White House Pulls Down TSA Petition

Jeremiah Cornelius writes with a note that on Thursday of this week "The Electronic Privacy Information Center posted a brief and detailed notice about the removal of a petition regarding security screenings by the TSA at US airports and other locations. 'At approximately 11:30 am EDT, the White House removed a petition about the TSA airport screening procedures from the White House 'We the People' website. About 22,500 of the 25,000 signatures necessary for a response from the Administration were obtained when the White House unexpectedly cut short the time period for the petition. The site also went down for 'maintenance' following an article in Wired that sought support for the campaign."

Comments

Two can play at this game

[ColdWetDog]

We need a petition for the petition!

Re:Two can play at this game

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a petition for the petition!

That petition will get pulled early too. Look it's doesn't matter how many petitions you stand up. Basically the folks that have the authority and power to control the people, will. Common folk are only here to support the rich and powerful by way of their taxes. Nothing else matters. You're either part of the good-old-boy network, or you're nobody. It's always been this way; for every country; for every regime; for every global power, since time began.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a petition for the petition!

That petition will get pulled early too. Look it's doesn't matter how many petitions you stand up. Basically the folks that have the authority and power to control the people, will. Common folk are only here to support the rich and powerful by way of their taxes. Nothing else matters. You're either part of the good-old-boy network, or you're nobody. It's always been this way; for every country; for every regime; for every global power, since time began.

Yes and every once in a while a revolution comes along that burns the old ways and chops heads or worse.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Animats]

Look it's doesn't matter how many petitions you stand up. Basically the folks that have the authority and power to control the people, will. Common folk are only here to support the rich and powerful by way of their taxes. Nothing else matters. You're either part of the good-old-boy network, or you're nobody. It's always been this way; for every country; for every regime; for every global power, since time began.

That wasn't true of the US from WWII to about 1960. Truman and Eisenhower were modest people. Truman ran a hat store. Eisenhower was a night supervisor at a creamery before he got into West Point. That period was probably the most successful in American history.

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[Dunbal]

Yes and every once in a while a revolution comes along that burns the old ways and chops heads or worse.

But somehow fails to effect any change at all.

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[Jeremiah Cornelius]

For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

-- George Orwell, 1984

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[artor3]

Incidentally, the top tax bracket in that period was 80-90%. The rich could still live like kings, but they didn't have billions (or the contemporary equivalent) to buy politicians.

Income disparity is a self-reinforcing problem. If you let the rich have too much of the pie, that gives them the power to take even more.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The politician steals no wealth from the rich. He is the lickspittle and lackey of the socioeconomic elite - and lives or dies at their bidding. What passes for his riches? These are but crumbs, from the feasting tables of his masters.

The main job of the politician is to distract the mass of people into believing their plight can be resolved through matters of governance and ideology. He's like a WWF entertainer - should he lose or prevail, the winner is always the man in the back office.

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[Dunbal]

It would certainly effect change for Obama. For the country as a whole? Not so much. In fact, none at all. The track that the US - and much of the Western world - is currently on, will continue. There is so much momentum because of a mind-set. The mind-set of the corporate world. The mind set of the children brought up in a land of plenty, who have never experienced real war, or real hardship, or real famine. The mind set of corruption and lobbying. The mind-set of being fascinated with destruction and war machines and technology. You can vote out every single politician and nothing will change at all, because the politicans are merely a reflection of the society as a whole. They are the symptom, not the disease.

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[Trepidity]

True, but that's a very short period, and Eisenhower only managed to get to the Presidency because he was a war hero, and becoming a war-hero has always been a way to jump rank into the aristocracy, even in the old English aristocracy.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Artificial view of "Money" and "Power".

"Money" is a power token, and a force to exert that power. Politicians have NO POWER in the modern, western republics. They are INSTRUMENTS of the power of others. This is where you have been deceived.

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[shentino]

People are inherently evil, and behind their altruistic motives is the instinct to backstab if they can get away with it.

Put someone in a position of trust where they have a chance to fuck everyone over and get away with it, they will do so.

The few who wouldn't, never seek such a position to begin with.

It's human nature, and will never change.

The best we can do is put in checks and balances so that we turn this nature against itself and keep it deadlocked in a stalemate.

Re:Two can play at this game

[smpoole7]

> Yes and every once in a while a revolution comes along that burns the old ways and chops heads or worse.

And within a generation or two (if that long), the revolutionaries are just as corrupt as the original regime.

Also, it's a rare revolutionary who just wants things to be FAIR. Most of them want to get EVEN. (A very fine distinction.) History is also filled with examples of revolutionaries who, once having taken power, simply use that power to oppress those who originally oppressed them.

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[Surt]

It rotates in a new set of good ol' boys. It's change, just not the change the revolutionaries were hoping for.

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[aaarrrgggh]

You are missing the fact that the problem isn't the politicians as much as their puppet masters.

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[artor3]

That's utter bullshit. The government enforces the will of the people. Part of that means collecting taxes and providing for those who didn't get lucky in life. Get rid of the safety nets, the the people will find another way to provide from themselves -- by killing the rich and taking their things. The poor will not lay down in the gutter and starve to death, no matter how much the robber barons may wish it.

Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.

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[roman_mir]

The government enforces the will of the people

- now that is prime time bullshit.

The government does no such thing. The politicians use the popular trends in order to become famous for introducing (and maybe passing) the bills that are popular with the mob, sure, but this does not equate to 'enforcing the will of the people'.

The will of the people is subjugated to the number 1.

The will of the people is finely presented in the law, that is supposed to govern the government, and that law is completely tossed out (of-course I am speaking of the Constitution).

The taxes are needed to pay for the government, that is true, but 1913 became the aberration, the year when the government was finally in a position to take away the will of the people, as it introduced the tools necessary to destroy the ability of the people to fend for themselves, the Fed and the IRS were created to steal the productivity of the people in a number of important ways, and none of it should have ever happened; it was tried earlier a number of times and failed, but finally they figured out how to put together the right people into the key positions to have this implemented and since then the gov't became something it was NEVER intended to become from the beginning of the USA, it became the ruler of the people rather than the protector of their freedoms.

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[berashith]

So I have a choice of allowing someone to fuck me over and try their best to enslave me while pretending to let me have a say in the matter, or creating an environment where they leave, take their money and jobs, but leave behind the capital and resources that the remaining citizens can attempt to use to actually achieve success? I say let them go. There are piles of people with skill and drive that can still succeed and bring up many with them that currently have to wade through a stacked deck.

I dont think that the jobs are only here because the rich that are skimming the economy into ruin are just being polite as long as we let them get away with anything they feel like doing.

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[number11]

If the Obidiot were to be thrown out of office come the November election, it would effect some change.

True, but if he was replaced by Rmoney, it would be change for the worse.

If all 435 sitting idiots in the House of representatives were thrown out come the November election, it would effect some change. If all 33 idiot senators in the Senate up for reelection were thrown out come the November election, it would effect some change.

True, but if they were replaced by others from the usual crowd of suspects, it would not be significant change. And part of the problem is that while a lot of people (including me) think that Congress is idiots, those same people (including me) often think their own particular Rep is an exception.

Repeat until the elected idiots finally realize that their employ is to serve the interests of the people (those who vote them into office) rather than the corporate elites.

This will only work if we can keep the corporate elites' money out of politics. Limiting who can put money in (e.g. only persons qualified to vote) would help, as would limiting the amount they can put in (e.g. a max of $5000 per person per election for all aggregated electoral/issues advertising contributions), but there are those "corporations have rights" and "money is speech" things to overcome.

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[ToastedRhino]

Funny that historically that absolutely did not happen, and in fact the US was at its most prosperous during those times. Greed will always exist, and some people will indeed move because of it. I say good riddance, go be a douchebag somewhere else.

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[Lumpy]

"If you take too much from the rich, they will leave, and they'll take their jobs with them."

Then good riddance. They can frisking leave. Hope they enjoy paying for a private army in south america or where ever they move to. Because if what you say is true they wont be going to Europe where the rich are taxed heavily.

and honestly we don't need their jobs. Eliminate the rich and their "jobs" and the economy will recover faster. because small business men will jump in to fill the void. treating the employees better, creating a far superior product, and overall doing a far better job at it.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.

In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

-- Harry Lime

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[shutdown -p now]

You've got it all wrong. People are actually inherently good, and their altruistic motives are mostly hardwired. The few who would seek a position of trust and power tend to be sociopaths, though.

Unfortunately, it only takes a few to fuck everything up.

I've long wondered if some kind of jury duty for most governmental positions (but without voir dire... pure lottery style) would actually give better results in the long term.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Art Challenor]

Common folk are only here to support the rich and powerful by way of their taxes. Nothing else matters. You're either part of the good-old-boy network, or you're nobody. It's always been this way; for every country; for every regime; for every global power, since time began.

While this is true, it is not totally black and white. What you see currently in the US is a choice - a European style democracy where there's some basic human dignity, meaning healthcare, a social safety net and some basic human rights, or a third-world type of country where the rich and powerful live in guarded, gated communities and the masses get to scramble for the crumbs. (Think many South American and the poorer Asian Countries).

At the minute we're heading towards the latter, which also implies a breakdown of law and order - gang violence and organized crime as well as street crime from people who have nothing to lose and need to eat. It's not clear to me that even the ultra-rich would want this type of society, we're talking you can only leave your house under heavy guard and your family is always a kidnapping target, but they seem unable to stop themselves.

Re:Two can play at this game

[amiga3D]

The EPA hasn't helped much either. The fact that companies can outsource production to an area where it's okay to dump toxic waste in the fields outback of the plant makes it hard for companies in the US that must spend tens of millions to properly dispose of waste to compete. I agree that dumping poison is bad for the environment but why do we let them do it overseas and then import their products?

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[roman_mir]

60% Insightful
20% Troll
20% Informative

- one man's 'Insightful' or 'Informative' is another man's 'Troll'.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Anonymous Coward]

The best lies contain some element of truth. And sure, the US people are weak and lazy. And the politicians reflect this.

But this is not nearly the whole truth.

In reality, the politicians work for corporate/banking/old money interests. The US people could be stronger, better, more educated, etc., and it would not matter. In fact, in times past, the people have been such and it hasn't made a difference. The world is still in endless war against whomever "the powers that be" say is the enemy.

Until there is change on who owns and runs the world, things will stay the same. The people have no way of changing this other than via revolution. And that is not likely as long as they continue to believe in the illusions of home ownership and voting.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Anonymous Coward]

... and what did that produce?

500 years of democracy and peace.

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[cayenne8]

When did Americans lose all of their self-respect? You shouldn't be asking for jobs, you should be looking to start your own small business. Entrepreneurs and small businesses... that's what made America great a few generations ago

Government bureaucracy, red tape, endless forms, tax rules for local, federal and state are complex...various things you have to constantly file at different regular time periods....endless regulations, fees.....they all harm small businesses.

Your large corps can easily run whole depts dedicated to this..but a small or single person business has to spend an inordinate amount of time doing this shit, rather than time better spend on his business doing service, manufacturing or helping customers....

Re:Two can play at this game

[Anonymous Coward]

I see that some people agree with your unsupported assertions - why else would your comment be modded up?

First: nobody paid those taxes. People paid less taxes than they are paying today.

You seem to be confused about the concept of marginal tax rates. Nobody is claiming that people paid 90% of their total income in taxes. There were more deductions at that time, however, people certainly didn't pay less taxes then than they do today. In 1960, the top marginal rate was 91%, and the rich did indeed pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes
Income inequality was also much less at that time.

Second: what kind of logic is that, marginal tax rates were high and so this is why the economy was better or whatever the point is? That's a huge logical fail, none of that follows.

You appear to have a reading comprehension fail. The claim was that the lower incomes of the rich led to their having less influence over politics because they had less to spend on it.

Thirdly: the real time when USA was actually a real economic power, when people truly had individual liberties was not any time past WWII, it was the time from the 1870 to 1913.

Ah, yes, the Gilded Age. A time of robber barons, union busting, company stores, and political corruption. There was certainly high growth during this period due to industrialization, but a period of personal liberty? What are you smoking? Assuming you weren't black, a woman, or a native American, and assuming you approved of child labor and sweat shops, you basically had the "liberty" to exploit your fellow man during this period - if you had the money, resources, or political power to do so. It was certainly closer to the libertarian paradise in that the government did little to protect the common man from exploitation, but these liberties tend to be quite one sided, and to the benefit of those with power.

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[LocalH]

You're part of the problem. You assumed that by advocating the removal of all politicians, that automatically means the other of the two major, damaged political parties. It does not.

It's high time we got some independent thinkers in some high-ranked offices, who aren't beholden to either the Rs or Ds.

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[dryeo]

Using Gates as an example, he had a million dollar trust fund, sent to a very good school that had access to computers and a mother who associated with one of the head honchos at IBM. If this what you call not being born with a silver spoon in your mouth...

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[DesScorp]

You've got it all wrong. People are actually inherently good, and their altruistic motives are mostly hardwired.

And just what proof of this do you present? Because I present, for my case of man being inherently flawed and evil unless taught not to be and enforced with laws and social codes, the entire history of the human race. You're essentially using Rousseau's "noble savage" argument, that man, until corrupted by civilization, is inherently good. But it fell out of favor because common sense triumphed, and we re-discovered that, shockingly, savages tend to be... savage.

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[Omestes]

There is always further to fall (I didn't think we could get worse than Reagan... And yet we continually managed).

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[roman_mir]

That's right, and a guy who makes 250K or something around that a year, he can't actually hire anybody after paying taxes.

When a person looks for an employment opportunity, is he going to take an offer from a guy who has enough money to cover the salary and expenses of all his employees or is he going to take an offer from somebody who is living paycheck to paycheck himself, somebody who is always 2 months away from bankruptcy if the bills are not paid?

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[AK Marc]

The worst of what he did was try to gracefully end Bush's policies, rather than doing so more abruptly. That, and sellout to the insurance lobby by abandoning single payer insurance the moment he won the election. The only reason he seems bad now is that you are too close to it. 50 years from now, he may be a forgettable president, but won't even make it on a list of "bad" presidents any more than Carter does, who was bad, and quite hated at the time, but now largely just ignored.

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[DesScorp]

That wasn't true of the US from WWII to about 1960. Truman and Eisenhower were modest people. Truman ran a hat store. Eisenhower was a night supervisor at a creamery before he got into West Point. That period was probably the most successful in American history.

It's easy to be successful when the rest of the world is still digging out of the rubble, and you live in the only place that went both untouched by the war on your mainland, and also had the last major center of industrial production intact on a large scale. You're giving people credit for all the wrong reasons here.

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[shentino]

I kinda like the scheme set up by israel's knesset.

Direct election of representatives, who elect a prime minister. They can waive their own immunity.

Add to this the ability to recall a representative at will and you'd almost have a perfect system.

The biggest problem we have with the electoral college is that we can't fire our reps if they screw up or screw us in the arse.

Which means they have no incentive to be truthful during campaign season, just avoid pissing off the congress critters feeding from the same corporate trough they are.

More finishing touches would be to make election fraud (vote tampering, disenfranchisement, etc) a class A felony of sorts punishable by 20 years in prison.

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[slashrio]

I'm afraid I just found out that the whole point of the people's power, which allegedly started with the French Revolution, was to fool us, the people, in thinking that finally we would be in control.
While on the other hand it was just a puppet revolution setup by the banks to get rid of their bad-debt risks with lending huge sums of warfare money to kings and queens where the inheritor of the same would deny responsibility for paying back those debts. With governments you don't have this problem because then it's the whole country which is liable for the debt, and countries don't change that often.
So the whole french revolution was nothing more than a good PR, suckering 'the people' in taking over responsibility of their countries' loans.
While keeping those in control who already were...
(I think the current 'debt crisis' proves my point.)

Re:Two can play at this game

[shentino]

What we need most is a way to fire our delegates.

Local politicians subject to recall tend to behave better while in office.

If we're really their bosses, why shouldn't we be able to hand them a pink slip?

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[AK Marc]

We gave the rich billions, and they didn't create a single new job for it. When Exxon or Mobile take in 10 billion in profit in a quarter, do they add new jobs? No. They still try to keep costs as low as possible to repeat the performance next quarter.

Re:Two can play at this game

[manaway]

"In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." -- Harry Lime

Well let's see now Mr. Lime (while ignoring that *whoosh* over my head), Switzerland also produced or was a sometime inspiration for: CERN, Jacob Bernoulli, Carl Jung, Voltaire, Rosseau, Freddie Mercury, and Nietzsche. And a few international banks which are far less reliable than cuckoo clocks. So perhaps people develop science, literature, art, and whatever economics is, independently of foreign relations.

Swiss politics involves town meetings with lots of talking, and thus real representations of local concerns instead of representatives in popularity contests (cool to have a beer with, has my family values? yeah I'll for for him/her). Switzerland's not perfect, not just banking but paying non-Swiss cheap wages for jobs the locals don't want to do; but other countries and especially the US with its take-down petitions could learn a few techniques. If, that is, the motivation was to improve democracy, which it's not.

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[BasilBrush]

Anyone can become wealthy. Look at Zuckerberg, Gates, Bezos, Ellison, Page, and Brin for a few examples. None of these folks were born with a silver spoon in their mouths

Zuckerberg - Son of a dentist and a psychiatrist. Wealthy enough to send him to Harvard.

Gates - Son of a Lawyer and a company director. Wealthy enough to send him to Harvard.

Bezos - Family owned a 39 square mile ranch. Wealthy enough to go to Princeton.

Ellison - OK, a modest background.

Page - Son of 2 computer science professors.

Brin - Son of a mathematics professor and a research scientist.

With the exception of Ellison, these aren't examples of "Anyone" becoming wealthy. They were indeed born with silver spoons in their mouths.

They are also an unusual selection in that they are all tech company founders. Most businesses and businessmen are not that, and are not creating whole new categories of business from exceptional intelligence and education.

Most businesses are set up in existing categories. And require more capital and less intellect than tech start-ups.

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[AK Marc]

You see, capital investment comes from savings, not from the printing press, that's why the current Western societies are all on the brink of the complete economic collapse, they are indebted so much, that they can NEVER pay the debt back, but they won't admit it, they will most likely try to print their way out, and if they do, they'll print their way into abject poverty.

Japan is the exception. They are trying to grow their way out of a recession, and having quite a time of it. Sadly, I think that default would be better for the US than inflation. Why? Because default will push much of the ill effect to other countries who hold the debt, spreading the problem more evenly. Inflating out of it will ensure the collapse of the USA and only the USA (possibly Canada or Mexico too, but that depends more on oil and resources). No, China wouldn't be that hard hit if the US never placed another order for goods. The US is about 20% of Chinese exports and imports. The drop of exports orders would be countered by the drop in cost of the imports, and they'd just focus on other markets. The US isn't as integral to the world market as the US thinks.

The US was capable of paying off the debt at the end of Bush. I had a nice plan to do so. It even included universal health care, as medicare, covering old people, spends more money per citizen than most countries do to cover everyone, and they only cover a few. So it wasn't all about cut-cut-cut, but cut and spend intelligently (for one, until the debt is paid off, abolish the standing military except where abolishing it is more expensive than not, like nukes and such) But increase funding to national guard and coast guard. There are plenty of large programs that can go. Department of Defense, Education, Energy, and everything related to the war on drugs. Then, of course, tax intelligently. Our rates are at historical lows, when our costs are at historical highs. We need tax rates at emergency levels, like they've been before. 80% to 90%.

Do all that, and 20 years from now, we'll have no debt. But it's hard. We'd rather dig ourselves a larger hole. It's easier.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Swave An deBwoner]

Agree!

Nude sunbathers are the key to a better society.

Re:Two can play at this game

[CohibaVancouver]

500 years of democracy and peace.

All right, all right - But apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?!

Brought peace!

Oh SHUT UP!

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[roman_mir]

Japan is not able to grow their way out of a recession, I've addressed this point a number of times, they have all these zombie companies, zombie banks, that should have gone belly up long ago, 20 years ago now, they prop them up. The deflation in Japan would have allowed true restructuring, but it is constantly being fought against with the inflationary policy, they are printing like maniacs, preventing the people in Japan from enjoying their increased purchasing power, preventing the zombie banks and other companies from failing and thus preventing the real economy from reappearing.

Japan has 1 thing going for it - it still has plenty of actual productivity in the country, it still manufactures plenty. Too bad for them that their business elite and their gov't elite are one and the same, so they want the nominal growth on their balance sheets, and so they are dead set on destroying the Yen with the printing press.

Do you know how inflation helps the companies that export? It 'helps' by destroying the value of the currency and thus by making the products cheaper after the currency exchange.

But that means that the Japanese people are suffering lower and lower purchasing power and the companies still are selling cheaper, only not nominally.

If the Japanese people kicked the business elite out of the gov't offices, they could stop the printing presses and then those exporters would have to sell their products cheaper the honest way - by lowering their prices OR sell domestically to the more affluent Japanese, who'd gain purchasing power because the Yen would strengthen.

The investment opportunities in Japan would spike as the old zombie companies would fail, people would bring all kinds of savings capital into Japan, all sorts of new businesses would arise, the people who are coming out of the education system wouldn't be under this insane stress to find jobs with the zombie companies, they could work for the new businesses.

This type of war is when you are trying to inflict the most damage upon your own population, it doesn't help your economy, it hurts. The winner is he, who hurts his own economy the most.

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[Ardeaem]

Repeat until the elected idiots finally realize...

Your first mistake is assuming they're idiots. They're not. They're very good at what they do, which is why they consistently get to keep doing it. You cannot change the present situation without changing the *system* in which they are successful.

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[cayenne8]

...but won't even make it on a list of "bad" presidents any more than Carter does, who was bad, and quite hated at the time, but now largely just ignored.

I dunno...Carter is still held in most dialogs, as being a bad president.

As for health care fiasco...I think he screwed the pooch on the insurance companies as you said...but, I wouldn't have wanted a single payer system either.

There's got to be a much better way than either of those two paths...something that does NOT put the federal or state govt in between me and my doctor with regard to my medical care. But, that's another argument.

The abomination that is the current "affordable health care act" has just made a bad situation worse....and we're not going to see the full effect of its badness for years to come, sadly....until well after Obama is out.

As for any of Bush's policies he tried to gracefully end....exactly which one was that? Recalling the Patriot Act? Repealing immunity for the Telcos after illegal wiretaps? Closing Guitmo?

Hmm....I've not seen him really repeal anything much to tell the truth....and yet, some people still can support him?

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[brian.s.richmond]

Nice to learn there is someone else who remembers history, and understands when in our timeline we allowed our professional thieves, liars, and thugs a.k.a. politicians to stop being held accountable. What amazes me is that so many Americans fall victim to the illusion that everyone must pay Federal Taxes, and that we are beholden to the Federal Government when the opposite is true. I have been kicking in the teeth of the IRS for a few years; now that I have taken the time to read & learn what our constitution says with out making assumptions, and taken time to read & learn what USC (United States Code) Title 26 IRC (Internal Revenue Code) says without making assumptions. People need to understand, that the entire Federal Taxation System is based on a word-smith illusion. At the very least, take the time to download a copy of USC Title 26 IRC and read the list of "Defined Terms" presented in Subtitle F--Procedure and Administration Chapter 79--Definitions 7701. Definitions. The words you read and assume to have a particular meaning are NOT the same as the Defined Terms presented in this willfully and knowingly convoluted pile of crap designed to trick you. The illusion is broken when you learn that our so called representatives are lying to your face using Defined Terms that you assume posses the same meaning as common use words. Remember this, every time you see one of the Defined Terms as it is written through out the body of USC Title 26 IRC you need to substitute it with the Definition that is tucked away in an obscure subtitle, or sub chapter and even within the same paragraph you are reading to understand what is truly being stated. For example, a "State" is not what you might think such as Kansas, Florida, New York..... rather it starts off being defined as:

The term ‘‘State’’ shall be construed to include the District of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry out provisions of this title.

This definition is continuously redefined throughout the body of USC Title 26 IRC so that ultimately you need to understand that in generic terms a "State" is a Federal Territory. So if you live in Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, American Somoa, etc.... you are a "U.S. Citizen" For the rest of us we are Citizens of our Sovereign States which are members of the Democratic Republic "The United States of America", it is with regard to the international community and certain aspects of our democratic republic that were are addressed as Citizens of the United States of America. Pay attention to the minutia, this is how you are shepherded into your illusory holding pens by not understanding the distinct differences and jurisdictional scope of authority limits.

For those of you that misunderstand what the 16th Amendment is about, it DOES NOT GRANT the Federal Government any new power. The Federal Government has always had the authority to tax "Income." Do not assume Income is all sources of revenue that you have, Income is a DEFINED TERM and has very strict limits of what it is. Don't take my word for it, look up the following cases "Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust, 157 U.S. 429 and 158 U.S. 601 (1895)," and "Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)" then understand why SCOTUS wrote noting that Article 1, Section 9 Constitutional prohibition on unapportioned direct taxes had not been repealed:

"We are of the opinion, however, that the confusion is not inherent, but rather rises from the conclusion that the 16th Amendment provides for a hitherto unknown power of taxation; that is, a power to levy an income tax which, although direct, should not be subject to the regulation of apportionment applicable to all other direct taxes. And the far-reaching effect of this erroneous assumption will be made clear by generalizing the many contentions advanced in argument to support it..."
"But it clearly results that the proposition and the contentions under it, if acceded to, would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they wo

Re:Two can play at this game

[M. Baranczak]

Not to mention Albert Hoffman.

Re:Two can play at this game

[the_B0fh]

I'm not sure which world you live in, but you can either have non-govt provided healthcare (so you pay $$$ or pay insurance $$$) or you can have govt provided healthcare (in which case, you pay with taxes).

What other choices are there, other than fairy dust and unicorn horns?

When I say "you", I mean the royal "you" and not you personally.

Re:Two can play at this game

[cayenne8]

I'm not sure which world you live in, but you can either have non-govt provided healthcare (so you pay $$$ or pay insurance $$$) or you can have govt provided healthcare (in which case, you pay with taxes).

What other choices are there, other than fairy dust and unicorn horns?

I think an integration of both sides.

We already have medicare for the elderly, and medicaid for the poor....

For the rest of us, do a few things I think:

1. Allow insurance to be sold across state lines, like auto insuracne....open it up to more competition and that should help lower prices a good bit.

2. Especially for the young...and I'm not young and I'd prefer this...rather than tighten down things like HSA (not FSA which is use it or lose it) allow people to sock away a good bit of money pre-tax into Health Savings Accounts....for their routine care. Why should people not save for routine care just like they save for groceries, utilities...etc. If you combine this with a higher deductible insurance policy, ONLY to be used for catastrophic needs (this used to be called Major Medical)....and that way your covered for something catastrophic....but routine care is paid for by you...allowing you to shop around for doctors, etc....opening up competition there a bit too.

Way back before HMO's and all came about....prices weren't running away...its when you put bean counters in as middle men along with insurance, where things got out of hand.

3. Take employers out of the chain.....why should medical insurance be tied to employment...that ties people down to jobs....

I think something along those lines would help. It keeps the govt out of the decision making...but allows for people to save on their own, and encourages it through tax breaks...I supposed if the govt were to be involved more...maybe a minimum HSA deduction would be mandated by employment...but the person would be in charge of it, and it would stay with them no matter who they work for.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he certainly couldn't do any worse than the current administration on virtually any front you wished to discuss.

Sure he could. Look at the changes in consumer credit. In gay rights. In healthcare. Look at the huge rebate he forced the insurance companies to come up with this month. In the type of warfare he prosecutes -- drones mean fewer deaths of our service people. Now look at Romney's pandering to the 1%.

Are you not paying attention, or are you just mouth-breather-stupid?

Re:Two can play at this game

[TapeCutter]

I can't see anywhere to go but UP from where we are now.

You have a distinct lack of imagination, the US population is still well fed, watered, and sheltered.

Re:Two can play at this game

[TapeCutter]

The US health system is fucked because there is a maze of overlapping schemes and policy fine print, each one with its own army of accounts who are paid to work out how NOT to pay your claim. The US spends as much tax on health as Australia does (on a per capita basis). The difference is that in Australia you are fully covered with that tax money no questions asked, whereas in the US the same level of funding doesn't even buy basic cover for everyone. A good system will only come about when affordable universal health care is a bipartisan issue, which is unlikely to happen any day soon in the US.

Re:Two can play at this game

[roman_mir]

Slavery is involuntary obligation put on a person to work for whoever the master is.

Taxing person's labour is unfair, this means the person has no ability to avoid giving up his productivity - his work, his life, because he can't stop working or he starves. Taxing transactions is different from taxing work. People don't have to participate in the transactions that are taxed, so people can avoid those taxes and this means they can avoid propping up the government, which is the desired outcome, because in this case the government is just another spending item.

Government is supposed to be just a spending item, it's a luxury spending item and by cutting consumption people should be able to cut on the amount of money they are paying to the government, which would force the government to shrink organically, which is what is needed when the economy cannot afford a larger government.

Gov't has authority to raise taxes, direct apportioned taxes, duties, imports, levies, basically uniform excise taxes. As I said, I discuss this at length in the journal linked in my sig.

Re:Two can play at this game

[AmazingRuss]

So, back to the republicans then? The creators of the TSA and Department of Homeland Security?

You're laboring under the delusion that this can be fixed by working within the system. Go ahead and vote... I hope you get what you want, so that in 2 years you can see that you've been lied to by your idols. Again.

Re:Two can play at this game

[winwar]

"20% of the people use up 80% of the health care costs according to a NPR report recently."

This is roughly correct. Although the 20% changes from year to year to some degree.

"These are the obese, the smokers, the "lifestyle choices"."

This is incorrect. First, most lifestyle choices really aren't that expensive. Second, they are encouraged by society (yes, even smoking). Third, and most important, plenty of expensive care doesn't fall into those categories.

"Fix that, and the healthcare cost issue goes away."

You can't. Or, at least no one has figured out how to do it. Ever.
We do however have the worst system in the world because we pay the most money for the least results.

For instance, if you want to "fix" obesity then you have to fix society. It's mixed in with our farm policy, housing policy, transport policy, employment policy, health policy, etc. You just don't tell people to eat less and exercise. We know that doesn't work.

Re:Two can play at this game

[khallow]

Those laws and social codes, especially the latter arise on their own.

Nonsense. Everything has a cause. Sometimes it's a crazy vision or some weird quirk that enough people aped, sometimes it's genuine harming of humans by other humans.

All the evil you are referencing is usually sociopaths grabbing for power.

And what distinguishes a sociopath from a normal human? The primary characteristic seems to be opportunity.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Omestes]

No, Reagan wasn't all bad, but he started the end of American industry, and the whole "help the rich, fuck the poor, everyone magically benefits" train that we've followed since (Democrat or Republican), he increased military pork, decided we need more religion forced down our throat, started a fair share of unethical (if not illegal) actions in South America. Lets not forget the Iran Contra fiasco, and the continuation of Soviet paranoia. Oh, or the "war on drugs" and all the nice things that came from that. Or the fact that the economy wasn't really a bed of roses, either. Hell, I'm not saying he's the worst we've had, he was just pretty bad. Perhaps no worse than anyone since.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO

Odd synchronicity there... I just watched a video about that phrase this morning... Odd.

Re:Two can play at this game

[ancienthart]

And what distinguishes a sociopath from a normal human? The primary characteristic seems to be opportunity.

Sounds like something a sociopath would say. :P

Re:Two can play at this game

[Stormthirst]

But but but - what you're proposing is .... socialism!!!111

Seriously, if you want to get rid of corporate/banking/old money interests, you have to get rid of the corporations, the banks and the old money. What you are proposing is socialism at it's core. Americans will never allow that because apparently every single American will one day become a millionaire through hard work.*

* Except the vast majority don't.

Re:Two can play at this game

[Stormthirst]

By 40%, I assume you mean to pay those men and women who put on a military uniform, and to equip them. The vast proportion of the federal budget is spent on the military. If they shut down the military tomorrow and kept everything else the same, the government would have paid off it's national debt in about 30 years. Then you could see real drops in taxation for everyone.

Of course, that would put everyone in the military out of a job, not to mention all the tech companies that produce new toys for the military, and of course all the manufacturers that rely on "defence" spending ....

Re:Two can play at this game

[StormyWeather]

Taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.

Nobody argues this, what people do argue about is the amount of taxes, and what those taxes are used for. The problem is that we start with spening, then create a budget, then go after revenues.

We should determine what a fair amount of revenues or life to eat up of the populace, then determine a budget, then allocate the revenue to the budget.

Can you imagine at your house if you went on a spending spree for every little thing your heart wanted, then you came up with your budget, then went to your boss to demand to be paid what your budget was? It's just fucking stupid!

Re:Two can play at this game

[pev]

In the type of warfare he prosecutes -- drones mean fewer deaths of our service people.

You know I think it's also bad that police officers put themselves in danger to protect the public. How about you use the same drones to attack suspected violent offenders on home ground too and help avoid the danger they present to the police?

What's that you say? You're not happy? You think it wasn't fair to blow up the dude who might have been a murderer as while he wasn't a nice person, you weren't sure if he actually killed anyone or not? And you're angry the missile killed some his friends, family and children that were at the bowling alley at the same time? Oh I understand - you think that they should have been afforded due process and rights because they were your people not someone that doesn't share your language?

Let's get something straight : drone attacks may keep some military personnel safe in the very near term but they're constantly indescriminately killing people. In the past years in pakistan they've killed somewhere between 400 and 800 people, of which around 160 were children. How would you be feeling if another country had flown drones into your country and been killing those numbers of people?

Don't you think that if those peoples surviving family, friends and neighbors didn't previously think that western powers deserved a good kicking, the wanton and unashamed murders by drones will have changed their minds? If one of the angry relatives pulled off something even half as awful as the WTC attacks, would you still say the drones saved "your people" successfully?

Are you not paying attention, or are you just plain stupid?

Re:Two can play at this game

[mcgrew]

If people are inherently evil, then where did the "innocence project" come from? Why does anyone drop cash in a Salvation Army kettle or a church collection basket? Why did I give away most of the nectarines in the tree in my front yard when I could easily sold them at the Farmer's Market? You only read about robberies and murder in the paper because they're rare. You don't hear about feats of great self-sacrifice and heroism because they're simply too common.

Yes, look at history, and see what a tiny percent of people there are lording it over others, what a tiny percentage have been thieves, how few murder. That Stanford experiment didn't show that people were evil, it showed that people are lemmings.

Selfishness isn't human nature, it's natural to every animal. Our species is a social species, which is why the few sociopathic scumbags can get away with leading people to commit atrocities.

It has nothing to do with the "noble savage". Were we not inherently good, there could be no civilization and we would have probably become extinct.

What else is human nature is that we tend to think everyone is like us. If you're a selfish sociopath who would steal his mother's gold teeth and sell them on the black market, you're going to think that everyone else is, too.

Re:Two can play at this game

[mcgrew]

Bad science! Your own link says:

Peer-review
Because of the structure of the experiment, Zimbardo found it impossible to keep traditional scientific controls in place. He was unable to remain a neutral observer, since he influenced the direction of the experiment as the prison's superintendent. Conclusions and observations drawn by the experimenters were largely subjective and anecdotal, and the experiment would be difficult for other researchers to reproduce.

Critics such as Erich Fromm challenged the generalization of the experiment's results. Fromm specifically wrote that the personality of an individual does affect behavior when imprisoned, using historical examples from the Nazi concentration camps. This ran counter to the study's conclusion that the prison situation itself controls the individual's behavior. Fromm also argued that the amount of sadism in the "normal" subjects could not be determined with the methods employed to screen them.[10]

[edit] Biases
Some of the experiment's critics argued that participants were merely engaging in role-playing, basing their behavior on how they were expected to behave or modeling it after stereotypes about the behavior of prisoners and guards. In response, Zimbardo claimed that even if there was role-playing initially, participants internalized these roles as the experiment continued.

In contrast to Zimbardo's claim that participants were given no instructions about how to behave, his briefing of the guards gave them a clear sense that they should oppress the prisoners. In this sense, the study was an exploration of the effects of tyrannical leadership. In line with this, certain guards changed their behavior because of their desire to conform to the behavior that Zimbardo was trying to elicit.[citation needed]

[edit] Other criticisms
Additionally, the study has been criticized on the basis of ecological validity. Many of the conditions imposed in the experiment were arbitrary and may not have correlated with actual prison conditions, including blindfolding incoming prisoners, not allowing them to wear underwear, not allowing them to look out of windows and not allowing them to use their names. Zimbardo argued that prison is a confusing and dehumanizing experience and that it was necessary to enact these procedures to put the prisoners in the proper frame of mind; however, he conceded that it was difficult to know how similar the effects were to an actual prison, and that the experiment's methods would be difficult to reproduce exactly.[citation needed]

Some said[who?] that the study placed undue emphasis on the cruelty of the guards, such as one who was nicknamed "John Wayne", and who said that he caused the escalation of events between guards and prisoners after he began to emulate a character from the Paul Newman film Cool Hand Luke. He further intensified his actions because he was nicknamed "John Wayne", even though he was trying to mimic actor Strother Martin, who had played the role of the sadistic Captain in the movie.[11] Most of the other guards were kinder and often did favors for prisoners.[citation needed]

Also, it has been argued that selection bias may have played a role in the results. Researchers from Western Kentucky University recruited students for a study using an advertisement similar to the one used in the Stanford Prison Experiment, with and without the words "prison life." It was found that students volunteering for a prison life study possessed dispositions toward abusive behavior.[12]

Re:Two can play at this game

[Thuktun]

Have you missed the last 3 years of Obama's pandering to the 1%? What do you think the bank bail-outs, Wall Street bail-outs, etc. were? And do you not understand that the Obamacare bill was written by the insurance companies that are supposedly being taken to task?

TARP was signed into law in the Bush Administration. A majority of the big bailouts occurred during the Bush Administration. Roughly 85% of the TARP disbursements have been paid back.

The Affordable Care Act was based on published Republican plans and was brought in because the Democrats figured (wrongly) that they could get compromise support for it. I'm sure insurance companies couldn't wait to be forced to cover pre-existing conditions.

You're remarkably ignorant.

Tyranny

[pubwvj]

So much for open government and responsiveness. Yes, but only if we ask for what they want to give us.

Re:Tyranny

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Its getting more and more obvious though. When a government is no longer working for the people, the people will change it one way or the other, this is the lesson of history. I sometimes wonder how these guys got into power in the first place with such a poor understanding of cause and effect in politics.

somewhat surprising

[Trepidity]

Given that online petitions are notoriously ineffective, I wonder why they'd bother. Let the thing get to 25,000, and issue a generic, mostly content-free response about balancing safety and the War on Terror with civil liberties and whatever. I doubt it'd be particularly politically damaging either way, since this is one issue where the Obama administration is more or less in line with the GOP opposition, which created the TSA in the first place, and whose law-and-order branch still strongly supports it.

Re:somewhat surprising

[Trepidity]

That's simply not correct. The biggest legislative proponent of the TSA bill that eventually passed was Don Young (R-AK), and Bush strongly supported it throughout; he didn't "cave in" at the end. Its expansion into ever-more-intrusive measures was strongly supported and overseen by first Tom Ridge (Republican, former Governor of Pennsylvania) as head of DHS, and then by Michael Chertoff (Bush's 2nd DHS head). Chertoff, post-Bush-administration, is now closely connected with Rapiscan Systems, the backscatter X-Ray company.

Some in the GOP have slowly started waking up to the fact that they passed a bunch of stupid things in the post-9/11 era (Patriot Act, DHS, etc.), but at the time they were the ones pushing it, and very few (except maybe Ron Paul) opposed it.

Re:somewhat surprising

[Patch86]

Giving far reaching powers to detain, strip-search and irradiate people to private companies in the hope that they can mount an effective and fool-proof security system to protect things of national importance? What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe those good folks at G4S would take the contract?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=g4s+olympics

Re:somewhat surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes it is worthwhile to check other people's claims, because you may just learn other details while doing so.

Case in point: recently someone said "defense is 50%" of the federal budget. With a very brief search, I found that their claim was patently wrong, that it averaged "only" 24% for the past several years. But I also learned where VA/SS/welfare ranked in the scheme of things, too.

Back to Trepidity's comment a few posts up. You may not remember, but indeed, after 9/11 there were many kneejerk decisions and laws passed. This is how the Patriot Act and DHS and TSA came into existence. The only detail I'd clarify in his post is the statement that the Republicans were all over these decisions. But if you pull away the cobwebs of past memories, one may remember that *most* of our elected officials were pushing this shit. They all wanted to appear "tough on terrorism", and in some cases that their security-penises were much, much larger than the opposing party. This did not work out well for us collectively.

And yes, Chertoff and Rapiscan go back. Here's a 2010 article from USA Today describing it. You may want to look into "revolving door policy" to understand the limitations of some of these relationships. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-11-22-scanner-lobby_N.htm

Well...

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

They were going to give a non-answer answer anyway. This is just an attempt to avoid any coverage of the issue.

Re:Well...

[C0R1D4N]

They should meet Barbara Streisand. I am betting taking it down and killing what little credibility the petition system had will only increase coverage.

no big conspiracy...just normal maintenance

[Anonymous Coward]

The reddit crowd already went over this one in detail... it wasn't pulled down...the petitions have a limited amount of time, and there was a standard maintenance window near the time this particular petition ended. So no big conspiracy...just normal network maintenance...

Re:no big conspiracy...just normal maintenance

[Meshach]

The reddit crowd already went over this one in detail... it wasn't pulled down...the petitions have a limited amount of time, and there was a standard maintenance window near the time this particular petition ended. So no big conspiracy...just normal network maintenance...

Here is the reddit thread.

Re:no big conspiracy...just normal maintenance

[CastrTroy]

Convenient time to schedule maintenance. Right at the end of the petition deadline. Also, who's running this server. This isn't 1970. There's no need to bring a server down for maintenance. At least not for a prolonged period of time. At most it should be down for the amount of time it takes to reboot the server. A proper web site should have 2 or 3 load balanced machines anyway, so the site never has to be completely down.

Re:no big conspiracy...just normal maintenance

[guttentag]

Here is the reddit thread.

Are you allowed to do that here?

Absolutely not. All content posted on Slashdot must be entirely the original work of the poster, unless the linked content is unimportant, not insightful, related to business intelligence or involves videos of remote-control flying taxidermied cats. I would link to the relevant regulations, but then I'd be in violation.

Re:no big conspiracy...just normal maintenance

[robot256]

It takes longer if the "maintenance" is installing a censorship filter to week out politically inconvenient petitions before they hit the front page.

Re:no big conspiracy...just normal maintenance

[Nerdfest]

Perhaps people should take a page from from the copyright cartel playbook and keep putting the petitions up until they get the number of signatures they need.

How much time?

[AliasMarlowe]

TFS and TFA state that the "White House unexpectedly cut short the time period for the petition", and indeed, the petition's page now says "The petition you are trying to access has expired, because it failed to meet the signature threshold."
It would be nice if EPIC provided information on (i) how long a petition normally gets before it expires, and (ii) how old this petition was when it was abruptly terminated. We know that it had garnered 22500 out of the 25000 signatures required, but how much time was taken away by the early termination of the petition?

Re:How much time?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

but how much time was taken away by the early termination of the petition?

I'm too lazy to dig up wherever I read it, maybe it was a comment on hacker news, but it sounded like it had about another week to go before expiration.

FWIW, I'm inclined to write this off as a glitch. There is nothing to be gained by nefariously disappearing the petition other than to draw attention to the petition. If history is any evidence, petitions that do get enough signatures don't provoke any action anyways, just a condescening pat on the head.

Re:How much time?

[Anonymous Coward]

The petition was set to expired on August 9th and expired on August 9th but long before midnight, I was looking at the site when it happened but I don't remembver the time between 10 am and 2pm IIRC. Since we don't know at what time the petition was set up in July, it's difficult to say whether the White House cheated or not.

Re:How much time?

[jcrb]

I'm too lazy to dig up wherever I read it, maybe it was a comment on hacker news, but it sounded like it had about another week to go before expiration.

Actually you can't look it up. I was surprised when I did a search for the link that no hits from the actual site came up. So I tried forcing the link in googlecache and still got nothing so I checked the page source at petitions.whitehouse.gov and all the links have no-follow on them. Strange really, why would such an exercise in open government want to make sure there were no search engine results that brought people to the petitions or any record of what had appeared on the site.

I'm thinking someone needs to set up a shadow copy of the site with links to all the pages created on petitions.whitehouse.gov so they get seeded into the search engines, since supposedly the no-follow only stops the initial indexing, if the page gets in from some other link it should stay in the search engine.

Re:How much time?

[Ksevio]

The petition was set to expire that day, so if you assume it expires at midnight, that's just a few hours short.

They have a month to get enough signatures, so it looks like people were just bad at promoting it. I'd go with glitch as well since the last TSA petition just got a response from the head of the TSA saying how wonderful it was.

Par for the course...

[Nova Express]

...for the least transparent administration in American history. Perhaps the Obama Administration will restore the petition shortly after they turn over the Fast and Furious documents Obama has claimed Executive Privilege over.

This is also par for the course for the Obama Administration's constant defense of the TSA. When Texas tried to pass a bill to ban TSA groping in the state, the Obama Administration threatened to impose a no fly zone on Texas over the right for TSA agents to grope people. Do you think think the Obama Administration will be any less protective now that they're unionized.

Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz has called for the abolition of the TSA. Given the wasteful, intrusive, and ineffective security theater they stage, does anyone think the America public would object to to their abolition?

Re:Par for the course...

[LourensV]

...for the least transparent administration in American history.

I seriously doubt that. With modern media and the Internet all the parts of the government are more visible than they've ever been. Yes, there are things that governments today won't tell their citizens about, but those have always been there. It's just that the citizens now know about the existence of these things at all, whereas in earlier times the citizens did what they did in their homes and the politicians did what they did in their capitols and there was much less communication. And so, modern governments seem less transparent, while the citizens now actually know more about what their government does than ever before.

Petition expired August 9th.

[Samuel Dravis]

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/court_orders_ts.html Nothing to see here.

Special Screening

[CosmicRabbit]

The petition was not removed, but randomly chosen for special screening in a side room, away from public eyes to protect its privacy. Hence you saw it "under maintenance".
Unfortunately it has been determined that the petition was carrying some dangerous baggage, and therefore it was denied boarding rights to the oval office. It is now blacklisted for future trips.

You just lost my vote, Obama ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope and change ?

Bullshit.

What those of us with brains hope is that soon we will have a change of
president.

Re:You just lost my vote, Obama ...

[Dunbal]

What those of us with brains hope is that soon we will have a change of president.

Sorry buddy, but you're in the no brains group. What those of us with brains KNOW is that change of president or not, it makes no damned difference at all. We're serving poo for luch. You want it fried over-easy or sunny side up?

Re:Not much info

[Hatta]

Apparently the petition expired on Thursday, August 9th. If it was just taken down at 11:30 AM today, what is the problem?

The real question..

[SuperCharlie]

Has the "We The People" website had one iota of influence on ANY issue?

I suspect the whole purpose was to get some good touchy-feely-see-I-care press for launching the site, not to actually do anything substantive but pat people on the head and continue to do whatever the hell they want anyway.

Re:The real question..

[LourensV]

I suspect the whole purpose was to get some good touchy-feely-see-I-care press for launching the site, not to actually do anything substantive but pat people on the head and continue to do whatever the hell they want anyway.

From my foreign perspective, it seems that American politicians often can't actually do that much. Let me explain that.

Here in The Netherlands, the most important elections are for our Lower House. The people vote for any of a range of political parties, and the seats get divided based on the vote share. Then, the largest party negotiates with other parties to form a coalition large enough to have a majority in the Lower House (and the Senate, although it's of less importance), and they together write a plan for the next four years and form an administration. The leader of the largest party becomes the Prime Minister, and the others contribute some ministers as well.

As a result of this, the executive branch is always backed by a majority in the legislative branch, enough to decide anything except changes to the constitution. Of course, this is counterbalanced by the fact that the administration is a collaboration of parties that partially disagree with each other, so that the common plan is a compromise that balances the various concerns. Sometimes parties are not willing to compromise, and they end up in the opposition as a result, with little opportunity to further their cause. Thus, there is an incentive to cooperate.

Looking at this chart of the various administrations and corresponding party representations reveals a general pattern of aligned legislative bodies and administrations especially in the early years, but more recently a lot of situations where it's not so clear-cut. For an administration to be really free to act, it needs the Presidency, a majority in the House of Representatives, and a majority in the Senate. Starting from the 63rd Congress on the page linked above (the last 100 years), I count 22 2-year periods in which there was no party agreement between the three, and 28 in which there was. It seems to me that it's actually pretty difficult to get anything done for an American administration.

Of course, this can still work if the other party is willing to cooperate on things they don't fully agree with in exchange for favours on other things. Historically, that seems to have gone pretty well. But the American political environment has been getting more and more hostile and negative, and now parties seem to be happy to block things that are in the interest of the nation just to keep the other party from getting the credits for them. Broad strategic filibustering has upped the Senate requirements for getting anything done to a 3/5 majority (which hasn't occurred since the 1970's). As a result, we see things blocked for the political advantage of being able to attack the opposition over not achieving it, unless someone is willing to contribute enough campaign funds. Meanwhile, the nation is falling apart, but the politicians are too busy recording attack ads to do something about it.

Final note: our system isn't perfect either. In the last elections we had five parties (Socialists, Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Populists) all come out at about the same amount of seats. The resulting ChrDem-Lib-Pop coalition had difficulty agreeing on a plan, and broke up prematurely when the Populists backed out of the 2013 budget negotiations. So it's back to the polls in September, and meanwhile no important decisions will be taken unless there's a majority amongst the existing representatives. The 2013 budget was agreed on by such an ad-hoc majority, who recognised that something had to be done and acted in the best interest of the nation. It has left our government hamstrung though, and current polls have the leftmost and the rightmost of the large parties leading, so it doesn't look like the situation will improve soon...

The People Have a Voice!

[ZosX]

oh wait.....

if you read the EPIC site that is linked

[Anonymous Coward]

you see the petition was set to expire on the 9th and they admit they didn't have the 25,000 threshold so how can they complain? i think the TSA is crap but this is a bogus conspiracy.

RTFA

[lexsird]

If anyone bothers to read this, (and this is an old story already, been done at Reddit) they will discover that it was due to be taken down in a half an hour. It was a half an hour early, BIG FUCKING DEAL. It's highly doubtful that they would have got the 2500 signatures in that time anyway. Besides these petitions are only for letting them know what people are on about, to get a public opinion. They don't set policy.

This is a none issue, only made an issue by hysterical paranoid loons.

I tried to sign it, but couldn't

[EmagGeek]

I tried to sign this petition several times over the last couple of weeks, but the system would not let me create an account.

Re:Not much info

[Hatta]

I know. Why can't we ever get people to flip the fuck out over the right shit? There's plenty of smart shit to flip the fuck out over.

Re:Transparency and Open Government

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I don't trust social media â" I think it's all a bunch of bullshit. I think it's a manoeuvre. It's Orwellian. This small screen is going to hypnotise you. You're going to do what it wants you to do. What does it want you to do? It wants you to text your friend. What are you saying to your friend? You're going to say: "I'm on the corner!" â" and your friend says: "I'm on the other corner!" Is that what you're saying ... is that what you're thinking? Wait a minute.You don't even know what you think and what you feel if that's what you're doing all day and night.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/09/ry-cooder-mitt-romney-dangerous-cruel

Flying vs. Voting vs. TSA

[wonkavader]

We just recently saw a study which shows that the TSA isn't an issue -- Americans don't hate them that much.

But the study didn't control for whether you'd flown or not in the past few years.

Obviously, I'd like to see the study redone with whether you've flown. I suspect people who've flown HATE the TSA and people who haven't think they're grand.

But I'd also like another variable added. People who vote.

I suspect the people who don't hate the TSA are a complacent bunch who don't read, don't think, and don't vote. I further suspect people who don't fly don't vote. But it could go the other way. I want to see those numbers. The TSA may be a much, MUCH bigger issue than the administration thinks it is, or they may be completely right -- ignore it, because it's not something the real people who vote crare about.

focus is on the wrong thing

[Dan667]

getting rid of janet napolitano should be the focus of the effort. She loves the police state for some reason. When she was governer of Arizona they put in revenue cameras. When she left they ripped them out. Get rid of napolitano and there is a better chance to get rid of the tsa.

Honestly, what were you expecting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost exactly one year ago, when this website first launched in September 2011, a petition was submitted for "abolishing the TSA." The White House responded to it, and, BIG SURPRISE, gave a cookie cutter response defending the TSA without even acknowledging the short-comings of the TSA (budget, civil liberties, incompetence, and so on).

Considering the fact that the White House already gave an official response to this question, I don't see how they are under any obligation to answer a duplicate question. Even if the White House decided to respond to the duplicate question, was anyone expecting their answer to change in the slightest? After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.

Nothing will come from all this horn-blowing about the petition. If either candidate were to openly come against the TSA, you can bet your ass their opponent will get a massive backing from the security industry which is supported by the TSA. Since neither Obama or Romney have the balls to challenge the TSA, the only answer is to vote third party and send the bastards a message that we are fed up with their shit. Once enough people become disenfranchised and stop voting for "the lesser of two evils" the political spectrum will shift over to accomodate these people, and their voices will be heard once again.

Obligatory

[cultiv8]

A remote-control flying taxidermied cat

Re:Obligatory

[tapspace]

I knew there was a reason I still visit /.!

Petition or not...the TSA is never going away

[erp_consultant]

Might as well get used to it folks. The TSA is never going away. Already it has absorbed several other agencies along the way (coast guard, etc.). As Rham Emmanuel once famous said "never let a good crisis go to waste". The creation of TSA was a direct result of 9/11 and it's continued existence is playing upon people's fears of some vague "terrorist" threat somewhere in the distance. Remember in the airports they always used to announce that the threat alert was "orange"? Never yellow, never red. Always orange. If it was yellow people might question if we even need the TSA. It was never red because they never actually caught anyone doing anything that could justify setting it to that. So basically it was just a charade. Remember how the govt told us how they were going to replace those rent-a-cops that the airlines used to hire for security? Looks to me like the same drones that were there before. The only difference is that it costs more and the lines are longer. I don't feel one bit safer. Oh, and the screenings are more invasive and we have given up (or had taken away more accurately) more of our civil rights. If someone wanted to blow up a plane they could do it TODAY, with or without the TSA. I'm not suggesting that we don't need screening in airports I just don't want the government in charge of it.

You're more than a bit simplistic

[DerekLyons]

That wasn't true of the US from WWII to about 1960. Truman and Eisenhower were modest people. Truman ran a hat store. Eisenhower was a night supervisor at a creamery before he got into West Point. That period was probably the most successful in American history.

My, what rose colored glasses you have.
 
Truman was a dyed-in-the-wool machine politician who inherited the presidency from Roosevelt - and he was only in the position because of deals made in smoke filled back rooms and political patronage. Eisenhower was a war hero who was drafted (after much struggle) by the Republican Party to exploit his popularity and give them a chance to break the long dominance of the Democratic party.
 
Not to mention that the House and Senate were already dominated by career politicians.

Not the fault of the EPA...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

The EPA can only enforce environmental laws within the US. They have no ability to enforce US environmental standards overseas, and no ability to prevent the importation of foreign-manufactured goods unless the goods THEMSELVES pose an environmental threat (such as banned pesticides).

While I completely agree with you in regards to outsourcing in order to skirt environmental regulations, the laws needed to prevent this would need to come from agencies other than the EPA. Starting with the commerce dept.

Re:"change"

[erroneus]

Real candidate never get a chance. Ross Perot was a great alternative but was closed out, marginalized and shut down by threat. Ron Paul was a great alternative as well and we have seen his every attempt treated similarly.

Unfortunately, the power of the media still has control over most of the hearts and minds of most of the people. Fortunately, the power of the media is fading in favor of the new media... the internet. Public interest has never before had something like this and so far, "they" haven't figured out how to control the beast or get the genie back into the bottle.

Hopefully, more people will stop paying for TV and start looking around for themselves.

No time - it expired on schedule

[Theaetetus]

but how much time was taken away by the early termination of the petition?

I'm too lazy to dig up wherever I read it, maybe it was a comment on hacker news, but it sounded like it had about another week to go before expiration.

It expired on the 9th. See, e.g. Bruce Schneier's post a week ago, or the Fark thread from the 8th saying 'it expires tomorrow'.

Only one small problem with that...

[Burz]

The wealthy have already looted the country after cajoling us into reducing our entire social contract down to one aspect: Money (the piles of it that they're sitting on).

You have to find a workable way to get that money back, or else they'll take it with them when they go. If its done incorrectly (assuming there is a decent way, short of shifting the entire nation's value system toward the political sphere), then virtually all of the 'trust' between people and ability to convincingly motivate them go flying out the window. At that point you are left printing up new bales of currency that the rest of the world's bankers will wrinkle their noses at.

Then again, we can simply tax them and take that new Globalized police state that was used to help the wealthy loot and control, and turn it against them so that tax collection (like Predator strikes) becomes an inevitability. It might work...

Re:How's that cognitive dissonance working out for

[khallow]

There has to be a contradiction first. The claim of the original poster boils down to a) the rich pay more in marginal taxes, and b) that's why the economy is better. So the grandparent poster first shows a) is wrong and then shows b) is wrong. That's all logically consistent. There's no opportunity for cognitive dissonance.

Re:Go Go!!

[hairyfeet]

"I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs, well I believe the puppet on the right has MY interests at heart...hey wait a minute, there's one guy working both puppets!"...Bill Hicks.