Yes, because there's absolutely no difference between punishing a company and its officers financially and potentially putting them out of business and putting them under the guillotine. Nothing like a good reductio ad absurdum argument to make your point.
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It already is/was/will continue to be unambiguously illegal, there is no need for this bill! And I strongly disagree with your statement that this bill is strictly retroactive; it may be so according to the text, but this bill sets an important precedent - don't worry about doing something blatantly illegal for uncle sam, we've got your back.
Sorry, you're not allowed to deviate from the groupthink.
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Until the democrats wake up from their sleep and do what? Check the power of the republicans you're now voting for in retaliation? Wouldn't it be easier to just vote for a third party?
"Disgust" is not "apathy". Apathy means you don't care. Disgust means you do.
In truth, low voter turnout is interpreted to mean whatever the person who is interpreting it wants it to mean. If they are arguing that voters are lazy, "here's the turnout numbers". If they want to prove "disgust with the system", again, "here's the turnout numbers".
One thing that disgusts me alot about the process is the people who do assume too much about what a vote, or lack thereof, means. For example, people who say that a vote for Hillary in the primary was evidence the voter wanted her to be President. Not true. At best, they wanted her to be the Democrat nominee (that is, after all, the purpose of the primary vote), and in a large number of cases they simply wanted her to continue in the race to help create chaos. The exact same statement applies to cross-over votes for McCain in Michigan. With the democrat primary not meaning anything there, a lot of dems voted for McCain not because they wanted to see him as President, but to "help" the republicans pick a poor candidate.
Another main disgust factor is the reliance on "exit polls" as proof of anything other than what House says in every episode: people lie. The only vote that counts is the official one, not the vote told to the reporter outside the polling place.
And then, we're going to see this one again I know: the Presidential "popular vote total". Completely irrelevant, but still pranced around to prove something.
Votes for small parties are not protest votes at all.
Most people do view them that way.
I am saying it from love. Plasmacutter has been a solid and thoughtful commenter here, and I agree with him a lot more than not. And even when I don't agree with him, his comments are thoughtful.
He's pissed as hell because Obama didn't put on his shiny armor and slay the awful FISA bill. I'm pissed, too, but there are still a lot of reasons that Barack is going to be a really great president, and I worry that even one more authoritarian wingnut on the Supreme Court like Thomas or Scalia and we're in for a generation's worth of hurt.
Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face is always a danger when you care too much. I've got plenty of stiches on my face to prove it.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hold on now. Your first example was of a company killing its workers with asbestos exposure that the workers were not aware of.
Tobacco products are totally optional. No one is forced to take them. There is broad public knowledge that smoking is bad for you. Smoking is mostly banned from public areas.
The two aren't even remotely close. Only the first example is similar to the telecoms (except Qwest, who everyone should praise for following the law).
Cow Cube
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"
An outgoing President can give pardons. He can NOT give immunity to criminal prosecution, so an Obama Justice Department has a clear field to prosecute anybody who broke the law to help this dopey little snot in the White House in his attempt to destroy the Constitution.
And Bush won't be able to do a goddamn thing about it because he'll no longer be president. This is why we don't give ex-president's the power to pardon.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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?
So you'd rather have him stubbornly maintain his stance and not get elected? How much can he accomplish in the future if he loses?
I don't know if that is really what he thinks, but I think it is a matter of weighing scenarios. What is worse, passing an obviously corrupt bill, or allowing another 8 years of Republican leadership, probably producing hundreds or bills like this one?
And they got the slap on the wrist instead of the complete breakup that they deserved, specifically thanks to the new Bush Administration.
Assuming he doesn't already.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
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.
No, it's because the Dems are a bunch of spineless losers. If they had a spine, they'd just bring everything to a halt, instead of constantly trying to "compromise". The Dems have no principles.
That's why I have no intention of voting for either party. They're either crooks or pansies. When you enable a criminal by supporting and abetting his behavior, you're just as bad as he is.
>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.
Only the first example is similar to the telecoms (except Qwest, who everyone should praise for following the law).
It's good that they followed the law, but after suffering with them and their "customer service" for several years, I have no intention of being their customer ever again. Personally, I'd like to see ALL the telecom companies go out of business all at once.
Carter pardoned Nixon before he was ever charged with any crimes.
Poppa Bush pardoned 6 people involved with Iran Contra, 1 conviction, 3 guilty pleas, and 2 pending cases.
So how can you be pardoned if you never got in trouble in the first place?
Wait for the next president, and then pass the law. It is only six months away (Thank God!) Whoever it is, the next president will be an improvement over W.
I disagree. I think that, regardless of who gets elected this November, in the future we're going to look back at the "W days" and wish things could be as good as they were during Bush's term (and we'll wish even more they could be as good as they were in Clinton's term). Because I think we're headed for some really bad times, partially because of W, and these two fools running for Pres. now aren't going to improve things at all, and in fact will probably make things even worse.
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.
Exactly right. AT&T deserves to be shutdown completely and made an example of.
You do realize just how many times this has already been done, right?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
A saner course of action would be to vote for a small party, or express your disgust by not voting at all. Don't be part of the problem by keeping the duofascists in power.
The problem is that the US electoral system essentially credits this sort of behavior as a vote for the majority.
In a priority-based/IRV system, you could voice your disapproval by listing "Nader" as your first choice, and Obama as the second. If Nader fails to reach a majority, your vote is not wasted, and simply rolls over to your second choice.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Nothing except the law that he's about to vote for, which will make it so that his AG can't even bring that cases to court.
Very sadly you are uninformed yet modded informative, which shows your ignorance as well as the ignorance of the people modding you. The FISA amnesty only provides CIVIL amnesty, criminal charges are not addressed at all.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
Ron Paul is about as close to a libertarian as you can get, and at some times has been.
Ron Paul is a states-rights activist, not a libertarian.
His political leanings have always very clearly favored a small federal government, with large state governments.
For whatever reason, a few states have always had fringe political groups supporting this set of ideals. Texas happens to be one such state, and Ron Paul happens to currently be leading that charge for them.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Carter pardoned Nixon before he was ever charged with any crimes.
That would be Ford you're thinking of.
Poppa Bush pardoned 6 people involved with Iran Contra, 1 conviction, 3 guilty pleas, and 2 pending cases.
To quote the US Constitution, the President shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States. It's not at all clear that he can pardon someone who has not been legally found to have committed an offense (that is, pled or been found guilty), someone for whom one can not specify their name and the precise offense they have committed. Yes, it's happened, and nobody cared enough to pursue the matter. Maybe we'll get that clarified after next January.
Or maybe Shrub could get them all individually indicted for every crime they might have committed. Wow, would that fill the news with stories about criminals in government. Then have them plead guilty. Which would monopolize the news again. And then pardon them, yet a third great news day about the crimes committed by or at the behest of government.
Of course, they'd have to trust Bush to carry through with his end of the pardon. Do you suppose they'd trust Bush significantly more than you or I would?
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.
Why would you do something like that? The republicans are just as much at fault for this as democrats.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
Well, Libertarians on principle refuse to accept taxpayer money (money stolen from the citizens) to fund their campaigns, so even when they have qualified for federal election funding (in 1992, 1996 and 2000), they didn't take it. They still were refused entrance in the debates, even though they achieved ballot status in all 50 states (plus Guam and the District of Columbia). The Commission on Presidential Debates just decided to change their own rules when the Libertarians otherwise met all the previously published criteria for inclusion in the debates. They even had the Green and Libertarian Presidential candidates arrested in 2004 when they tried to get into the debates held in St. Louis. The success of those campaigns (and the Ross Perot and Ralph Nader campaigns) scared the shit out of the Democrats and Republicans, and several states then changed their ballot access laws to prevent that from ever happening again. Since the passage of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, no minor party has ever been able to repeat that achievement, and it is unlikely that any third party will ever again get that golden 50 state ballot status. Even this year, the Libertarian Party doesn't expect to get on the ballot in more than 46 states (Oklahoma will never see another Libertarian on the ballot until their laws change dramatically).
You can have a clean conscience by voting Barr-Root in November, but unless a few million of your closest friends do the same, they won't likely get much attention from the media.
I think we're conflating political parties with the federal government. Kucinich and Paul were excluded from debates because everything having to do with primary elections are by definition governed by the rules of the participating parties. If they don't want progressive or libertarian views expressed in their primaries then they have the right to exclude people with those views.
Let's face it "centrist" is just Double Speak for "corporatist". Political parties represent whomever gets them elected and thanks to wonderful perversions of logic like "money is free speech" corporate interests not only support both parties (whichever is in power--look at how swiftly they read the tea leaves and backed the Dems this election cycle), but they also own the "mainstream" (a synonym for corporate) media.
And don't give me that "both parties are the same so I'm not going to vote or I'm going to throw my vote away on a third party that can't win" crap. That is a feckless excuse for lazy Americans that like to complain, but are too busy working their asses off to avoid foreclosure--thanks to the baking industry paying politicians for deregulation--to do anything about it. And all this "it's not fair, I supported Ron Paul" garbage is no different. Paul wants to get rid of social security and practically every other government program that makes old people (the most predictable and reliable demographic) vote which makes him unelectable in a general election. (not to mention labor unions)
If you want Ron Paul to be the nominee of the republican party or you want Obama to tell the Democratic leadership to shove their telecom "campaign contributions" where the sun don't shine then get active in the political parties. If people got active in the Democratic and Republican parties between election cycles instead of complaining loudly every four years then politicians would be accountable to the people instead of the corporate interests that lobby them 24/7. Why? Because while money may be considered free speech, it can't cast a vote!
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
yeah... actually well his quote was appropriate for the situation. The full quote didn't work, so i just used a slice... however quoting JMS was intentional.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
They're not even pretending to care anymore.
Like *Duh*, or course not.
You can thank your fellow citizens for voting straight party ticket and not the qualified individules as it should be. Until that changes, there will always be a "Political Cast" in America. You're born, raised, and bequeathed the power from previous family members. You know, like the Bush's, Clinton's, Kennedy's etc.
At this moment in time, we're all just a bunch of plebs where our own opinions and desires don't amount to diddly-squat. A vote for McCain or Obama alone isn't going to change that.
Life is not for the lazy.
Not all of the telecommunications companies complied with the demand. Qwest, for one, refused to cooperate. They didn't seem to suffer any ill effects, but then again, they aren't one of the big players in the market. AT&T and Verizon ought to be hung out to dry, just as an example to other spineless CEOs.
You are correct, but you spun it wrong. Ron Paul got 5% and was included in all the debates. All the people who didn't get 5% -- you never heard about them.
Let us closely examine Paul's fundamental "philosphy" for a moment:
Paul contends that government is bad as it can be easily taken over by the corporations (which has obviously already transpired). Therefore, Paul wants to give all the government functions over to the corporations!
HUH??? Cany anyone get their head around that convoluted nonlogic......
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!!
"There is broad public knowledge that smoking is bad for you."
This is true today (in the west) but it was not true when I was growing up in the 60's and tobacoo companies were actively breeding plants for higher nicotine content. Even in the 80's tobacoo companies were still putting out "scientific research" showing smoking was harmless and non-addictive.
In other words tobacco companies hid the truth from people for decades and actively spread propoganda and misinformation to discredit any scientist who disputed them.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
This is exactly my point. Prosecuting Presidents in the past has rarely amounted to much of anything. At the worst, a pardon is granted. If anyone wants something that is going to stick across the board, we need to make an example of the telecomms. Not only will the telecomms think twice before doing it again, every other industry will also think twice before ignoring their own legal counsil when the government comes asking them to break the law.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
And I don't doubt your love. The witticism I was alluding to was your way of expressing yourself. Very..er..benevolent
:)
Perhaps it was unintended, but I found it funny anyway.
Agree about Obama BTW - unless you're being sarcastic.
I think so, were you the black-booted thug (I say black-booted instead of jackbooted because it's the boots he wore that got him caught) that was a cop PRETENDING to be a protester and actually trying to start riots?
You know, the ones wearing black, with black handkerchiefs covering their faces, and their police issue (oops) footwear that happened to be noticed by one of the 'rioters' who was trying to stop the violence from happening?
Sooo, how the Hell are you? I noticed you disappeared from the justice system as soon as your buddies put you in the back of the car, I assume you got your paycheck instead of an indictment...
Well, it's been swell reminiscing, I'll let you get back to your provocation.
(in all fairness, I may be confusing two protests that happened in the same time period)
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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