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A Look At Joe Biden's Tech Voting Record
Aviran brings us an analysis of Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden's voting record on technology issues. CNet breaks down the issues by category and provides details on the tech-related legislation he's introduced in the past several years. Biden received a score of 37.5% on CNet's 2006 technology voter guide. We've discussed the technology stances of McCain and Obama in the past.
That's the original post title and post by Aviran that's merely alluded to here... why the need to neutralize it? Would you have neutralized it for a Republican candidate?
the nay-sayers can relax
Even if they high profile guy in question has specifically said that he doesn't think Obama is ready to be president? The inescapable implication is that he (Biden) thinks that only because of his presence can Obama handle the job. Or, that Obama still can't handle the job, but that's OK, because he'll do it for him, etc. This is all just a sign of Obama's awakening to the fact that he's way over his inexperienced head, here.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Because Hillary has extremely high negatives. Rush, Savage, Hannity, Malkin, O'Reilly, etc. would have a field day tearing her apart. Obama would look extremely bad for picking her- we're talking about losing a large number of moderates and nearly all the Republicans who would otherwise be willing to vote for Obama.
Care about privacy? Read this!
No, Bush promised to "change the tone in Washington", and he sure did. To the tone of a trainwreck under Godzilla's claws.
Mainly by letting Cheney run the country (into the ground), while Bush took the "hard work" of being the Republican power monopoly's spokesmodel, "catapulting the propaganda".
What we need to get from the next VP is a commitment, from them or from the president, that they will burn down the Cheney Bunker. No Republican would ever do such a thing to their most powerful "legacy". We have to see whether Obama or Biden will do so.
Even if they don't, a Biden behind the Obama curtain is going to be a lot less evil than a Cheney behind the Bush curtain. This is where Democrats' famed "internal divisions and disorganization" protect the people. Which is why I usually start with Democrats as my default, and then see who could be better in the office than one of those "mavericks" who don't all vote lockstep on their secret agenda the way Republicans do.
--
make install -not war
Why not? Because you say so?
A democratic government's responsibility is to make the world a better place. A happy society is an egalitarian society. Yes, that goal has to be balanced against others. But completely ignoring income inequality would just make us enter another gilded age. Are you ignorant of that era's miseries, or are you callous enough to inflect them on your fellow citizens?
Actually, he got us the money. The Internet was a government funded research project, Gore got us the money for it which is all he ever claimed.
Imagine what would have happened if MuCullagh had not placed his smear story? Rove's objective there was to Swiftboat Gore and turn his greatest strength into a weakness. Gore could not campaign on his very real contribution to the creation of the Internet.
So instead we have had eight years of corrupt, incompetent rule, New Orleans is submerged underwater, the economy has turned from the largest ever surplus to the largest ever deficit and 3000 Americans and at least half a million Iraqis are dead in Iraq.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Look:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00001669
Examining the top industry contributions to Biden, there is a TV/movies/music presence there, but it's less than a 20th of his top contributor. Also note that the RIAA/MPAA doesn't even rate a mention in the individual company contributors.
Basically, it looks like he formulated that opinion on IP without ... outside help.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The VP most certainly does set policy especially considering he is the one who carries a tie breaking vote in the Senate. He is the only person in the Executive Branch that has direct voting power in the legislative. Given the lame duck Senate we have today, that tie breaker vote does set policy.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Being a citizen is hard work if you do it right, and if you do it right you can have influence beyond your own vote.
Which doesn't mean waste your time arguing and confronting people, it means drawing them out about what matters to them and pointing out how the candidate you back can help. It means researching the under-reported local races and sharing the results with neighbors who want to vote but don't know the candidates. It means making get-out-the-vote phone calls, and registration drives in friendly territory.
I have heard this accusation a lot lately. Eventually, I went and actually looked up what happened. I have come to the conclusion that your accusation is dishonest. A simple google for "obama" and "rezko" turns up thousands of stories, but here is a representative one.
For those who, like me, tend not to follow all the political scandals, here is a summary. Rezko and Obama bought adjacent parcels of land. Obama's parcel had a house on it; Rezko's was undeveloped. These two parcels had previously belonged to the same person, who had decided to split their property and sell it in two parts. Some time later, Obama wanted to expand his property, so he bought a slice of Rezko's land. I have not seen any indications that Obama bought the land for anything less than a fair price; in fact, I read an article showing that Rezko made a decent profit on the land but I can't find that article right now.
Don't you hate meta-sigs?
Seriously, a tie-breaking vote only ever comes up about once a year. It's barely ever an issue, considering how many votes congress passes.
And congress is only lame duck because Neo-conservatives have set an all-time record for filibusters, and because Bush will veto everything the Dems do get through. They're trying to cause what seems like a shutdown of Congress, and then blame the Dems for it -- and the public is completely buying it. I tried to argue this same point to someone else, and was only met with the response "no, it's because the Democrats are a bunch of useless idiots." That's almost word for word, and it represents way too many people's thought processes.
Alternate theory: I read a book recently, called "Team of Rivals", about Abraham Lincoln's presidency. This is a book that Obama claims has influenced him heavily, especially his vision for his own presidency.
Lincoln could have chosen yes-men for his cabinet. Inexperienced men would be grateful for their positions, and feel less qualified to disagree with their boss. Instead, he gave very prominent positions (State, Treasury, War, etc.) to the very men he had defeated in the Republican nomination fight. Lincoln, having served only one term in the House, was about as inexperienced as presidents came. For much of his first term, critics within his own party consoled themselves with the false assumption that the Secretary of State was actually pulling the strings.
All that infighting led to quite a few ego-driven disputes that Lincoln had to step in and resolve. It also led to an atmosphere where doubts were aired, and where issues got brought up and resolved before decisions were made.
The fact is, Obama knew full well that tapping an experienced, opinionated foreign policy wonk with decades more senate experience would highlight his inexperience. If he was feeling really insecure, he could have gone with a one-termer like Tom Kaine or Jim Webb. If he wanted to surround himself with yes-men, he could find a VP whose views more closely mirrored his own. I hope Obama really does try to build a Lincolnish presidency, where the (sometimes very public) infighting usually led to better choices.
Biden seems like a good start.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!