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Obama Admin Fights Missing White House Email Lawsuit
DesScorp writes "The AP reports that the Obama administration has picked up where the Bush administration left off on the missing White House email issue by trying to have a lawsuit dismissed that would have kept investigating whether or not email was still missing. Two advocacy groups suing the Executive Office of the President expressed disappointment with the Obama administration's actions. Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, noted that President Barack Obama on his first full day in office called for greater transparency in government. The Justice Department 'apparently never got the message' from Obama, Blanton said."
I don't think people quite got what "YES WE CAN" really meant. They didn't read the "FUCK YOU OVER" at the end that was implied.
They didn't get the email.
Does anyone seriously believe the excuses as to how the emails went 'missing'?. Even if they deleted the emails there would be numerous copies on the backup tapes.
Is this the "concession" to the republicans for the stimulus package?
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Who would have to do the work hunting down the "missing" emails? If the task falls to Obama's staff who weren't even there during the whole Bush thing, then I can't really blame him. If you took on a new job, would you like to be told that rather than focus on the tasks that they were hired to do, instead your staff was going to have to digging around through your predecessors crap to try to find something that may or may not be there?
Who would have to do the work hunting down the "missing" emails? If the task falls to Obama's staff who weren't even there during the whole Bush thing, then I can't really blame him. If you took on a new job, would you like to be told that rather than focus on the tasks that they were hired to do, instead your staff was going to have to digging around through your predecessors crap to try to find something that may or may not be there?
they can hire extra IT staff to do the job.
See, job creation!
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I kinda like leaving it the courts. If it does go to court and a decision is rendered, it might help stop future sneaky behavior. Wishful thinking, I know, but it'd offer better protection than just capitulating would.
Now with tint control!
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I don't think people quite got what "YES WE CAN" really meant. They didn't read the "FUCK YOU OVER" at the end that was implied.
I've not exactly come out with enthusiastic support for Obama, but I think in this case the administration is doing the right thing. I do not believe the Presidency should be tracked to the extent that it is, because it undermines the ability of the President to do his or her job. Judge any President by how many bucks are in your pocket, and whether or not the country is at war. Keeping track of every little detail and responding to every subpoena only weakens the President. WE on the right wing hated the way the left continually harassed Bush, and although we know the left would never reciprocate on any showing of principal or good faith, we still must uphold our own conservative principal that two wrongs do not make a right. Just because the left screamed bloody murder about email and the Cheney energy task force does not entitle us to scream bloody murder about email and the stimulus package. These are petty debates and if we are to have a genuine democracy, we should judge programs more by their efficacy and trust that the Constitution was right in the powers it gave to the President, and not the far more limited powers imagined that he has today. If we are to live by a Hamiltonian Presidency, then we should die by it as well.
This is my sig.
The new Administration has fallen far short of a lot of people's expectations, including mine. Two points though. One, it's been only a month. And two, if you consider the situation that they have been handed, I think they are at least trying to do best that they can. I can't comment on the e-mail case specifically, but I have done a lot of reading on the black hole of illegally held terrorism suspects. In that case, they have two choices: bring lawsuits against a greater part of the current government and past governments involved, or do the right thing from here on out.
Personally, I would love to see every senior officer kicked out in disgrace over what they have done to American principle. Even if it's often violated in secret, at least we could pretend that we had some moral standards. But when the President and Vice President are ordering torture, renditions, and even assassinations, the chain of command is simply doing it's job. If the new Administration spent years wringing the necks of officers following orders, would the chain of command still work?
Perhaps if the economic situation weren't so bad, there could be a good year of congressional hearings, where dirty laundry is thrown on the table and people who deserve it are thrown in jail. And sure, the economic crisis may be something that the Obama Administration is intentionally overplaying in order to have some breathing room on everything else. They're not stupid, so they either believe the situation is that dire, or they are pretending to for political purposes.
For the sake of argument, imagine if you bought out a poorly run company. You may find mountains of incriminating papers, a staff that was half corrupted, and accountants who deserve to be set on fire. But if you're to turn this company around, would the smart thing to do be to march them all into the street for a mob lynching, or quietly and over time reform the company without completely ruining it's reputation in the process? The absolutely right thing to do is probably bankrupt the company and start over. It may be that in the current steaming pile of shit situation that the Bush dynasty has left us, re-forming the government is correct, but reforming the government is prudent.
we experienced something similar after an opposition party won the elections for the first time in 70 years. One would expect all corruption would be wiped out, but it didn't happen (mainly because the then candidate president promised not to fire people just because there was a change in the admin). It's OBVIOUS that when the bureaucrats notice they're gonna be watched, they start covering each other's asses.
Why would the people in the Obama administration be any different?
...but I think they are still on auto-pilot. The economy has been the big crisis that they are concentrating on. Once this news item floats up, then it will be interesting to see if there is any response and the kind of response. Past articles point to similar experiences. Certain cases and ruling proceed as planned with no directive (or acknowledgment) given from above yet. I presume once he sets his sights on this in the news, the direction will be reversed. But the again I might be naive.
if ANYONE had ANYTHING on Bush he would have been impeached a long time ago...
This tells me that they are all corrupt, we NEED a viable third (or more) political party(ies)!
Namely someone who respects the Constitution.
Every president since the concept of executive privilege has fought tooth and nail for it. This includes defending your predecessor's use of it. Regardless of intent, Obama could be hurt by a ruling against the previous administration.
Slashdot articles about Obama are hilarious. There's always the initial, hysterical article about how Obama is doing something oh-so-terrible (e.g. killing net neutrality). Then, some days or weeks later (if we're lucky) there will be a followup article calmly stating that the previous article was overreacting (e.g. nothing against net neutrality in the stimulus bill).
Remember all those complains about the stimulus package being full of pork? Then we discover that the supposed "pork" is actually money for schools and Internet access.
I have no doubt that this effect is replaying itself yet again. It's a good sign that there are so few real scandals that we have to invent our own, but a bad sign that we are so eager to be distracted by scandal.
The U.S. government is VERY corrupt. Bush administration officials [...]
I know /. news tends to be a bit behind the times, but I would have thought folks would have noticed by now that Bush isn't part of the U.S. government any more.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
His appointees in the executive branch, his Supreme Court appointments, and the federal bureaucracies he guided most certainly are. They've been battening down the hatches for the last six months or so to protect themselves and continue their current programs and policies. Opening them up is not going to be easy.
So basically, all of the the talk of transparency was lip service, either that - or they have been made aware of what the content of those emails will show.
Obama is showing hypocrisy in record time, he's barely been in a month. It's not like he is reneging on a campaign promise, it sure makes it seem like practically his ENTIRE stated message about transparency in government was total bullshit.
I wanted Ron Paul, and I think that anybody who understands how our government really functions these days, the constitution, the lessons of history as they relate to empires and our debt based Federal Reserve manipulated economy who got a chance to hear his message likely did too...
Unfortunately I think the current state of the economy and it's effect on the day to day lives of most Americans is spec-fuckin-tacular compared to where it's headed - We're following the path of the Weimar Republic here, and guess how that turned out...
I live right next door to independence hall - it's literally something I see when I walk outside of my home every morning; I see that, and the eternal flame which burns at the mass graves of al of the unknown revolutionary solders buried in Washington Sq ....it's really sad, and sadness is what I feel every time I see these reminders of our history and founding...our empire is crumbling and most of the people on the street don't even know what the word "empire" means and how it applies to America today and are more interested in some Hip Hop MTV retard beating his girlfriend or what happened on TV last night. We don't need to be an empire, empires always end one way.
After Obama won (and out of him and McCain) I figured he would be better choice out of the two because at least he was saying he wanted to limit executive power and was all about openness, etc, etc ad infinitum - I knew the guy was a politician, but given the passion with which he seemed infused with he seemed to have some integrity....I guess we'll see how much he really does....
Right now think the best thing people can do is support the states rights movement - 20 states are taking action to formally remind the federal government of the limits of their power under the 10th Amendment, 20 states are re-asserting sovereignty under the 10th amendment - There is some great stuff going on in New Hampshire also - it seems they really do want to 'live free or die' there...; PA rep Sam Rohrer is heavily active in promoting these resolutions , and it's very important:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8bbrXnYJOo
If you are concerned about what the federal government is doing - make sure to support the resolutions, in the state, in the house and senate by contacting your reps.
bait and switch....?
Believe everything in a book? No. But, how about the newspapers? In the days immediately after the World Trade Center collapsed - how many planes were in the skies, departing America? And, who was aboard that plane? The Bush and Saud families are indeed much to cozy, and questions beg to be asked.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
My personal opinion is that the world has more serious issues to deal with than a witchhunt into the past. I'd rather the new administration be forward-looking, constructive, and collaborative instead of backward-focused, destructive, and contentious. Difficult times call for solving present problems in the future, not solving past problems in the present. The election did the latter.
The screw will turn, my friend, and your party won't always be in power.
That's the point: deterrent. If crimes were committed by the Bush administration then they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law to send a strong message to the next Republican administration that the law must be obeyed.
Then we'll see how much you like all the investigations.
Bring it on. While I strongly believe that Obama is far better than the Republican alternative, I have no love for Obama either. If Obama breaks the law, punish him to the full extent.
Try replacing them with someone who has actually done productive work, not lawyers.
As a matter of fact, the past half-century or so has seen an influx of non-lawyers into the legislature. The predictable result: Poorly written, unjust, often unconstitutional laws. Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act FTW.
And you... you want more of this?
Let's break it down: Lawyer. Legal. Legislature.
Please consider thinking before you parrot your next ignorant truism.
Be well,
Qrlx
How so? Particularly with regard to government operations.
And yet you have not established that secrecy is a necessity for honesty.
But I can give you MANY examples of secrecy being a necessity for DISHONESTY.
Why would that be necessary?
And that makes sense as long as you agree with every decision made.
Fuck that.
This is our elected government. Not our king.
So I can vote for someone ... who then becomes unquestionable.
Fuck that, too.
They're elected officials. This is not an autocracy.
Someone appointed/hired by Obama's administration.
If you were hired in the civilian sector and one of the things you sold yourself on to your new boss was your belief in email recovery, wouldn't you expect to be asked to do just that?
Get a job in IT. That's what I have to go through ALL THE TIME.
What decisions were made.
Why were those specific decisions made.
How were they implemented.
Why were they implemented in that specific way.
And yes, a LOT of it DOES involve going through my predecessor's email and notes.
If I am hired to recover the email, I work on recovering the email. Even if I have to recommend bringing in a recovery specialist. There are 300 million people in the USofA. It shouldn't be that difficult to find a few people to handle this. Instead, he's arguing against even TRYING.
he now claims he wants to reduce the deficit by 2/3 by increasing the tax on the employers. (Who do you think the "rich" are anyway???)
Why shouldn't the rich pay more taxes than the poor?
Haven't you ever heard of Robin Hood? You do realize he was one of the good guys, right?
With Bush, we reduced taxes on the rich. Did their money trickle down? Not so much. Instead, they used it to inflate a huge stock market bubble. Now, everyday Americans see their retirement savings cut in half.
Seems like not taxing the rich was a huge mistake.
(The same mistake was made before the Crash of '29 and the Great Depression, though other mistakes were made too.)
So I can vote for someone ... who then becomes unquestionable.
That's a Republic, exactly that. You vote for the best and brightest to run the country within the allowed scope of their powers for some limited term, and they can do whatever they want, without harassment. Yeah, that is exactly what a Republic is.
What you are after is a genuine Democracy, where, steps towards giving the public all the information they want leads to some sort of a national voting on every issue. Dude, that's crazy. Mob rule is pretty stupid...
Just let the damn President and the elected officials do their job. In a Republic, they are elected with their powers to some extent take a bunch of shit from the mob during the daily grind in order to protect the rights of the minority. If there's a bit of a backroom give and take needed to make the system tick.
Ever since we have had all of these subpoenas and inquests into the Presidency, the country has had nothing but political infighting and a rather sharp decline. I mean, what has all of this conflict accomplished? Not a damn thing, but national ruin and a bunch of finger pointing and blogs dredging up email.
I'd say, take all the leaders of all the corporations, all the governors and mayors and senators and congressman, and the president, and lock these assholes into a room, throw away the tape recorders and transcribers and let them not come out until they have a real plan for economic recovery. Right now, there's just too many damned lawyers involved for anyone to communicate honestly and honesty is what is needed.
Republics work.
This is my sig.
Believe everything in a book? No. But, how about the newspapers? In the days immediately after the World Trade Center collapsed - how many planes were in the skies, departing America? And, who was aboard that plane? The Bush and Saud families are indeed much to cozy, and questions beg to be asked.
I'll bet Elvis was on there, too. And Jim Morrison.
If you don't like the way they lead, then run for office yourself.
Doubt I'd pass the piss test, but I will seek out and vote for people who do believe in an open government. The government is our servant, not our master. And remember, he just signed the civil rights act. He didn't write it. His comment? "We just lost the South". I would venture he had no choice. A veto would have probably been overridden. And maybe you don't remember Nixon as well as I do. My message is, if you want want to operate in secret, go somewhere else. Don't want you here.
What?
Liberals regard Warren G Harding as the worst President ever. He was the epitome of smoke filled room deals .. getting the Presidential nomination in one, and his own Presidency was just mired in scandal, from womanizing, conflicts of interests, and bribes. Were he around today, he'd be impeached a week after swearing the oath. But....
During his administration, he cut taxes, deregulated, and also cut spending to match, and the economy boomed. Unemployment fell to a record 1.9%, a record which STILL stands.
This is my sig.
He was a quasi-good guy in an economic situation so different from the current one as to make it incomparable, and when the 'rightful king' stepped back in he quite quickly stopped dicking around. Not to mention that it wasn't a stock market bubble, it was a housing bubble, which caused everything else to crash. If the housing bubble hadn't been created in the first place, the market still probably would have been above 10,000 points, but since it did crash it wiped out all the major money dealers, which caused the disturbances since.
We are electing politicians. Not princes and kings.
And now you're confusing oversight with "harassment".
Your "logic" is self contradictory.
By your "logic".
They were elected to do a job.
Once they are elected, they can do whatever they want to do.
And no matter what they are doing, the public must not bother them about what they are doing.
Even if what they are doing is the opposite of what the people who voted for them asked them to do.
Fuck that. Fuck princes and kings. I'm watching my elected officials. I'm watching what they're doing. If I don't approve, I let them know.
You can keep your princes and kings.
Seems like not taxing the rich was a huge mistake.
No, the mistake is claiming that the rich aren't being taxed.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8885/EffectiveTaxRates.shtml
In 2005, the top 20% paid 86.3% of federal income taxes, and 68.7% of all federal taxes (social security, individual and corporate income, excise). The average pre-tax income in that quintile was $231,500, although that was adjusted for household size. See the footnotes for an explanation.
For the top 10%, it was 72.7% and 54.7%, on average pre-tax income of $339,100.
For the top 5%, it was 60.7% and 43.8%, on average pre-tax income of $520,200.
And for the top 1%, it was 38.8% and 27.6%, on average pre-tax income of $1,558,500.
The same URL provides information about effective tax rates, which range from 25.2% for the top 20% to 31.4% for the top 1%, when accounting for all taxes.
In comparison, the lowest 20% paid 0.9% of all federal taxes, on average pre-tax income of $15,800. The facts are a lot different than the propaganda.
2000 years from now we'll probably still be talking about Nazi Germany. So your "obviously" is 100% wrong.
Simply being a subject of discussion does NOT mean anything beyond being a subject of discussion.
Once again, you are wrong.
Well, thinking about it, lawyers do live in a very specific world: services industry, high income, mainly white... People with other backgrounds probably would have a different take on many things.
PLus, I personnally see lawyers as a necessary evil, not as leaders with a vision and the guts+drive to make it happen.
Leaders can hire lawyers. The reverse is, alas, not true.
Did I *think* enough for you ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Meet your new boss... same as the old boss...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
I keep hearing about how Obama represents a "Mixed Bag".
Whatever. The whole show keeps moving forward. Keep an eye out for the "Amero".
And when the rocks start falling, people will be willing to follow this president to the shelters. Just remember, that barbed wire is for our protection. Don't be alarmed by the fact that it's facing inwards. I'm sure there will be a good rationalization for that.
-FL
Sorry, but there are different qualifications needed for two different jobs.
Just because I can write C doesn't mean I'm the world's best GUI designer. Just because someone speaks legalese doesn't mean they are going to make great laws.
They may make well-written laws, but that doesn't make them good.
Robin Hood. The tale of "Richard the Lionheart" taxing the people to death so that he could have his Crusade. While his poor bro had to deal with people being upset over it. John had to pay from the Crusades at Richards orders, so the money that Robin Hood took was money that was to help the people. That is the tale of the evil Robin Hood.
Your well-formatted, statistically dense post conveniently glossed over the fact that income taxes are not reflective of the entire tax burden.
Care to have another go at it?
"if an email is deleted before the backup process runs there will be no backup"
Have they subpoenaed SMARTech Corporation for the backups for this email server which would have copies of any emails that passed through it. Backups are maintained (usually on tape) as part of routine maintenance, to be used in the event of a hardware failure. The tapes are rotated until they near end-of-life and then stored somewhere off-site. To claim there are no records is disingenuous in the extreme.
"Do you have any idea how much of a bitch it is to keep backups of gigabytes or terabytes of data constantly preserved and updated? How much time it takes to make an image and put it on tapes?"
...
Use a tape carousel
let him get ahold of those who he had appointed in those posts. often tail wants to behave differently from what head wants.
Read radical news here
Lets make sure they guarantee perpetual employment for themselves and their peers by writing every law so that a normal person has to hire a lawyer to translate it.
Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here?
The Constitution doesn't require a lawyer to translate it, only a bit of average High School education. See the point?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Obama is showing hypocrisy in record time, he's barely been in a month.
He has barely been in a month. And inside that month, I've heard more final-sounding verdicts on his presidency than in any new president's time in the last 16 years of following politics. He's just another politician. He doesn't care about privacy. Or the constitution. Or transparency. His talk of bipartisanship is empty. He doesn't understand economics. He's vindicated Bush by having any measure of continuity. He's responsible for the next terrorist attack. All in four weeks.
I think in another 2-4 years, it'll be time to come to conclusions about these things. Not that there's anything wrong with asking questions now, but anybody who's somehow arrived at a *conclusion* about Obama's presidency this early in the game is jumping to them, not thinking them through.
I also think it's worth pointing out that some of the things he's promised have tension between each other -- for example, bipartisanship and transparency regarding the previous administration (that might in fact be part of what's going on here, since the transparency policies regarding Obama's own administration seem promising so far). An unsubtle view would be that this tension between two principles always implies that a politician who has stated commitment to both is simply dissembling, but when you get down to the business of leadership, just like engineering, you're often (if not usually) working with tradeoffs between values that may each have their worthy points. Maybe I'm different from a lot of other voters, but I picked Obama precisely because I thought he seemed like he had the kind of mind that could navigate things this way, not because I thought he was a pure avatar of an ideology.
So far, the only thing I'm solidly unhappy with is his FISA reversal (and that was a senate decision) and decision to federally fund international clinics that would use abortion as a family planning method. Everything else looks like he's considering tradeoffs.
Tweet, tweet.
I keep hearing about how Obama represents a "Mixed Bag".
Obama & Biden are more of a "salt and pepper" team, if you ask me.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I'd argue that the whole point of finding them is to pursue and enforce a sense of accountability. If people that get into office are going to do any of the completely lame things that was done by the Bush administration they should be prepared to answer for it. Otherwise, it's a free-for-all.
If there was a genuine investigation of the last 8 years...
I know perfectly well that that is why there will be no investigations. And yes the dems are just as responsible for the last eight year as anybody. The failure is indeed bipartisan. Again, our fault. We put them there and kept them there. And if we did the responsible thing by demanding an end to so much secrecy, we wouldn't having this "meltdown". But here we are with some people saying we should just them keep doing what we have been doing all along. Don't mistake me for any kind of democrat. I like them even less than the old republicans we use to have before Falwell showed up on the scene. And besides, both are nothing more than factions of the same party.
What?
Having said "This is a Republic, not a Democracy" I'll point out that in a republic the leaders are not necessarily elected. All that's needed for a republic to exist is that the head of state not be a monarch.
I mean, what has all of this conflict accomplished?
It shows the rest of the world that people can question their government and don't need to take thinks on "faith" or at the point of a gun.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
And besides, both are nothing more than factions of the same party.
Sigh... you are right.
I'm just angry and frustrated and the awful truth is that we elected these assholes because we wanted them. We all wanted our houses to go up in value and take the money and spend it. We all wanted poor people to own their own homes and we all know that the budget was a gimmick laden mess and the value of our real estate was a fraud. I'll give Obama credit for putting the wars and other expenses back onto the official budget so that we don't have "federal deficit, not counting the wars", a gimmick in its own right.
I mean, if you really wanted to benefit the American working man, you'd cut off the flow of imports to put him to work while simultaneously supporting the unions so that rich people won't just pocket monopolistic profits. It's a system that worked pretty well for the USA before...
I agree about Jerry Falwell, but I also think Reagan's decision to adopt free trade as part of his reform, and Clinton's decision to stick with it, is the real root cause of our present economic mess, and we will not fix it until we get rid of it.
This is my sig.
Your well-formatted, statistically dense post conveniently glossed over the fact that income taxes are not reflective of the entire tax burden.
Is there any other federal tax burden that the poor and middle class, as a whole, bear more heavily than the rich?
Sales tax is local. Property tax is local. Even vehicle tax is, seeing how it's levied by the DMV of each state, local.
At the federal level, the rich have been getting shafted on the income tax and haven't even been getting a word of thanks for supporting the rest of the country (federally-supported-program-wise, which is most of the welfare program in U.S.).
Yes, perhaps the poor pay more sales tax. But sales tax is not part of the presidential (or even congressional) platform.
the real national crisis was a Fannie Mae house of cards that the American left created?
Citation needed.
If there was a genuine investigation of the last 8 years, half the Democrats in Congress ought to be executed.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
I promise any Republican that there will be no trials, only murders, for what these people have done to this country.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
..that we can believe in.
Huh?
Citation needed
There's a lot out there. If you want to follow the WSJ, you can go there through the back issues, all the way back to when Fannie Mae, during the time of Clinton way back when, announced it would make a trillion dollars worth of home loans available due to some new fancy instrument. I remember hearing it in a bar and actually bought a round of drinks because I thought it was a great thing to put everyone into houses. I guess I still do, but damn the WSJ the very next day said it was a stupid idea, and have been saying it ever since.
And half of the Republicans if you want to be that way.
Yeah, well, you would be right. I mean, I remember Reagan promising that free trade would improve American companies and instead, over the last thirty years, it has utterly destroyed them. And Republicans still keep pushing that free trade button with every dictatorship to all we have left is our secretary of state heading off to China to go publicly beg for money. That's pathetic.
And, really, its criminal, that a political party that waves the flag as much as Republicans do doesn't seem to remember that at least some of those stars and stripes are for the Americans who used to build the cars and trucks and computers and aircraft and guns and every other thing this country used to build.
So you want to be part of the problem?
Yeah I do. Lock and load! :-) Just kidding.
This is my sig.
I suggest that, rather than taxing earned income, we exempt it and tax only unearned income.
That way, the more you work the more money you keep. If you make $20,000 in retail, you get to keep all of it. If you make $250,000 being a stock broker, you keep it. If you sit around on your ass waiting cashing in capitol gains (which means you sold a stock and are taking money _out_ of the system), living off the teat of dividends (again, money which is _not_ being reinvested directly by the company) or interest, you pay a flat rate...say 20%.
Businesses make up for the slack by paying a paltry 1-3% of gross receipts.
Or are you trying to defend those who don't work for a living?
I might note - and you'll no doubt agree as a fiscal conservative - that retirement is not a basic "right" guaranteed in the constitution. You should be careful not to rest on either taxing work (wages) or granting the undeserving a free ride (retirees who haven't saved enough) - as both hard work and paying your own way are planks in the Republican platform.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
if you really wanted to benefit the American working man, you'd cut off the flow of imports
If you really wanted to help the working American then you would support free trade, not protectionism.
It's a system that worked pretty well for the USA before...
When was this? Certainly not when protectionists passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which led to the Great Depression.
I agree about Jerry Falwell, but I also think Reagan's decision to adopt free trade as part of his reform, and Clinton's decision to stick with it, is the real root cause of our present economic mess, and we will not fix it until we get rid of it.
Perhaps you haven't heard yet but communism failed. Okay, so maybe you'll say you know that but will you also admit no president since World War 2 supported free trade? Not one, not Reagan, not Clinton, and certainly not Bush II.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
US president promises change, turns out to be a douche just like the last one! more at 11.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
This sounds like more a continuation of the policy "the current president will do all he can to defend previous administrations from any and all legal action [for the primary example, see Nixon being preemptively pardoned].
It may not be his current policy, but I'll bet he was told he's got to defend the last guy's policy from any legal challenges. Otherwise, every time the White House changed party hands, the previous president would be up Shit Creek.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Your message is one of hate. Go back. Leave alone. Pray some.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Social Security is a Federal tax, and it's actually regressive. Medicare is a Federal tax. Fuel tax is partially Federal tax.
I can't say for certain, but I think at least some of the telephone tax is Federal. Passport fees, 9/11 security fees, federal tobacco tax; Americans pay a lot of Federal taxes, and not just on April 15th.
On the notion that the rich are getting shafted, let's consult the CIA World Factbook:
Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.
If that's your definition of getting shafted, sign me up!
Here we go again... Just another lie! Where is the transperency he promised? He made A LOT of promises and hasn't kept ONE yet.... The global elite really are pulling this guys strings worse than Bush....
Can one of the Obaaaaaamanoids tell us ONE promise he made he has kept????
This is starting to remind me of the Ministry song "Lies, Lies, Lies"..
"America has been hijacked
Not by Al Qaeda, not by Bin Laden
But by a group of tyrants
That should be of great concern to all Americans
We're on a mission to bring out the facts
You got your stories but they all have cracks
Misinformation, lies and deceit
What made you think that we were all asleep
Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies X3
Surpise surprise"
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Lynching Bush Administration worthless to Obama right now. Wait until 2010-2011, THEN let the dirt start to be dug up about Bush & Co. When the public finds out it was much worse than we though, it will hurt the Republicans that much more. Welcome to politics.
Your average person with a high school education can't read the constitution for beans. At least, not in the way you would expect.
For example, a mere glance at the first two amendments indicates they're unclear:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
What exactly is meant by freedom of speech there? Why? If the government can't make a law abridging the freedom of speech, then how about the freedom to write? What constitutes the freedom of the press?
For that matter, how many people know what a prefatory clause is, let alone how to interpret it and its relevance to the following badly-constructed statement?
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
I live and operate a small business in a municipality with a gross receipts tax, and it blows as both a business owner and as a consumer.
Otherwise, every time the White House changed party hands, the previous president would be up Shit Creek.
You're too cynical, in this case it's only those that were in the wrong lane to begin with that would end up Shit Creek.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
every time the White House changed party hands, the previous president would be up Shit Creek.
That's how it should be, not just the White House, but all of government. Sunshine laws are good.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It means choosing between what is urgent and essential and what is disruptive and peripheral.
There is a banking crisis to be dealt with.
Big decisions to be made about financial relief for state governments, home foreclosures. Unemployment Insurance. Health Care. Education. Infrastructure. There is a federal budget to be passed.
There is Gitmo. Afghanistan.
North Korea. China. The Middle East.
The Bush administration is discredited and defunct. There is nothing to be gained by picking over the corpse.
Feel free to state something more exciting whenever you're up to it.
IMHO, the future of this country will be far better served if Obama spends time putting in rock solid data retention policies for his and future administrations, then it would be served by spending time digging through the mess that was George W.
I would like to go along with that, but it is necessary to send a message that the next "George W" (and there will be one, if we really don't already have one) won't get away with it. Kinda what justice is about. This George W was able to do what he did because Nixon walked away scott free, with full bennies. Let's see if we can't prevent a third occurrence during my lifetime.
Oh, and Hulu doesn't work here. That's another bit of openness we need to demand. This proxy thing is a pain in the ass.
You know, for those of us who lived through Johnson and Nixon, some of us find all this secrecy is just another example of our failure to learn from the past, especially such a recent past. To put it nicely, fuck that.
What?
Sigh... you are right.
I'm just angry and frustrated and the awful truth is that we elected these assholes because we wanted them.
As an outsider I'd suggest you have another look at your last statement.
In my opinion the biggest enemy of the US democratic process is the financing of the elections.
Put a limit of say $25.- p/a on any contribution a single -voter- can make and you'd be back at a level playing field.
I hope you realise what I meant by -voter-, that does exclude anything/anyone that has no voting rights.
Your present government was not elected by the people but by the money they got.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
This is another populist panacea and like term limits it is political nonsense.
All it does is shift power to the Washington lobbyist and permanent committee staff - those with expert knowledge in the subject matter and decades of institutional experience in drafting legislation and guiding it through the Congress.
When you are building a bridge you hire an engineer.
When you are governing a country you need the politician and you need the lawyer. Social engineers by profession.
The geek writes code that guides the actions of a machine.
The Congressman writes laws that shapes the lives of 300 million people - including that of the geek himself, of course.
Tell me why you want a pro on the one job and an amateur on the other. Why the geek is "productive" and the legislator is not.
with any other president this would be true, but so far it seems like obama is still campaigning.
lose != loose
In my opinion the biggest enemy of the US democratic process is the financing of the elections.
No, the problem is influence the money has over the voters. Nobody is forcing them to vote for the guy with most money. And if they don't look past what mass media spoon feeds them, then that too is their own fault. Let them spend and contribute all they want. It's up to us to see past it and vote on the things that actually matter. Education is the key, not more legislation.
What?
Social Security is a Federal tax, and it's actually regressive. Medicare is a Federal tax. Fuel tax is partially Federal tax.
You will note that GP did include those taxes (well, maybe not the gas tax, but do you have any evidence that the rich, who would be driving more than the poor not to mention use it more for their business, do not pay more than the poor?) and it still came out 20% of the population paid 70% of those taxes.
If you don't like social security and medicare, by all means repeal them—as the member of the generation who will not receive a single benefit before these programs collapse, I heartily support it.
Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households.
Have you ever thought about whether they deserved all that income? Of course they did! The Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and on smaller scale, successful restaurant/shop/other business owners earned all those gains, and more, given the levels of taxation before the Reagan era.
Those who have grown dependent on the government handouts, on the other hand, did not deserve a single penny of those handouts.
If being rich is so hard they can change that if they choose.
'Careful what you wish for. The day when you make it so hard that the rich decide they do not want to be rich with all the taxation ... is the day America collapses.
You can oppress the rich only so much before being rich no longer makes sense to these rational people.
In Soviet AmeriKKKa, Rose Revolution has YOU!
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Read it again, and follow the link to read all the details about tv CBO's methodology. The second set of percentages include ALL federal taxes, including income, payroll, and excise taxes. There's no need for me to "have another go" when the only problem was your failure of reading comprehension.
You are describing a symptom, not a cause.
The rich provide the bulk of the federal tax dollars because they have the bulk of the country's money. You can argue about the percent of income taxed based on your bracket (forever) but posting numbers like yours only show where the money is, and do not illuminate any percent of income taxed disparities.
This will show you what you really wanted to describe, the disparity in income tax percent:
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/03/16/average-income-pretax-vs-aftertax-2005/
As you can see, the super rich get taxed fairly hard.
However, look at the differences in gross income pre and post tax. The inequality in after tax income is so massive between the top 1% and just about anyone else, that I have no problem taxing them 40% and redistributing their wealth.
Go google for income inequality chart/graph. The rich have been getting richer, so I'm not feeling too sorry for them.
If you sit around on your ass waiting cashing in capitol gains (which means you sold a stock and are taking money _out_ of the system)
I don't understand this. If I sell a bunch of stock for a gain, then someone had to buy that stock, so how is the money taken out of the system? Yes, I took some money, but someone else put some in.
The screw will turn, my friend, and your party won't always be in power.
That's the point: deterrent. If crimes were committed by the Bush administration then they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law to send a strong message to the next Republican administration that the law must be obeyed.
I agree, but believe it should send a strong message to any administration.
Then we'll see how much you like all the investigations.
Bring it on. While I strongly believe that Obama is far better than the Republican alternative, I have no love for Obama either. If Obama breaks the law, punish him to the full extent.
Precisely my point. The party itself does not matter. They should all be held accountable. I may have voted for Obama to be in office, but I never voted for him to have a "get out of jail free" card.
The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
Well educated lawyers seem to lead the pack in willfully wrong interpretations of the constitution.
[...] I have no problem taxing them 40% and redistributing their wealth.
At least you are honest about it, rather than claiming the "rich" are somehow paying less taxes than everyone else.
Or rather, in fact, the constitution simply is not clear.
It's intent and it's meaning are not clear, and this is perfectly obvious from its historically variable court interpretation.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
1. govern
2. engage in partisan vindictiveness
the job of the presidency, believe it or not, is to govern the people. committed partisans meanwhile, from the right and the left, see nothing in the presidency except the ultimate bully pulpit in which to engage in partisan warfare
so obama is choosing the high road, he is letting past indiscretions slide, and he is focusing on uniting the american people rather than engaging in the same tired disgusting internecine warfare, plenty of which you see in other comments in this thread, both those aimed at republicans, and those aimed at obama
basically, fuck you you fucking partisans, from the right, and the left. please choke on your own bile. its all we see coming from your mouths anyway. nothing positive. nothing aimed at inclusiveness and uniting. just words aimed at dividing along tired typical stereotypical ideological divides
i'm glad obama is choosing not to sink to your pathetic blind level, and focus on actually governing the people, which is what he has to do, rather than feed into your pathetic drama queen soap operas
there is an aspect of american political life which is so blind, so braindead, so kneejerk "defend everything from the right, attack everything from the left", or visa versa, that there is nothing you add at ALL of any value, to any discussion. just please, shut the fuck up, blind partisans of the left, blind partisans of the right. and that includes large does of the comments in this thread: SHUT THE FUCK UP. you don't help, and you are extremely tired and tedious to all who hear your typical braindead words. say something positive and inclusive with those on the other side of the aisle, OR SAY NOTHING AT ALL
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Sorry, your Honor, but it's an Exchange email system."
"Oh, all right then. CASE DISMISSED."
Exchange: Your solution for Plausible Deniablilty.
Regards;
I suggest that, rather than taxing earned income, we exempt it and tax only unearned income.
Or are you trying to defend those who don't work for a living?
My father was self-employed. For decades, when others had holidays, he worked, when others relaxed on weekends, he worked, when others finished their work when the clock said they could, he finished work when the job was done. For decades, when others funded their lifestyles on their credit cards, he and my mother spent frugally, saved and invested. Now, in their retirement, the value of their assets and therefore their income is destroyed by who? Bankers, government bureaucrats and financiers who all have jobs. The wealth is being taken from my parents, who worked and saved, and given to those who relaxed and borrowed. Where's the justice in that? Your plan, in this case, would give the thieves a free pass and tax the victims.
The "unearned income" you want to tax ought to be the basis of everyone's retirement.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Well, actually if you read Zimbardo's book. He was thinking "Cool! What exciting results I'm getting", but his girlfriend (now wife) threatened to dump him if he didn't stop it right away.
Which reminds me of the other fascinating datapoint from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. Women were equally likely as men to be victims of violence, but 500 times less likely to be the perpetrators. Read that and weep. 500 hundred times better than men.
Want to make America better? Listen to your women.
You do realize that Treason is a specific legal terms and requires specific actions to have taken place with the witness of at least two people right?
You can't prosecute anyone in the administration for treason relating to acts of the administration. And you can't change the law without changing the constitution to have the legal term treason be applied more places or prosecuted easier. It's in the damn constitution for a reason, it's because however catastrophic an administration or government's official can be, you can always call it treason to some extent. This is the reason why treason was specifically limited to levying war against the US or the States in the US, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort and requires testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. Simply running the country into the ground is no where near treason.
Yeah, that's one of the things I never could understand is how we let email get stuffed into some archive that only the program that created it can read. Dumb as hell. At worst, it should use a standard zip archive with the text files like you mentioned inside. Anyway, I was kinda talking more about secrecy in general, the stuff we fought against during Nixon's term. He proved that crime does pay, and quite well. And the subsequent people have learned from his mistake of not burning the tapes. and the voters have learned absolutely nothing from these sordid episodes. So, while the country "heals", criminals roam free, and another one will probably be elected president again. Shame on us for putting up with it.
What?
Tragic plane crash just before he was supposed to testify about it. After several other instances of plane trouble.
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
...just like yesterday. /Get on my knees and pray... ;)
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Who benefits the most from having a stable, working society, the rich or the poor?
The poor. The rich are (generally, although you will always find exceptions) very capable people who will always find a way to get a job done, or make a living, with or without a strong law enforcement, or with or without a strong infrastructure (heck, if there wasn't an infrastructure, the first thing the rich would do is build one and make a profit out of it).
Many of the poor, on the other hand, well, would be dead, if it weren't for the welfare system—after all, isn't that the whole point of the welfare system, for those who do advocate it? (I do not.)
Citation needed.
You pretending that it's business owners who, on their own, created that much value, what about all the lawyers, investment bankers, home flippers, and slum lords? CEOs? I'm sure you can think of others.
It's an opinion; everyone has one, and it doesn't need a citation. If you disagree, well, then you disagree.
I find your logic, that because *some* of the rich people have gotten rich through dishonest means, *all* the rich people need to be taxed to death, very troubling.
I mean, isn't that the same logic you could use to argue that because some Arabs were responsible for terrorism, including 9/11, we should imprison all Arabs and make wars on all Arab nations?
Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? If someone becomes rich by illegal means, then a strong law enforcement should bring justice to them. If someone became rich by taking unreasonable risks, well, perhaps we can start righting things by *not* rescuing them when their risky investments fail (the very exact opposite of what the Obama administration is doing).
As for lawyers, well, as hated as they are, they are in that position because they had to go through many, many years of education. Somehow, they thought that education was worth what they would be getting for it, and well, perhaps they are justified in that someone is willing to pay them enough money to repay their cost (real and opportunity) of education many times over. While it is true that America has become an overly litigious society, but those people who sue over truly trivial matters will sue, lawyers or not.
And finally, slum lords do not pay income taxes. That's why they get caught over tax evasion, not any real crimes they committed.
This is a Republic, not a Democracy, and you need to let leaders lead.
These two are not mutual exclusive as you seem to think. ...) are both. The UK is a democracy, but not a republic.
The US (like France, Germany,
You are right in principle.
But practically humans are weak and to take high campaign spending out of the equation would indeed further the level playing field.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Why shouldn't the rich pay more taxes than the poor?
Haven't you ever heard of Robin Hood? You do realize he was one of the good guys, right?
Robin Hood established justice where it didn't exist, such as the illegitimate gains from corrupt officials. He certianly didn't endorse welfare if that is what you mean.
And of course the rich should pay more taxes then the poor, a specific percentage minus a handful deductions (set on something similar to the CPI perhaps) for necessities.
With Bush, we reduced taxes on the rich. Did their money trickle down? Not so much. Instead, they used it to inflate a huge stock market bubble. Now, everyday Americans see their retirement savings cut in half.
Seems like not taxing the rich was a huge mistake.
(The same mistake was made before the Crash of '29 and the Great Depression, though other mistakes were made too.)
What time historically have tax cuts preceded a bubble? Never? How could have the government spent the money better then the people they took it from? A classic example of the broken window fallacy. A tax cut representing a 10% increase in wages can no way, by itself, fund a bubble that pushes house, energy, and consumer goods up to three times their normal value. Where do people get the money to pump up these bubbles, do you think? Saying tax cuts alone causes bubbles is absurd. Where does the money for these bubbles come from then? Credit. What have nearly all the artificial bubbles in history have in common? A policy of easy credit. In 2001 for about a year interest rates were lower then inflation on the CPI. During the great depression, you could purchase stocks on credit, on the presumed future value of the stock!
There was no one thing that caused this, Greenspan and Burnanke are to blame for low intrest rates, and denying there was ever a bubble, even after the fact. Bush is to blame for wanting a policy of easy credit. PELOSI AND THE DO-NOTHINGS have their fair share of ridiculous acts aimed at getting credit out to people who didn't deserve it (the CRA). We had a trade deficit for years just waiting to come back and bite us. Bush finally catalyzed what was already inevitable with the deregulation and tax cuts. But by no means was any one policy responsible for this all, it is an accumulation of many things over the years.
Who are the only countries having a problem right now? Why is it the UK is having problems? They didn't cut taxes. Like all the countries that have problems right now, they do have a central bank, and like most countries cut interest rates to "stimulate" - which is exactly what happened, more then they imagined (they just forgot about the inevitable bust that must follow). The same thing happened during the great depression too, countries without a central bank, or on an independent currency like silver, were least affected.
And if you think taxes alone can solve our budget, you may want to check out Hauser's Law
Wonder what the public key field is for?
I agree with most of what you said (all of it execpt CRA loans were a minor factor; heck all loans were a minor factor until they got leveraged 30-1).
But I fundamentally disagree with the notion that this bubble wasn't foreseen.
Take a look at DHI, CTX, RYL, etc. They peaked in '05, years before the market "realized" something was amiss. These people knew exactly what they were doing. Many Wall Street insiders have stated as much; that it was a game of hot potato, and they knew it, but they kept playing until they all got burned.
If you believe Greenspan's crocodile tears, well, I assure you he's been crying all the way to the bank, ever since the 80s.
Fundamentally it's not a whole lot different from what Enron did. The "genius" of this bubble was that it involved so many players -- the Fed, the financial sector, home builders, Congress -- and it involved so many millions of Americans, and finally it was baked to perfection. Who doesn't believe in the American Dream of owning your own home?
Considering the stakes, it was probably right for the government to blink. Unfortunately it's probably the only sensible thing the government has done in about 35 years of "oversight."
Lets make sure they guarantee perpetual employment for themselves and their peers by writing every law so that a normal person has to hire a lawyer to translate it. Does anyone else see a conflict of interest here? The Constitution doesn't require a lawyer to translate it, only a bit of average High School education. See the point?
I wish I had mod points to give you. So true.
The sin is that we live in a society today where we are practically forced to hire high paid professionals in order to interpret and make freakin' sense of the very laws that govern every faction of our lives and which we are mandated to obey.
"Legalese" is like some kind of secret code to most of us.
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse" makes it even scarier.
I know life is complex but something here is very broken.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I have no doubt that this effect is replaying itself yet again. It's a good sign that there are so few real scandals that we have to invent our own, but a bad sign that we are so eager to be distracted by scandal.
Yeah, there's no doubt this is the same thing as before. Because in TFA written by one of the plaintiffs itself it says that the Motion to Dismiss was filed by the government on January 21, and the National Security Archive is only just now responding to that motion.
January 21, one day after inagration and weeks before Obama's Attorney General was confirmed. Exactly like in the case of the motion to stay in the illegal wiretap lawsuit (that everyone who didn't RTFA went so ballistic over), this motion was not filed as a conscious policy decision by the Obama administration. It was a default continuation of the policies of the Bush DoJ, by Bush DoJ appointees. The paperwork had already been done before Obama took office.
That doesn't mean Obama actually disagrees with Bush on this, and won't try to have the lawsuit dismissed. It does mean that this is in and of itself not indicative of anything other than that a previous President's influence does not immediately end as soon as the next guy takes office.
I love the National Security Archive, I wish them well in their suit (and their response to the motion seems pretty strong). But I think they too should wait to judge Obama's Justice Dept. until after Obama's Justice Dept. actually weighs in on the issue.
The enemies of Democracy are
Linked elsewhere in the thread:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
Tweet, tweet.
but so far it seems like obama is still campaigning
More like he's still drinking the bipartisan kool aid. Why he thinks the party that manufactured a bogus perjury charge against a sitting president will now be reasonable is beyond me.
And beyond that, going after the Busco criminals is not only the right thing to do, it's a political winner. If the Dems really went after Republican lawbreaking, the GOP would soon be joining the Whigs in the dustbin of political history.
Does anyone else besides me think a two-party system absolutely sucks?
Yup, there are plenty of other people that are touting the wrong cure for the disease. Britain, Israel and Italy have multiple parties, and they struggle with corruption and gridlock as much or more than we do. And I call it the "two party red herring" because while you might be limited on the number of practical parties, you are not limited on the number of viewpoints in your candidates, which is the important thing. Was Kucinich on the same page as Hillary on the issues? How about Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani?
Both parties are nothing but rubber stamps for special interest groups that use the iron triangle to get what they want.
And here's what would change if we had a third party: nothing. Our election system is set up so that you have to raise fantastic sums to get elected, which means asking favors, which means those favors will be called in. Until we have all elections publicly financed, it wont matter if you have 2 parties or 200: we'll still have corruption, graft, and back room deals forming policy.
Wow, I love how everyone here wants to blame it all on Bush.
No, really - just search for "burrowed appointees" with Google.
Wrong answer. A larger, more educated middle class means more customers for whatever business you are in or are invested in, and more qualified workers for whatever business you are in or are invested in. There's a reason why Wal-Mart is pushing for a minimum wage increase and why Henry Ford paid his workers a descent wage: they want people to be able to buy their products.
Or, alternatively, a middle class and social safety nets are guillotine insurance. Especially in a country with as many guns as we have.
'Careful what you wish for. The day when you make it so hard that the rich decide they do not want to be rich with all the taxation ... is the day America collapses.
Define "rich". America is enormously competitive - look at all the people that go into sports or on reality shows for the chance of making good money. If we do the sensible thing and bring back the 91% marginal tax rates, the fact that people will be practically limited from owning a dozen homes and 4 Ferrari's will in no way diminish their desire for 3 homes and a Ferrari and a BMW and a Mercedes.
Have you ever thought about whether they deserved all that income? Of course they did! The Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and on smaller scale, successful restaurant/shop/other business owners earned all those gains, and more, given the levels of taxation before the Reagan era.
If the minimum wage had risen at the same rate as CEO pay over the last few decades, it would be over $50 an hour today. If these CEO's are so exceptional, and so worthy of extreme wealth, then where's our exceptional economy?
Do you think it was any better for the Andrew Jackson administration trying to deal with the "entire Supreme Court" filled with all of the Whig appointees? What about the rest of the Federal bureaucracy that he also inherited in the 1830's?
This is nothing new and complaining that Obama has a unique situation here is forgetting history.
One of the reasons why the choice of president is so critical is explicitly due to the long lasting impact their decisions make. John Marshall is one of those political appointees who far outlasted the presidential administration that appointed him, and set the tone of the judicial system for decades afterward. Heck, the son of John Adams (the person who appointed Marshall) even served as president and left office before Marshall retired. Sound familiar?
Few courts have the balls to interpret "congress shall make no law" to really mean that no law can be recognized. It takes a very strong judge to be able to stand up against a law that the other two branches of the government have said is not only constitutional but should be enforced.
In recent years it has been things like McCain-Feingold (one of the most wretched laws restricting and controlling political speech) that have yet to even be challenged.... yet those affected by such laws must follow such laws even if they are later proven to be unconstitutional in a strict sense of the word. How can political speech be controlled by law when the constitution says no law can be enacted in the first place?
This isn't even the classic yelling fire or anything remotely associated with the fringes of free speech like pornography or the "right" to send spam via e-mail. If something this basic and head-smacking obvious is given a pass, no wonder the rest of the constitution is largely ignored.
The problem with this thinking is that it is assuming the lawyers.... while perhaps good at writing and drafting laws... should also be the people making the actual decisions as to if a law should be created in the first place or not.
You mention a bridge being built by an engineer. That is fine and well, but somebody has to make the decision for if the bridge needs to be built in the first place at all. That decision isn't something necessarily done by the engineer, but rather by land owners, and by members of the "community" where the bridge is being built. Business owners who need the bridge for transportation, perhaps replacing a ferry or perhaps an older bridge that does not meet traffic capacity that is needed might suggest the need for a new bridge. There are other factors here as well. You don't need to be an engineer to make the decision to build it in the first place, or even to understand the basics of how the thing works.
The same can be said for governing a country. Members of Congress are there to represent the people of live in the country, and the makeup of that body ought to represent society at large. It is useful to have former CEOs, school teachers, miners, farmers, computer geeks, and others directly in the debate to decide what should be a law.... and those decisions should not be exclusively made by an elite class of individuals who think only along one kind of thinking and mental training.
I'm not saying that government should be run by engineers either (god, please no!) but rather a diversity of thought should go into the decision making process.
BTW, the legislative process is by design non-productive. One of my largest pet peeves of politicians is those who assert that they are highly productive by showing all of the pork or legislation they have produced while in office. To me, that implies they are not doing their job and are instead swapping "favors" to get that pork and approving garbage from their fellow legislators that should never have seen the light of day. Furthermore, by sad experience it has been proven time and again that any legislation that is passed quickly usually ends up as some of the worst and most damaging to the country in the long run. I don't care if this is Obama's omnibus pork bill that was recently passed or the "authorization to use force" bill that was passed during the Bush administration. Neither bill should have been passed as quickly as did happen, and more debate and deliberation should have gone into both of these laws.
Oh, yes, I agree that this is a recurring issue. I'm just saying that Mr. Obama, like every president before him, can't simply turn the entire federal government onto a new course on a dime, and it's not reasonable to expect that.
I don't think it is clear. The law says "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech", but that says absolutely nothing on its face about campaign finance. Nor does it say anything whatsoever about blogs, radio, television, or any written material that is not published but is otherwise distributed.
The law says political speech cannot be controlled. That is all. The fact is, Courts have tended to err very strongly on the freedom of speech clause well beyond its face value.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
The best way to help the weak is to make them strong enough to resist. Otherwise, where's the incentive to change?
What?
This is precisely the kind of doublespeak that make most people hate lawyers and politicans. No law can be made means no law can be made.
In terms of McCain-Feingold having nothing to do with political speech..... bullshit! That is entirely what it is about, including how speech can be done, where it can be done, and who can do the speaking. If you don't follow these "laws" that constitutionally congress "shall not make", you can't engage in the exercise of speech under the most obvious and clearly political kind that was the very basis of this clause of the 1st Amendment.
You can rationalize any act and twist the meaning of anything to promote your viewpoint, which is what I guess this all is about. Unfortunately, by only giving lip service to the constitution, it devalues that document to the point that it is worthless. I just mentioned one very unconstitutional act, and it is hardly the only one that exists.
The text itself says "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech."
Demonstrate how campaign finance is speech. Does money talk? No, it does not. Speech is communication by the exchange of spoken, or audible, words. Prima facie, the First Amendment does not protect any other kind of expression.
States are not congress. Prima facie, the state governments are not bound by the First Amendment. The chilling effect is not an abridgment; the State is free to create a law punishing you for your speech afterward, because that's not an abridgment of your right to free speech.
This is my problem, you see. You don't actually want the government to obey the constitution. You just want to interpret it in a manner that you think is appropriate.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
APOCALYPSE - The Great Lie [video] http://video.antollma.org/ApocalypseTheGreatLie.html
That was extended to the States by the Supreme Court through the 14th Amendment in a series of decisions starting in the 1890s. It was not always that way and in fact, the text says so such thing. The text explicitly excludes the States from obligations under the First Amendment, for example, by its distinct use of 'Congress'.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
There was no debate. As the Wall Street Journal (and numerous other publications) points out, a group of beurocrats with their own and their party's interests in mind sat down and negotiated the bill.
They chose a very appropriate word there. "Bargain." We no longer debate. We bargain.
As for the rest of congress -- Like I said, there was not a final draft of the bill available until less than 24 hours before the voting took place. And I didn't say this was limited to Republicans. I said "the whole of the house."
Regardless, even if every representative could have gotten a copy of the bill to review, you're being quite unrealistic to state that simply having staffers is enough to read, research and comprehend 1100 pages of law and all of the associated bills referenced within in less than 24 hours. Let alone debate it in any publicly visible forum.
The only so-called "debate" that you could possibly be inferring is the media's vague talking points on the bill. But even then the media spent most of it's time on biased opinion-presented-as-journalism nonsense. The leftist media praising the bill and calling the right idiots for questioning anything about it, and the right media playing along, focusing on the name calling and "those evil Democrats."
The reality is that the last thing any of the House and Senate leaders want is debate. Debate just gets in the way of "bypartisianship" laws chock full of goodies that can bragged about on the pulpit next election cycle. The economic downturn was simply a great opportunity to use FUD as an excuse to rush through billions in spending without review.
Cynical? Sure. But that is the state of things and anyone not blinded by party bias can see that.
And for what it's worth, stop playing and feeding the damn blame game. This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans. It's about our government out of control, government involvement being largely responsible for the mess we're in, and more government being far, far from an appropriate or effective solution.
Read the bill in its final form here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ARRA_public_review/
"The final terms of a stimulus plan will be hammered out by a conference among House and Senate leaders, who will bargain over how to reconcile competing Senate and House versions of the plan."
Which of course is normal legislative procedure . Next up, the WSJ reports on how water is wet...
As for the rest of congress -- Like I said, there was not a final draft of the bill available until less than 24 hours before the voting took place. And I didn't say this was limited to Republicans. I said "the whole of the house."
Which again, is whining misdirection. They could have read the damn bill in the days and weeks beforehand, and then read any changes in the last 24 hours. But why do the obvious when you can grandstand?
The leftist media
You guys still pushing that? After the media spent months making shit up about Gore (Inventing the Internet) while ignoring Bush taking credit for patients rights legislation that he vetoed as governor, after the media acted as a willing propagandist on the Iraq war, after sitting on NSA wiretapping through the 2004 election, after continuing to put pro-invasion pundits on to talk about the Iraq war while continuing to ignore those who got it right in the first place, you're still pushing this "leftist media" claptrap? Even Rush has started to call it the "drive by media", and when Rush is more reasonable than you are, you need clinical help.
It's about our government out of control, government involvement being largely responsible for the mess we're in, and more government being far, far from an appropriate or effective solution.
The lack of government is why we're in the mess we're in. And government is the only entity that can get out of this mess, by spending to create demand. Just how many times do you Hooverites need to drive the country into the ground before you realize your ideas are absolute crap?