White House Pressures Legislators Into Gutting USA FREEDOM Act

The U.S. House of Representatives has substantially reduced the effectiveness of the USA FREEDOM Act, a surveillance reform bill that sought to end mass collection of U.S. citizens' data. House Leadership was pressured by the Obama Administration to weaken many of the bill's provisions. The EFF and the Center for Democracy & Technology had both given their backing to the bill earlier this month, but they've now withdrawn their support. CDT Senior Counsel Harley Geiger said, "The Leadership of the House is demonstrating that it wants to end the debate about surveillance, rather than end bulk collection. As amended, the bill may not prevent collection of data on a very large scale in a manner that infringes upon the privacy of Americans with no connection to a crime or terrorism. This is quite disappointing given the consensus by the public, Congress, the President, and two independent review groups that ending bulk collection is necessary."

Robyn Greene of the Open Technology Institute added, "We are especially disappointed by the weakening of the language intended to prohibit bulk collection of innocent Americans’ records. Although we are still hopeful that the bill’s language will end the bulk collection of telephone records and prevent indiscriminate collection of other types of records, it may still allow data collection on a dangerously massive scale. Put another way, it may ban ‘bulk’ collection of all records of a particular kind, but still allow for ‘bulky’ collection impacting the privacy of millions of people. Before this bill becomes law, Congress must make clear—either through amendments to the bill, through statements in the legislative record, or both—that mass collection of innocent people’s records isn’t allowed."

Comments

Glimmer of hope, squashed

[GameboyRMH]

For a second I thought they were "gutting" it in a good way.

How naive of me :-(

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[NotDrWho]

The typical White House approach to any threat like this (and both GW and Obama have used this approach many times) is to call together all the parties involved (especially the politicians) and ask them "Do you really want us to have to blame you if there is another terrorist attack?" Scares the shit out of any politician.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Bartles]

Fuck you and your moral equivalency. This is now, and the Obama administration is doing it. You obviously voted for the guy, it's time for you to admit your mistake and call it for what it is.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[jeffmflanagan]

I understand your assumption, usually a bill with a name like the USA FREEDOM act is about taking away freedom.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[NotDrWho]

Listen, Republican. President Dick Cheney's himbo proxy was bad. Barak "No Change" Obama is bad too. Fucking deal with it.

As for me, I don't vote for either party, and haven't for a long time. I despise them both. I also hate people like you, who think that everyone is bad except YOUR party. People like you are the problem. You're just the dumb asshole wearing the "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos!" t-shirt.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[jeffmflanagan]

>Scares the shit out of any politician.

Which is totally understandable. I sure wouldn't want to be the person who got a bunch of people killed by limiting surveillance. I'd have to be very, very sure that the surveillance was truly inappropriate, and it would be very easy to doubt yourself with that kind of pressure on.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[jeffmflanagan]

You seem confused, and confused people look really bad when they lash out at their betters like you just did.

Do you not realize that the system is rigged, so our only other option was a Republican, and they've gotten really wacky on religion and science denial?

We can't allow Republicans anywhere near power until they marginalize their far-right extremists and foolish religious conservatives. Obama was by far the better choice in both elections.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[NotDrWho]

I sure wouldn't want to be the person who got a bunch of people killed by limiting surveillance.

Wouldn't matter if you "got them killed" or not. The powers who want to stop your reforms would still blame you.

An attack *IS* coming, regardless. And they *WILL* blame you for it if you don't do what they tell you to. Now fall in line, bitch.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

You imply that the alternatives were any better....

Do you really think Mccain or Romney would do any differently?

Rupublican and Democrat are 2 sides of the same coin.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a choice?????

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, human. Choose Kang or Kodos.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Bartles]

It's funny that whenever someone points out what a terrible mistake a lot of people made voting for Obama, they always become a Republican. It's also strange that I can't seem to find anyone who voted for Obama in 2012, even among my reliably left-wing friends.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[grheller]

You are absolutely right, there is no such thing as a good politician of any party, only evil and more evil, it is all about them, they can say what they want about protecting America from terror but we all know that it is a bunch of BS. Obama is one of the worst presidents this nation has ever had - he never stops lying, makes me wonder how this nation ever put a schmuck with absolutely no experience into the highest office in the land. I hope everyone who voted for him is happy with your choice.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[geekoid]

They did.

"First and foremost, the bill introduces a different conceptual approach to prohibiting mass spying under Section 215. Unlike the Senate version, which tries to stop the mass collection of calling records by mandating that the records sought "pertain to" an agent of a foreign power or their activities—an approach that we’ve worried about because “pertains to” and “relevant” are so similar—the House version mandates that a "specific selection term" (currently defined as uniquely describing a person, entity, or account) be the "basis for the production" of the records. The overall language may be stronger than in the old USA Freedom Act, but "specific selection term" must be further defined as "entity" could be construed expansively. After the order is filed, the government can obtain up to "two hops"—which may be too expansive for many investigations—from the selection term."

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[tsqr]

This is a choice?????

Well, no. But lots of people hoped it would be.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[geekoid]

liar.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Sir_Eptishous]

I think you need to stick to flavored wine coolers and leave the thinking to people who know history.
Obviously with a statement like that you don't.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Bartles]

That's why it makes sense to slash funding and revoke our consent to be governed.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[interkin3tic]

Reading through his recent comments, it does look like he's conservative, but you're presenting a false dichotomy. Saying "The Obama administration is doing this" doesn't mean "You should have voted for McCain and Romney."

It's worth pointing out that McCain seems to be more critical of the NSA than Obama does. I don't doubt that if McCain got elected president, the roles would be reversed, but Obama IS standing up more for the NSA spying program than McCain is, that much is clear.

I agree with you that both parties are to blame, but I think "fuck them both" isn't the only way out of this situation. I personally think that if we all bothered to vote in the primaries, in EITHER primary, many political problems attributed to the two party system would vanish quickly. SEVENTEEN PERCENT of eligible voters nominated the candidates last time. For some reason, it's only the whackos that bother voting in the primaries. The tea partiers are the only ones participating, and then the rest of us can't figure out why they're being taken seriously by washington. It's certainly not because they have such good ideas, it's because they vote in the primaries. The anti-NSA crowd could and should do the same thing. Vote in the primaries, nominate candidates to both parties who oppose the NSA. It's not genetically encoded into either party to be in favor of big brother.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[ArmoredDragon]

"Do you really want us to have to blame you if there is another terrorist attack?" Scares the shit out of any politician.

Political squabbles aside, if Benghazi is any indication for how Washing treats information it receives about actual terror threats (as opposed to just imagined ones) then the NSA spying doesn't even serve its supposed purpose anyways. That is to say, they were well aware in advance that something was going to happen, and deliberately chose not to act on it. Meanwhile we have to have our domestic IT industry is being crushed (e.g. Cisco losing foreign customers) and businesses like Lavabit forced to close because we absolutely MUST have this spying program to gather information that we don't even bother to use correctly.

Ditto for the Boston bomber (another incident which we had intelligence on before the fact, but didn't act on, and we didn't even need a spying program to obtain this information.)

Though as a direct response to your question, if Benghazi is any indication, then instead of identifying incidents as a straight up terror attack for the politicians to be held accountable for, they'll simply find something innocuous to blame it on (in this case a poorly made movie that nobody gives a shit about.)

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

How much surveillance existed prior to the Boston Marathon bombing? How much of EVERYONE'S communication did the NSA collect just prior to the Boston Marathon Bombing? How much attention did the FBI pay to the warnings they received prior to the bombing? How successful was ANY authority in preventing the Boston Marathon bombing?

This is all nothing more than useless blather. Both Bush and Obama DO NOTHING for the citizens; they do EVERYTHING for themselves, politicians, bureaucrats, and the lumbering, ineffective government. USA FREEDOM?!? Yeah, make me laugh . . .

When did we cross over into 1984?

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure wouldn't want to be the person who got a bunch of people killed by limiting surveillance.

Wouldn't matter if you "got them killed" or not. The powers who want to stop your reforms would still blame you.

An attack *IS* coming, regardless. And they *WILL* blame you for it if you don't do what they tell you to. Now fall in line, bitch.

You mean a false flag attack is coming.

The war on terror is a hoax.

The purpose of which is to increase their power over us.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

How much surveillance existed prior to the Boston Marathon bombing? How much of EVERYONE'S communication did the NSA collect just prior to the Boston Marathon Bombing? How much attention did the FBI pay to the warnings they received prior to the bombing? How successful was ANY authority in preventing the Boston Marathon bombing?

This is all nothing more than useless blather. Both Bush and Obama DO NOTHING for the citizens; they do EVERYTHING for themselves, politicians, bureaucrats, and the lumbering, ineffective government. USA FREEDOM?!? Yeah, make me laugh . . .

When did we cross over into 1984?

The boston bombing was a false flag attack to see how Americans would react when a city was shutdown and troops would move through it.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[mellon]

Yes, THIS. Mod parent up. People complain about two bad choices, but voter turnout in the primaries is pathetic, and that's where those two bad choices came from!

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[HellcatM]

Both Bushes were worse and so was Regan. I agree though there aren't any good politicians though. Clinton was one of the best, even he had flaws. Sometimes I think it would be better to have an independent party president, but who knows if he/she will be any better? I agree with some of the things Obama does but there are a lot that seem more what we think of as Republican then Democrat. If Chany wasn't bat shit crazy and others didn't have their own religious agendas I would vote Republican but a lot of the Republicans that run for office just seem nuts. Politics just suck, we need people that will look after the little guy but they're just easily swayed by the rich. Its sad.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[mellon]

I'm an independent voter, and I voted for Obama, because the alternative was worse. I am not happy with his performance on this and several other important policy areas, but he has done a much better job than McCain/Palin would have, IMHO. What frustrates me is that my friends in both parties never seem to be interested in the primary elections (I will register democrat or republican as needed to sway the primary I think most needs swaying), and also seem to think that it's all on Obama. Note TFA, which puts at least half the blame on Congress, where it belongs. We elect Congress too. And yet so very few people bother to show up for mid-term elections, and we wind up with radical nutballs as a result.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[mellon]

Ironically, the actionable intelligence we had prior to the marathon bombing came from Russia, and we disregarded it because our own data collection was erroneous and suggested that the intelligence Russia gave us was inaccurate (which it was not).

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Tilgore Krout]

The irony is that even though a McCain or Romney would be just as bad (or worse) we would at least have the Democrats screaming bloody murder over this. As is it, since their guy is in office they are hesitant to speak out against this.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[HellcatM]

You're right, I find that true as well. But the same was true when Bush was in office. I couldn't find one Republican friend of mine that said "yes Bush is nuts and he handled everything wrong" and Bush wan't an overly religious nut who didn't believe in science, he was just out right bat shit crazy. I could see one of these crazy nut jobs coming into office and pushing religion in schools and letting schools teach creationism, then the US would really go down the toilet.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Noah Haders]

That's why it makes sense to slash funding and revoke our consent to be governed.

you mean like declaring yourself a sovereign citizen? doesn't work too well.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[sumdumass]

We do not need anyone to look after the little guy. We need to get the government out of the road enough so that the little guy can do as he pleases and have a chance at succeeding.

You are in this trap of thinking only the government can help but get pissed off because when the government does help, the rich and powerful take advantage and it is obvious on an exponential level. Don't get me wrong, we some regulation, effective regulation that is pointed and sharp, but for the most part, we need the government to step back and let you or the little guy next to you do as you damn well please. That is what freedom is about, that is what allows you to succeed to your potential.

BTW, the best part about Clinton being president is that he has a republican congress. This forced them to actually look at what was going on and attack the problems rather than appease the ideological bases. Bush II didn't suffer this and it shows. Obama didn't suffer this his first term and it shows. Clinton, Reagan, and Bush I did and anyone living through those times would take them over today any day.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[david_thornley]

Would McCain or Romney have done anything different? I'm not apologizing for voting for somebody doing evil things when they looked like the lesser of two evils.

Although, the way things are going, I'm going to be awfully tempted to write in Cthulhu next time.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever watched "Always Sunny in Philadelphia"? There's a scene where Charlie and Mac are sleeping at Charlie's mother's house. As she turns off the lights, she flips them on-and-off three times: "One... two... three", she says. Mac asks her why's she's doing it, to which she responds, "Oh, so Charlie doesn't die."

Then later in the episode both Charlie and Mac start doing everything in threes, because it makes them feel better. At one point Charlie says, "She's been doing it and I'm still here."

There's no excuse for irrational behavior. And unlike the episode, in real life irrational behavior is often detrimental.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Arrow's Paradox (aka Arrow's Impossibility Theorem) pretty much guarantees that there's something to hate in every candidate, especially for elections of high-level offices.

If you're not comfortable voting for a candidate with whom you disagree on issues (and for President, that might mean many issues), then you haven't come to terms with democracy. It's fundamentally flawed, and provably so. But without it we're in trouble. The trick is to understand it's limitations. Democracy is a very simplistic and blunt tool. Not to be used except when there are no better alternatives.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

The boston bombing was a false flag attack to see how Americans would react when a city was shutdown and troops would move through it.

Where's that -1 'Batshit Crazy' mod when you need it?

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[db10]

Why vote for a lesser evil? Vote Cthulhu 2016

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[anarkhos]

The irony is that even though a McCain or Romney would be just as bad (or worse) we would at least have the Democrats screaming bloody murder over this. As is it, since their guy is in office they are hesitant to speak out against this.

...and vice versa

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Tilgore Krout]

The irony is that even though a McCain or Romney would be just as bad (or worse) we would at least have the Democrats screaming bloody murder over this. As is it, since their guy is in office they are hesitant to speak out against this.

...and vice versa

Not really. Only the Libertarian fringe of the Republican party and the far left fringe of the Democrat party seems to be upset over this. The remaining Republicans are for the surveillance program and most of the Democrats don't want to go against the leader of their party. (Not a good thing to do in an election year)

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[MaskedSlacker]

When did we cross over into 1984?

December 31, 1983.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Leadership of the House is demonstrating that it wants to end the debate about surveillance, rather than end bulk collection. As amended, the bill may not prevent collection of data on a very large scale in a manner that infringes upon the privacy of Americans with no connection to a crime or terrorism. This is quite disappointing given the consensus by the public, Congress, the President, and two independent review groups that ending bulk collection is necessary."

TRANSLATION == We know that citizens are watching and we would very much like to keep are lush lobbyist money, and are corporate stock portfolios, as well as the lush waste of tax money for ego centric things, such as suing, and appealing every bill that would drastically shift the power back to people, and level the playing field for anyone to run for are political position.

What your seeing here is typical political pandering, aka, we are kissing ass in hopes that you suckers keep us brainless morons in office.
And that's was before Obama decided to have them cop it apart, now they will argue "we tried, that should count, so now you can go out and vote to keep us in power"

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[TheGratefulNet]

pussy!

lawmakers were SUPPOSED to be beyond being afraid of what stupid voters would do. we once had rulers with some backbone.

wonder where all the backbone went... ;(

the pussification of amerca now includes lawmakers. too afraid to actually GOVERN.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[TheGratefulNet]

no, you are wrong.

the 2 bad choices were pre-chosen behind closed doors by the true ruling elite.

please pay attention next time. our 'vote' is a sham and has not been real for at least a decade or two.

elections are a game and it does not matter who wins; those above (that we don't ever see) pull the real strings. what we see is a show; 'entertainment' and a distraction.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[L4t3r4lu5]

Nothing will be gutted. The working class still believe they can become middle class, the middle class are comfortable, and the upper class don't give a crap about the other two. Nothing will change; Everyone really enjoys circuses, and the bread is actually quite good.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[interkin3tic]

The primaries are not totally egalitarian, sure. Money buys speech, there are endorsements which carry a lot more weight than they should, and the media certainly seemed bent on ignoring Ron Paul, but it's a far cry from an elite class dictating what choices we have. Recall that the GOP "elites" were very frustrated by such extremist candidates distorting the field. The tea party candidates made the whole party look insane.

Furthermore, again, seventeen fucking percent turnout. Your assertion that the two candidates are chosen for us is true because we've decided NOT to choose, not because we CAN'T choose.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm glad we elected a president who respects privacy and freedom. He's a Constitutional scholar. He knows things.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[mellon]

On the contrary. When you vote for someone who can't win, you have wasted your vote—essentially, you are voting for "either of the two bad choices". If you want to get a candidate who isn't a bad choice to win, you have to get that candidate to the point where they can win, not tilt at windmills after it's too late. It may allow you some smug satisfaction to say "I didn't vote for either of those bastards," but the reality is that if you didn't vote at all, you let them win, and if you didn't choose one or the other, you didn't choose. That's the cold, hard math.

Change doesn't happen at the time of the election. It comes from the grass roots, well before the election, or it doesn't come at all.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[mellon]

This sort of rhetoric from people who would rather be angry than change things is why we have 17% turnouts in the primaries. Stop it, or you are the problem. You can comfort yourself by blaming those bastards in Washington, or the Trilateral commission, or the Illuminati, but the blame lies squarely at your feet.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Sciath]

Well before 9/11. 1978 with the authorization of the FISA [act] and court. So it actually began before 1984. Ever since then, it's been a continuous series of one step back for personal freedoms. Another big contributor is western capitalism coupled with the WWW. ISPs have been co-conspirators in their business models that endeavor to capture every available data set as to what people do, where they are, who the communicate with, what they communicate, what they buy, etc. for the sake of "advertising", etc. In other words, the capitalistic business model does not respect personal privacy and as a result they have been witting [or even unwitting] accomplices in the retrenchment of privacy and personal liberties. The model could've been different. Business "could have" sold their products to prospective customers WITHOUT sharing personal information with countless "affiliates", business "partners", etc. for the sake of preserving personal privacy and thus individual liberties.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Sciath]

Well for one thing, since their party is more "hawkish" on foreign affairs, the odds are that we'd still be greatly involved in Afghanistan and probably more involved in the affairs of other troubled areas on the globe. At a great cost to the American taxpayers and military personnel. Which is an interesting irony since Republicans are the vanguard of cutting government spending. Which would probably mean further cuts to domestic programs including infrastructure rehabilitation and expansion, etc.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Sciath]

Even worse, the very fact that he is a "Constitutional scholar" means he understood the ramifications of undermining civil liberties. Which he has not hesitated [even lied about] in undermining [until the Snowden revelations]. Even the new bill passed by the House today failed to have any substantive effect on preserving privacy because it was so watered down from the original version it is practically meaningless. However, the American people will see that a bill was passed [without understanding what it did or didn't do] and they will be content in their ignorance that something was done. Politicians know that showboating is more effective than actual substantive action.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[meglon]

No.

You're conflating "government helping" with "the rich buying all the power." You are innately wrong. Without government standing up for the citizens of this country, we have nothing more than a feudal state where the wealthy do as they please, and fuck everyone else. That's the direction it's going with the fascist corporate enablers on SCOTUS the past decade, but that's not government... that's ideologues who are dismantling the government in favor of corporations and oligarchs. When "the rich and powerful take advantage" is not a definition of "government help" in any sense of the phrase, or reality.

You also seem to forget that Bush Jr had a republican house and senate for his first 6 years, and what that got us was them pissing away a budget surplus that was projected to be able to pay off the entirety of the national debt in 11-13 years, the first two wars in the countries history that did not come with a tax increase to help pay for them, and a taxpayer money giveaway to big pharma by enshrining the price fixing/no negotiation of medication costs in Medicare Part D.

We do need an opposition in politics... but that opposition must be intelligent, and it must actually want to govern. Those are two qualities that are completely missing from the republicans at present. The only thing they give a damn about is themselves staying in power.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[jwhitener]

The narrowing to 2-3 Kudos happens before the primaries even take place. See here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim

I just gave these people money: a citizens' funded and crowdsourced superPAC First time in a long time that I have donated to something to a political movement. But I really think that we need election reform before voting will make a difference.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[jwhitener]

http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

Our Democratic system is not what many people think it is.. For one it doesn't really matter if you have a Democrat or Republican in Office, the system consists of hundreds of politicians of both parties that cast the final votes on everything. Does it really matter if one president leans more this way than that way.. Hell no because that is just wish wash to keep the us thinking we have some part in the democratic process, when we actually don't..

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Bartles]

No, not at all. How long have you been waiting to share those links?

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[i.kazmi]

Riddle me this sumdumass, why are citizens of social democracies rated so much higher on happiness and satisfaction indexes? All these states have these things in common:

• high tax rates
• universal health care
• free education
• collective bargaining of wages through unionization
• social security net

I know, you should start a campaign to bring freedom to these poor-enslaved-by-their-respective-governments-sheeple...Me? I think the governments of these countries do help and the problem with the US is that the left is so far skewed to the right that even the left-most American thinkers are center-right at best...of course you would have everyone believe that Obama is the embodiment of what Carl Marx and Friedrich Engels preached!

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL, yeah keep on convincing yourself that you live in a real democracy where your choices matter, statist filth.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[jandersen]

Listen, Republican. President Dick Cheney's himbo proxy was bad. Barak "No Change" Obama is bad too. Fucking deal with it.

You are angry with politicians, and probably with a lot of the crap those in power dole out, and I can understand that - most ordinary people agree with you; but being agressive and shouty is probably a very poor way to channel that anger. It would be a lot more productive if we could use our anger to address the real problems at the root: things like injustice, fundamentalism, poverty and inequality. We may never be able to make things perfect, but we can easily do better, that's for sure.

It doesn't matter who is in power, really, as long as they are moderately competent, because most of what is going on is determined by current circumstances and short-term solutions, not by the ideals and intentions of the guy at the top. If we want things to be different, we have to find a way to fundamentally change society, by changing the culture and mindset of people. It almost seemed to happen in the 60es, but then, of course, those young revolutionaries grew up and got careers. Even so, we still managed to move forward a little; racism and other discrimination is now seen as fundamentally unacceptable, and let me tell you, that is a MAJOR change from what I grew up with.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[fuzzy2k]

The difference between the first choice we made is, we would also be involved in another dozen wars, crippling the economy and weakening the nation further, instead of winding them down and getting out. And Caribou Barbie would be poised to be President of a country falling to pieces, giving her reason to quit partway through and leave another Bush (Jeb) in the White House.

The difference with the second choice is, well - Romney? Really? Just a wealthier version of the doofus Obama replaced.

Is Obama perfect? Considering the alternatives, perhaps. Are there things I'd like to see done different? Who doesn't have that list?

What it is is politics, the art of the possible.

Good luck to you.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[sumdumass]

I don't think you know what you are talking about.

If you bother with that article, you will see that the US actually ranks higher than the UK, Germany, Japan Russia and China.

But we also see that it is misleading to think of such things as you put it. The United Arab Emirates among the top of the list and it doesn't exactly fall within your definition.

and don't put words in my mouth. If I want something said, I certainly do not need idiots saying it for me. I have no comparison of President Obama to Carl Marx or Friedrich Engels for they were competent to some degree in their delusions.

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[sumdumass]

I'm not conflating anything and you are being a drama queen with her facts wrong.

You are innately wrong. Without government standing up for the citizens of this country, we have nothing more than a feudal state where the wealthy do as they please, and fuck everyone else.

Wrong. It has been the stifling regulation that does more to protect established wealthy than proffer regulation that would be effective without limiting the little guy. Please read this article that explains it better than I can.

That's the direction it's going with the fascist corporate enablers on SCOTUS the past decade, but that's not government... that's ideologues who are dismantling the government in favor of corporations and oligarchs. When "the rich and powerful take advantage" is not a definition of "government help" in any sense of the phrase, or reality.

Unless you are talking about campaign donations, I am clueless to what you mean. If you are talking about campaigns and donations PACs and Super PACs, then you and I are in agreement about it being politicians. I personally do not care if BigOil or WalMart or whatever spends a bagillion dollars on some candidate. You will know they are doing it and you will either agree or disagree with the candidates. But make no mistake, it is the politicians- duly elected by the people, who are the root cause of this. How many politicians are not well off and wealthy if not millionaires. How many went to congress that way. We aren't exactly over paying them.

You also seem to forget that Bush Jr had a republican house and senate for his first 6 years, and what that got us was them pissing away a budget surplus that was projected to be able to pay off the entirety of the national debt in 11-13 years, the first two wars in the countries history that did not come with a tax increase to help pay for them, and a taxpayer money giveaway to big pharma by enshrining the price fixing/no negotiation of medication costs in Medicare Part D.

Lets not make stuff up simply because we do not understand it. First, I said the congress works best when it's controlled by the opposite party as the white house. Bush and company is hardly anything close to that. Second, Bush's first 2 budgets, even after the tax cuts, projected continues surpluses. what happened was 9/11 and the economy dropped big time. This caused expansion of the economy to slow and tax income to drop. This is the same process that caused a lot of Obama's massive trillion dollar deficit spending. Third, most of the Clinton surplus was smoke and mirrors anyways. Well, let me put it another way. Changes in regulation scheduled to take effect regardless of who was in office, the expiration of the roth IRA conversions, and the end of the Y2K specific economic activity would have stressed any president's ability to maintain a surplus even without 9/11 and the recession that followed. Finally, the wars did not go on budget until Obama put them there in his first year of office. The wars had nothing to do with a budget surplus. Bush funded the wars on off budget emergency spending that had to be renewed ever 6 or 8 months. This is the way wars should be funded because A) you do not want to permanently budget for war, and B) due to rules on new spending needing to be paid for, when the wars die down, instead of stopping the spending, it ends up being spent on other things. Or in other words, if your war is spending 8 billion a year, off budget, then the war is over, you simply stop spending the 8 billion a year. If the war is on budget, that 8 billion can go to charcoal filtered underpants research or a bike path to the bridge to nowhere due to it being a popular tourist attraction now. And yes, we have seen most all of the on budget war spending getting spent elsewhere now that it isn't needed for the wars.

But what you are doing it getting confused between the

Re:Glimmer of hope, squashed

[i.kazmi]

I don't? Here's a link to the full report that the CNN article is talking about.

The top 7 countries are social democracies:

1. 1. Denmark
2. 2. Norway
3. 3. Switzerland
4. 4. Netherlands
5. 5. Sweden
6. 6. Canada
7. 7. Finland

(Look into the Nordic Model (Nordic Capitalist Model or Nordic Economic Model) if you still think I have no idea what I am talking about.)

Out of the remaining three countries making the top 10:

1. 8. Austria has a very strong social democratic and socialist (not Marxist) presence.
2. 9. Iceland is social democratic.
3. 10. Australia has a mixed economy with an emphasis on private ownership, lower tax rates (when compared to Europe) and a universal safety net.

I was specifically comparing USA with social democracies to counter your comment where you gave the impression that any government intervention ends up benefiting the rich and powerful to the detriment of the little man. I have no idea how UAE is relevant or why you'd bring it up since it is ranked below the countries with social democracy, maybe you were trying to allude to the fact that even a monarchy is better then the American model?

Name the last competent American president? Bush Junior? Bush Senior? Reagan? Ford? Nixon? None of these fine gentlemen?

I never said you were comparing Obama to Engels or Marx, I said you wanted everyone to believe that Obama was the embodiment of what Marx and Engels preached and that was sarcastic. While I concur that you never mentioned anything of the sort, let me congratulate on choosing a pseudonym that perfectly matches your personality :-)

--
i.kazmi

But, but, BUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the RIGHT is evil! OBAMA is our Lord and Savior! This must be a ploy by the right to make him look bad!

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Repugs control the House.

True:

House Leadership was pressured by the Obama Administration to weaken many of the bill's provisions.

Bush III loves wielding power, errr, his pen. And his phone.

Re:But, but, BUT!

[asylumx]

It is kind of strange that the headline mentions the white house adding pressure, but the summary doesn't at all...

Re:But, but, BUT!

[jeffmflanagan]

I've only seen right-wing lunatics call Obama our lord and savior. Do you self-identify as a right-wing lunatic? Just checking if the pattern is still holding up.

Re:But, but, BUT!

[pitchpipe]

If only we had some conservatives in congress who would dare to stand up and go against Obama. /s

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Ralph Wiggam]

Because it doesn't make any sense. When has Obama had any influence over the Republican controlled House?

Re:But, but, BUT!

[coldfarnorth]

Yeah, aren't we talking about the same house that voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act some 2,527 times now? (No wait, this just in: we're up to 2,528!)

Re:But, but, BUT!

[ichthus]

Right-wing lunatics like, say, Jamie Foxx?

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Bing Tsher E]

It's when the senate votes next year that it will matter.

Then we can gradually dismantle the Obama regime.

He's going to make such a cute lame duck, after all his power has been taken away.

I can't wait for his speech appearances in 2017.

Re:But, but, BUT!

[the_skywise]

It is kind of strange that the headline mentions the white house adding pressure, but the summary doesn't at all...

Would ye kindly RTFA

Today, House Leadership, acting through the Rules Committee and in cooperation with the Obama Administration, approved a manager’s amendment to USA FREEDOM that makes significant changes to the bill it comes to the House Floor for a vote.

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Bartles]

With bigger styrofoam greek columns?

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Bartles]

They are called hostage takers and bomb throwers when they do that.

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Think! Regardless of what Obama does, Congress blocks it to the point our nation is paralyzed. Of course you won't agree with any of this sense because it doesn't edify your ego, help badmouth your Opponent IE Obama, or Preach how 'Right' you are. You are wrong. This congress is the worst that has ever existed in our nation's history and their narrow sighted, money chasing, thinly veiled crap is what is going to show the terrorists that we are sitting ducks, not anything Obama has done. You can't deny that due to this congress, it takes us on the order of 4-10 times longer to get anything done. The major example is their willingness to drive the country over the cliff just to fight the ACA law, a law that has been on the books for a while now. That aint going to stop them from trying to sabotage it.

Say something bad about Obama after this, You paint yourself as an idiot.
Say something defending this congress, you are a shill
I know the lower class republican (farm dweller type) will surely get on here and try to "Point out the rights of their histortyies to fwart that evial obammer bin-laden" or something. They need to learn how to spell before worrying about politics.

Voice of Reason

Re:But, but, BUT!

[I'm New Around Here]

Also, anyone who doesn't support Obama in every instance is obviously a racist who hates having a black man in the White House.

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Aighearach]

Well, by "pressure" they just mean, "had nothing to do with but was guilty of being black while President."

Re:But, but, BUT!

[TheGratefulNet]

I wonder: is there an alternate universe where a white man is in the Blackhouse?

makes you think....

Re:But, but, BUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama has incredible influence. If he were to say, "I support this bill!" the republicans would immediately kill it in its tracks.

What does Obama know that we don't?

[rritterson]

There is an apparent and obvious change between pre-Presidential Obama's and Presidential Obama's actions and opinions on surveillance. What's the cause? Is it:

1. Lobbying money from parties that gain from the intelligence industry?

2. Access to top secret data that still hasn't been released showing a compelling need for this information gathering?

3. Some sort of extortion/blackmail information on Obama possessed by someone in intelligence?

4. A realization that most Americans don't actually care about the scope of surveillance, so he wants to appear "tough on terror"?

5. Something else (fill in your own blank)

Recall that he stated strongly that he thought AT&T should pay a legal penalty for the NSA/San Francisco wiretapping mess, then reversed his position and supported immunity for AT&T almost immediately after taking office. That suggests he either learned whatever it was very quickly, or was deceiving us as a candidate.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[GameboyRMH]

I think you listed them in ascending order of likelihood.

Maybe 5 is "he was just playing us for suckers on the campaign trail."

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[ganjadude]

there really wasnt much of a change in reality. the only difference is th posturing involved. Pre president obama LOVED to talk about how X is bad and Y is wrong, but when it came time to vote, he voted present, rather than pick a side over 100 different times. The things obama said back then (raising the debt ceiling is unamerican) definitely go against what he has done since taking office

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[zlives]

he is a politician and lied like they all do. Nope to Change was the actual slogan, we just misread it.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[somedudegeekman]

I agree with your points, and I would add:

5. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I apologize for the cliche, but I think the kind of narcissistic tendencies one needs to have in order to be a successful politician can't turn away from the ability to find out everything about your political enemies. Even from a practical standpoint, that kind of leverage is just too good to resist if you're owned lock/stock/barrel by your campaign contributors and you need to deliver legislation favoring X industry or Y company.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

5. Something else (fill in your own blank)

This about politicians and fear. Fear of being blamed (and losing ones elected position) when "the next event happens". And it will, eventually (pretty much everyone agrees on that). And no politician wants to be the one that voted to prevent the possibility of stopping that attack. Regardless of whether massive surveillance will prevent it, when the next successful attack occurs, if real restrictions are put in place, someone will claim "if only had not taken away our ability to prevent this...". Leadership and risk management is dead. CYA is the name of the game.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[CanHasDIY]

Try:

6. Like all politicians, he told people what they wanted to hear, so they would vote him into power, after which (again, like all politicians) he put his real agenda into action.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[reboot246]

He's just a politician, not a saint. They're all like that no matter which party they're in. Government's main concern is government; they couldn't care less about you or anybody else.

The best you can do is vote for the lesser of evils. And please vote incumbents out of office. The longer they stay there, the more power hungry and corrupt they get.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[drpimp]

I think you listed them in ascending order of likelihood.

Maybe 5 is "he was just playing us for suckers on the campaign trail."

Isn't your suggestion what ALL politicians do? Obammers isn't any different.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We"? Speak for yourself, kemosabe.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sorry, but I hate that cliche. It is used by people that are tricked to let them think that they were not tricked.

"Why no, that guy I voted/elected was not always a douche, he just became one after he got into power."

Bull.

Power and lust for more power attracts the corrupt, it does not cause corruption.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Lumpy]

No we misinterpreted it. he was looking for spare CHANGE.
Most of his funding came from "micro" donations. He was asking for Change as in small bills and coins.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[tranquilidad]

No, it's worse than that.

Obama never really said anything of substance. He said many things that led people to believe they heard what they wanted to hear; a classic move by a flim-flam man.

A friend of mine used to be in the stock market and people would ask him, "What's the market going to do tomorrow?"

His stock reply was, "A lot of people are going to be surprised."

The number of people who thought he actually told them something was shocking. Obama was the same. He said a lot of things were bad but never said what he would do instead. He used the ultimate echo-chamber, a biased media, to say things for him that he never said.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[naasking]

2. Access to top secret data that still hasn't been released showing a compelling need for this information gathering?

If that were the case, he would only need to release some of that information to justify those actions. More than likely the bulk surveillance infrastructure is to maintain a political and economic advantage over other countries.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Charliemopps]

6. He was lying

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[hirundo]

It could be as easy as a credible threat that he must play ball or they'll have one of his daughters (add nasty bits here). Does anyone think that's beyond the moral capability of an intelligence community willing to indiscriminately kill anyone near a drone target? Based on such recent actions I think that there are plenty of such people in the permanent bureaucracy who would consider that to be an act of courage and patriotism.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[GameboyRMH]

Not all of them. For example I think Newt Gingrich honestly believes the things he says :-P

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always said 2.

The day you become CIC, you get the 'book of secrets' (that is probably not an actual book, or one particular piece of information).

You finally have 'all' of the pieces (all that can most likely be had) and now you've got the JOB to take the course that will, for lack of better words fark up the nation in the least.

I wasn't terribly concerned about the election, even though I'm leaning Democrat; Romney would have been a mildly less liberal president than Obama. Just like Obama was a less-hawkis, lots-less-crazy president than GWB.

At the end of the day, it's not the President's job to "make it all right", it's to keep the boat from sinking.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Jason Levine]

The meaning of the statement is that the more power someone has, the harder it can be to resist the urge to abuse that power. Suppose you could throw anyone you didn't like into jail without fear of reprisal. You don't like what someone says and they're in jail indefinitely. No chance of them suing you for false imprisonment at all. At the start, you might only your power for really bad people in cases with a lot of proof. "That murderer killed fifteen kids, everyone saw him do it, and there's a video showing it." As time wore on, you might start requiring less and less proof. Eventually, you'd realize that you could get something you wanted by threatening to jail the person unless they gave it to you. You might not give in to the temptation this time or the next time, but how many times could you resist before you gave in?

Politicians have a lot of power every day of their terms. They might not abuse it today or tomorrow, but it's almost inevitable that many of them will give in at some point. It gets even worse when they can rationalize that their abuse of power is in the best interests of the people they are supposed to serve. Going back to the "jailing" example, this would be akin to you jailing someone convicted of a crime pre-trial because "everyone knows they are guilty" and you are "saving the tax payers money." You've rationalized that you're doing a good thing and might not even notice that you've abused your power.

The more power you give someone, the harder it can be to resist the temptation to abuse it or even to recognize when abuse happens. Give someone absolute power and they will be "absolutely corrupted" even if they think they are still acting as a good guy. This is why were are supposed to have checks and balances on our government. It's not perfect, but it's intended to keep each branch of the government in line and away from abuses.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[jittles]

I'm pretty sure he voted in favor of telecom immunity prior to being elected into office, while he was still in the senate.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[maharvey]

Possibly he got into office and found out who really runs the USA, and what happens to presidents who don't toe the line.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

What they desperately need is fear of getting their head lopped off at the slightest violation of the laws of the land.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[geekoid]

Considering what seems to have been change, it's not 'Gutted' it's different. The term gutted is just being used for FUD. for example:

First and foremost, the bill introduces a different conceptual approach to prohibiting mass spying under Section 215. Unlike the Senate version, which tries to stop the mass collection of calling records by mandating that the records sought "pertain to" an agent of a foreign power or their activities—an approach that we’ve worried about because “pertains to” and “relevant” are so similar—the House version mandates that a "specific selection term" (currently defined as uniquely describing a person, entity, or account) be the "basis for the production" of the records. The overall language may be stronger than in the old USA Freedom Act, but "specific selection term" must be further defined as "entity" could be construed expansively. After the order is filed, the government can obtain up to "two hops"—which may be too expansive for many investigations—from the selection term.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[tsqr]

2. Access to top secret data that still hasn't been released showing a compelling need for this information gathering?

If that were the case, he would only need to release some of that information to justify those actions.

I think you missed the part about the information being classified "top secret". Most classified information becomes declassified after 10 years; 25 years is fairly rare, and 50 years is almost unheard of. But the President can't just declassify top secret information because he wants it released.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[geekoid]

He has done a lot, you just get angry when you narrative is in jeopardy from facts.

A trivial search on the internet would show you that.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[tsqr]

The day you become CIC, you get the 'book of secrets' (that is probably not an actual book, or one particular piece of information).

You finally have 'all' of the pieces (all that can most likely be had) and now you've got the JOB to take the course that will, for lack of better words fark up the nation in the least.

All the pieces that can most likely be had? Are you kidding? The CIA coined the phrase "plausible deniability" back in the 1960's for a reason, you know.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Bartles]

And then they voted for him a second time.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Bartles]

What is liberal about Obama? He is the least liberal President I can possibly think of.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[bjdevil66]

5. For all of the talk from some libertarians, most Americans want to feel safe - and through their inaction (despite the revelations) have ratified GW's and Obama's acceptance of the spy programs.

What would be REALLY interesting to see, IMO, is if Rand Paul (by some miracle) was elected president in 2016 and despite his lineage and rhetoric even he decided to leave the surveillance in place. You'd have to wonder exactly what they're keeping from us, security-wise...

BTW - Looking at some people's defense of Obama on this topic shows that like past Slashdot articles have said, the more people are shown facts that disprove what they believe to be true, the more they clench onto their mistaken beliefs (in this case about Barack Obama's administration being a good thing for the country overall.)

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[CrimsonAvenger]

But the President can't just declassify top secret information because he wants it released.

Yes, actually he can.

He's the head of the Executive Branch, for God's sake! If he wants something unclassified, all he has to do is give the order, and it is so.

Do try to remember that last really good President we had, and the sign on his desk - "The Buck Stops Here"

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

"really runs the USA"

. . . and that would be?

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[CanHasDIY]

Name one thing he said he would do that he didn't try to do, only to be shut down by the republicans.

You mean, aside from:

- Introduce a comprehensive immigration bill in the first year
- Bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda
- Cut the cost of a typical family's health insurance premium by up to $2,500 a year
- Create a public option health plan for a new National Health Insurance Exchange.
- Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN
- No family making less than $250,000 will see "any form of tax increase."
- Recognize the Armenian genocide
- Give the White House's Privacy and Civil Liberties Board subpoena power
- Allow penalty-free hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts in 2008 and 2009
- Sign the Freedom of Choice Act
- Devote federal resources to promote cellulosic ethanol
- Provide an annual report on "state of our energy future"
- Require energy conservation in use of transportation dollars
- Double federal program to help "reverse" commuters who go from city to suburbs
- Mandate flexible fuel vehicles by 2012
- Require more flex-fuel cars for the federal government
- Require new federal fleet purchases to be half plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles
- Require plug-in fleet at the White House
- Use revenue from cap and trade to support clean energy and environmental restoration
- Create cap and trade system with interim goals to reduce global warming
- Enact windfall profits tax for oil companies
- Require 25 percent renewable energy by 2025
- Establish a low carbon fuel standard
- Reduce earmarks to 1994 levels
- Give annual "State of the World" address
- Call for a consultative group of congressional leaders on national security
- Limit term of director of national intelligence
- Strengthen the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
- Give tax incentives to new farmers
- Strengthen anti-monopoly laws to favor independent farmers
- Limit subsidies for agribusiness
- Reduce the number of middle managers in the federal workforce
- Improve and prioritize student science assessments
- Encourage diversity in media ownership
- Seek treaty to control fissile materials
- Pay for the national service plan without increasing the deficit
- Expand service-learning in schools
- Establish a Global Energy Corps to promote green energy in developing countries
- Create a national catastrophe insurance reserve
- Direct revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protection
- Support human mission to moon by 2020
- Re-establish the National Aeronautics and Space Council
- Support tax deduction for artists
- Fully fund the COPS program
- Restore Superfund program so that polluters pay for clean-ups
- Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour
- Increase the supply of affordable housing throughout metropolitan regions
- Allow bankruptcy judges to modify terms of a home mortgage
- Ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies
- Eliminate caps on damages for discrimination cases
- Sign the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act into law
- Urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws
- Regulate pollution from major livestock operations
- Create scholarships to recruit new teachers
- Double funding for afterschool programs
- Double funding for Federal Charter School Program and require more accountability
- Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials
- Allow five days of public comment before signing bills
- Expose Special Interest Tax Breaks to Public Scrutiny
- Create a public "Contracts and Influence" database
- Seek independent watchdog agency to investigate congressional ethics violations
- Double the Peace Corps
- Reinstate special envoy for the Americas
- With the G-8, launch Health Infrastructure 2020
- Seek to nego

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[CanHasDIY]

Which would blow my mind, if I didn't understand the mentality of the average voter: "Oh, but if I don't vote for the lesser evil someone might get elected who's a greater evil!

I prefer to not vote for evil at all.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be a version of 4. He probably just wants to appear tough on terror and is scared that if/when another attack happens and he was the one to scale back mass surveillance, his party would be blamed. Oh wait, Boston Marathon. Sanctioned mass surveillance and still the intel community dropped the ball.

documentary on how mass surveillance started: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[mellon]

He knows that he will have to live with any intelligence failures that occur on his watch, and he's the kind of person who really will live with it, and not just blow it off. So he needn't have learned anything at all after coming into office. His circumstances have changed, so his positions have changed. Do you have any idea how much pressure presidents with any brain at all are under once they take office? Even Bush Jr. eventually buckled under the weight of the office, and he was about as oblivious as any president in recent history. Look at how all of the presidents since Nixon aged after taking office. It's not pretty. I don't like what Obama has changed his mind on, but I think it pays to be realistic about this. We are much more likely to get leadership out of a good congress than a good president, because each individual member has less on the line. Unfortunately, we didn't elect a good congress.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[TubeSteak]

Obama never really said anything of substance. He said many things that led people to believe they heard what they wanted to hear; a classic move by a flim-flam man.

What a load of crap.
If that is true, then it's true insofar as it applies to every politician who doesn't follow through on 100% of their campaign promises.
Which would be... every politician.

It's trivial to find lists of Bush Jr's and Obama's broken campaign promises online.
If you want Clinton or earlier, you'll end up digging through newspaper articles instead of web pages specifically set up to hold presidents to account for their campaign pledges.

Obama was the same. He said a lot of things were bad but never said what he would do instead. He used the ultimate echo-chamber, a biased media, to say things for him that he never said.

Obama's biggest problem has been unrelenting Republican obstruction of his entire agenda.
He said things were bad, proposed legislative fixes, and then watched them die in Congress.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[I'm New Around Here]

A lot. Like selling guns to Mexican drug cartels, getting an ambassador killed, bowing to every leader he can, and perfecting his golf swing.

Should I use a trivial search to find more?

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[I'm New Around Here]

Do try to remember that last really good President we had, and the sign on his desk - "The Buck Stops Here"

Errr ... Johnson?

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Aighearach]

That just tells me you weren't listening to what he was actually saying, and instead were listening to pundits. From the left and right, they all claimed, "oh, he's not really the moderate centrist he claims to be, he's a black Democrat, he has to say that stuff but of course he's a Liberaaaal."

Then it turns out he was being literal and honest on the campaign trail, he's actually a moderate centrist who believes in the establishment. Then people howl, "he lied, he lied," but of course they never knew what he said in the first place; only what they were told by the pundits.

He seemed to be a moderate centrist to me when he was campaigning, but I guess I made the "mistake" of listening to his words and positions instead of listening to the people ready to tell me what he "really must believe."

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Aighearach]

He's liberal because he's a black Democrat, so if he claims to be moderate and all his policies are moderate and centrist, then somebody must have bought him off. He's secretly a Socialist. Everybody knows it, because all black Democrats are socialists, so there is no need to listen to the President or look at his policies to determine what he believes.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Aighearach]

The standard conspiracy theory that holds that the President doesn't have any power is that the CIA killed JFK for making his own decisions regarding Cuba policy, and that every President since has done what they're told.

Generally the other conspiracy theories rely on the Presidents all being part of some secret shadow group, or not actually having their hands on the levers of power.

It is mostly only the CIA conspiracy theory that holds that the President has his hands on the levers, but is basically a hostage.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do try to remember that last really good President we had, and the sign on his desk - "The Buck Stops Here"

Errr ... Johnson?

Truman. You are "New Around Here" aren't you? It's sad. Nobody reads Santayana anymore. Sigh.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[jonwil]

Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

The former head of the TSA has said publicly that when he became head of the TSA he wanted to end a lot of the post-9/11 security crap (liquid bans, shoe removal etc). But when he took up the position, he was shown examples of actual threats that those security measures were stopping (or could stop) and that removing them would increase the risks.

My guess is that Obama when he took up office was shown examples by the intelligence people of things that had been detected or identified thanks to the wholesale spying (and remember we aren't just talking about terrorists, we know from the leaks that the wholesale spying is being used to catch drug dealers and organized crime figures too) and as such realized that shutting it down WOULD make the world less safe.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[MaskedSlacker]

You mean his words when he said he believe AT&T should have faced penalties for helping with the NSA wiretapping? Those words? The words where he said he believed in due process (in reference to guantanamo)?

Because this is the guy who believes in reading all your mail and murdering citizens by drone with no accountability. Those were his words then, these are his actions now.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

No, it doesn't. Occam's Razor suggests that the simplest explanation of all explanations with equal explanatory power is the one we should roll with.

Occam's Razor doesn't make any statement about the truth value of the explanations (doing so would be absurd, sometimes reality is/em> unnecessarily complex), it's just concerned with making us keep our discussions as simple as possible as long as there is no obvious need for complexity.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but besides of that?

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[cbhacking]

Yes he did. That was the point at which I stopped supporting him; it was too blatant a lie and too much an unjustified reversal on an important position for me to forgive.

I don't support the Republican candidates either, mind you. I vote third-party because WA is about as far from a swing state as you can get, so it's a good place to try to give the third parties some visibility and hopefully scare the Dems and entice the Repubs just a bit.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should've used your brain if you had one, but that's a moot point.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? Try using your brain instead of your ass.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Aighearach]

You do know, (right?) that he has tried and is still trying to close the Guantamo prison, but Congress has blocked him... right? The other stuff is hyperbole that doesn't include having listened to anything he actually said, so I won't respond to it.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Sciath]

Nearly all of humanity is corruptible given the proper incentive. That's just human nature. So, if one starts with the premise that no human is perfect and/or has perfect motives, then put that person in a position of power and that power will corrupt that person's motives and actions. Thus, in a sense, it is the power that corrupts because power affords the opportunity for further degrees of corruption.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Sciath]

That certainly didn't happen with Obama's promises on surveillance. Just the other day on PBS' Frontline program "The United States of Secrets" they showed a clip from one of Obama's 2007 campaign speeches in which he asserted that he would do away with domestic surveillance. He ended up keeping Bush's programs and since taking office expanded surveillance programs.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[MaskedSlacker]

You do know, (right?) how to read...right? I didn't say anything about closing Guantanamo. I said he claimed to support due process rights when talking about Guantanamo.

He has abandoned due process in favor of extrajudicial murder. That is not hyperbole; that is fact. You can stick your fingers in your delusional ears all you like, but it won't change the facts on the ground. It has nothing to do with what he says and everything to do with what he DOES. US citizens have been murdered by drone attacks based on secret evidence without trial. He has admitted to signing off on those killings. All of that is fact. He has allowed the NSA to read whatever they want, including the text messages and emails of everyone.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[jwhitener]

Or maybe the President is just one person who is put in charge every 8 years. While this building stays permanently, and is filled with people who are probably experts at convincing newly elected Presidents.

1 temporary President versus the permanent Military Industrial Complex. Democrats and Republicans are identical on the "true power" issues The "big money" stuff. They are very different on a lot of other things that truly do change our lives though, so I still think it is worth thinking about those other issues as well.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[jwhitener]

Am I missing something here?

How would Obama "Eliminate all oil and gas tax loopholes" without Congress? Ditto on most of that list.

Or is your objection that he did not try to do those things (despite knowing it would be a complete waste of time because of congress).

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[jwhitener]

Oh, there's a GOP one also: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/gop-pledge-o-meter/

I couldn't look back and see older Presidencies. I bet they are all similar amounts of broken/kept promises.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Aighearach]

Woah, hold on there, I refuted your claims and now you're trying to switch them out for other claims, that are also hyperbole and can also be refuted.

You were wrong, you lied about President Obama, instead of doubling down, just admit it and try to be more honest next time.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[MaskedSlacker]

Can you read? Do you see the word "closing" in my original post? Are you on LSD?

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[CanHasDIY]

Objection doesn't come into play - I was presented a challenge ("Name one thing..."), and accepted.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[zlives]

facts about NSA, FISA, lobbyists in appointed positions are there for you to search as well.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't?

[Aighearach]

So you're mad at Obama because he attempted to do what he said he would do, but Congress blocked him?

Did you think he promised to ride a magic pony and stage a coup and disband Congress to close Guantanamo?

Seriously dude, that's pretty insane. Obama is still trying to close Guantanamo, by any political calculus that is what he promised.

Get used to disappointment...

[Anonymous Coward]

...or rise up.

Normal channels aren't working, but things aren't 'bad enough' for a sufficient number of people to do anything (yet).

I hope I get to see a peaceful revolution in my lifetime.

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[GameboyRMH]

I'd say if you have another 10-15 years of life left in you, you will, no matter where you live.

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[Anon-Admin]

I'd say if you have another 10-15 years of life left in you, you will, no matter where you live.

I have heard that statement made many times over the last 30 years. It has yet to happen and I dont think it will.

The truth is that Bush Sr, GW Bush, and Obama are all the same. There is no difference between Dem. and Rep. It all boils down to money and power, nether gives a S**T about the people.

  I only hope that some day enough people wake up and say F*** IT, then vote third party. I would love to see a three way tie or even a race between three parties that comes down to less than 1% difference.

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[GameboyRMH]

The difference is that now we have a whole generation that is unemployed on a massive scale, with inequality and automation sqeezing the populace ever tighter, and computer models telling us that the shit is indeed going to hit the fan:

http://www.wired.com/2013/04/c...

If you even skim defense news you'll also see that the US military is putting a lot of priority on "handling" unrest inside the US.

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[GameboyRMH]

Addendum: Whoops I didn't notice the "peaceful" part...no guarantees on that.

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[Aighearach]

I do way more than "skim" defense news. As a news junkie I have to say, that sounds nuts. I haven't seen anything at all like that, much less something that indicates "priority." I'd ask for links, but I already know what it would be... long stretches that I won't think are at all related to what you said. How can I be sure? Because I'm already more than skimming. ;)

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[GameboyRMH]

So you haven't read anything about how the NSA shifted focus to domestic monitoring after the recession started? It may not be a top priority for the military on a whole but it is a top intelligence priority.

And here's the link just in case you want to read it:

http://www.theguardian.com/env...

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[Aighearach]

Actually, no, I'm not really interested in lies from The Guardian. They've been lying and lying all through it. If there is a real accusation, it will get repeated in legit media.

When the Snowden leaks first broke, they spent months lying to us, feeding us incorrect power point training documents as if they were policy papers, while freakin' sitting on the stories that explainded the programs in those bad training docs. They've consistently dribbled out reports that were misleading entirely by being incomplete, and where their reporters had the full information already.

If in fact the article is about the claims that were widely reported, you might want to look up what agencies you think were involved, because the NSA has nothing to do with that story. That story is about the Pentagon, mainly the Army, having done a study that said that climate-change-related environmental disasters could upset the economy and lead to wide-scale unrest. And they want 20k soldiers sitting around waiting to deal with that. The Army has been asking for various things like that since they were formed. That is why we have civilian leadership.

But there is nothing at all in any of the stories about some sort of "shift to domestic monitoring." All the revealed domestic programs are now known to predate the supposed "shift." I guess they "shifted" their domestic monitoring programs to... domestic monitoring.

You probably even think that by not knowing the details, you're fighting against it. Right? Right?

Re:Get used to disappointment...

[jwhitener]

The truth is that Bush Sr, GW Bush, and Obama are all the same.

on national security, sure. On corporate power, sure.

But you can't honestly believe things like education, abortion, college tuition, environmental issues, etc.... they are even remotely the same?

I think what people who say things like "they are all the same" are really complaining about is how watered down and useless most legislation gets after it goes through the completely dysfunctional Congressional system. Its like Obama says to the public, I promise a cake!. We all like cake. But by the time it gets "baked" in Congress, it is missing eggs because Republicans hate eggs, and missing sugar because Democrats hate sugar. So the cake is a soupy sloppy pile of bitter crap.

https://mayone.us/
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim

Pressure?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

House Leadership was pressured by the Obama Administration to weaken many of the bill's provisions.

Pressured how? They sent lots of Emails with "RE:" in the subject title? Many phone calls were made? The people who took you to lunch chuckled at public "hysteria"? Somebody insinuated they might have the ability to strike a committee to consider, in the fullness of time, whether pork due to your constituency -- if any -- might be placed under a possible pending review?

Would the house leadership describe the "pressure" placed by the Administration as "Overwhelming", "Compelling", or merely "Gentle but Firm"? Which one of these do Legislators consider as an excuse to justify gutting the Act?

The story is BS, and pure optics. The house leadership had no intention of passing the bill ungutted.

Re:Pressure?

[Xaedalus]

Why would the House cave to the White House? Particularly the House Leadership? To Obama? Nahh... methinks they're using this as an excuse to gin up support, plus set up things for a Republican President.

Re:Pressure?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the defense of the Holy One, anointed on on high, He who can Do no wrong, Obama...starts...rather quickly. Maybe Obama just sucks?

Re:Pressure?

[somedudegeekman]

The story is BS, and pure optics. The house leadership had no intention of passing the bill ungutted.

Solid gold cupie doll...

Re:Pressure?

[John.Banister]

I have to agree. If "pressure" from the White House could make a difference, it would make a difference in more legislation than this, but it hasn't.

Re:Pressure?

[Charliemopps]

1. The president wont endorse you in the next election.
2. The president will veto all your bills
3. The president will blame future terrorist attacks on you.
4. The president will move future defense contracts out of your state.
5. The president wont invite you to the whitehouse for photo ops.
6. The president will show up in your home town next time you're supposed to give a speech before an election, stealing the show and making all your voters forget about you.
7. Maybe you'd like to see YOUR NSA file Mr Congressman?

I could go on, but I'm tired of typing. He's the most powerful man in the world. He could literally ruin the careers of most congressmen, especially democrats, on a whim. The more powerful members of the House and Senate maybe not, but the rank and file? It'd be a joke.

It's the presidents job to do this. I don't blame him for that. I do, however, blame him for being wrong.

Re:Pressure?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

For the record, the GP was in no way meant to be a defence of the Obama Administration, who are even more to blame for this and several other problems. I didn't feel the need to state this in the post because I presume by now everyone is more of less aware of the homogeneous nature of those in power in the US.

Re:Pressure?

[slinches]

Why would the House cave to the White House?

How about because the President would veto the bill without the changes and there aren't enough votes to pass it with a 2/3 majority as-is?

Re:Pressure?

[geekoid]

no, people believe it's homogenus. However all facts point to that being incorrect.

But. hey, don't let facts determine your narrative just by into popular culture.

What is the Obama administration to be blamed for? hmm?

The changes made the bill more specific.

First and foremost, the bill introduces a different conceptual approach to prohibiting mass spying under Section 215. Unlike the Senate version, which tries to stop the mass collection of calling records by mandating that the records sought "pertain to" an agent of a foreign power or their activities—an approach that we’ve worried about because “pertains to” and “relevant” are so similar—the House version mandates that a "specific selection term" (currently defined as uniquely describing a person, entity, or account) be the "basis for the production" of the records. The overall language may be stronger than in the old USA Freedom Act, but "specific selection term" must be further defined as "entity" could be construed expansively. After the order is filed, the government can obtain up to "two hops"—which may be too expansive for many investigations—from the selection term.

Re:Pressure?

[Aighearach]

Actually that sounds rather tinfoil to me. And I don't believe for a minute you're tired of typing.

Re:Pressure?

[Xaedalus]

Good point!

Re:Pressure?

[jwhitener]

I couldn't even find any references providing evidence that the White House did the pressuring. The title is wrong as far as I can tell. The House Leadership decided to do the gutting.

Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[SuperKendall]

Just in case you still thought the roots of fascism came from anything other than claiming to care about those they rule over - as the news about the freedom act being gutted shows.

Liberal Fascism

Also think strongly on this the next time you do not vote Libertarian because it's a "wasted vote".

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[GameboyRMH]

Or if you can't afford the book, just read everything on conservapedia.com!

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[Anonymous Coward]

do not vote Libertarian because it's a "wasted vote"

As are any of them.

This is post "Minority Report Days", baby.. profiling through surveillance could be helpful to pinpoint one who is not just likely commit a despicable act, but when!

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[jeffmflanagan]

Only people who don't understand what "Liberal" or "Fascism" mean think that Liberal Fascism is a thing. Jonah Goldberg is a kook, just like everyone involved with the conservative grift. Why do you fall for conservative nonsense and paranoia? Have you not noticed how dishonest it all is?

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[jeffmflanagan]

Yes, everyone should go to conservapedia. It's one of the best examples of absurd conservative alternate-reality out there. We need to marginalize these kooks, and reclaim the Republican party for people with IQs over room temperature.

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[Rob the Bold]

Liberal Fascism

Save your money. If you want it, you can probably pick up a cheap copy at your local thrift store.

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[SuperKendall]

Have you not noticed how dishonest it all is?

He says in a story about how a liberal president is gutting improvements to a Freedom Act that actually bring freedom...

Read the book. It's not dishonest at all, its a revealing trip through history

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[GameboyRMH]

It's also fun to Play Conservatroll

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a big fan of Obama, but SuperKendall's disapproval makes me wonder if I should be more supportive of this administration's moves.

Conservative idiot. Not all conservatives are idiots, but there are conservative idiots, and this is one of the most partisan douches I've ever seen online.

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[Anonymous Coward]

Only people who don't understand what "Liberal" or "Fascism" mean think that Liberal Fascism is a thing. Jonah Goldberg is a kook, just like everyone involved with the conservative grift. Why do you fall for conservative nonsense and paranoia? Have you not noticed how dishonest it all is?

Bullshit. Guess who also touted today's leftist talking points?

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions" - Adolf Hitler

"England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people's state. There are lords and City men in England who are in fact the richest men on earth. The broad masses, however, see little of this wealth. We see in England an army of millions of impoverished, socially enslaved and oppressed people. Child labour is still a matter of course there. They have only heard about social welfare programs. Parliament occasionally discusses social legislation. Nowhere else is there such terrible and horrifying inequality as in the English slums. The Lords and City people can remain the richest people one earth only because they constantly maintain their wealth by exploiting their colonies and preserving unbelievable poverty in their own country." - Josef Goebbels

The logical contortions you're going to have to go through now are going to be absolutely hilarious. Your excuses and explanations about how those two didn't know what they were talking about is going to be epic.

Oh, and quite a bit worse than merely "dishonest".

Re:Never a better time to read "Liberal Fascism"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for anybody who watches Fox News, "liberal", "fascist", "communist", "socialist", "nazi", and "terrorist" all mean the same thing.

House != White House

[Tablizer]

The title and summary appear to conflate House of Representatives and White House. Am I reading it wrong?

Re:House != White House

[ChilyWily]

I read it the same way.

Re:House != White House

[NoKaOi]

Am I reading it wrong?

Yes. The White House (Obama's administration) convinced the House Leadership (legislative members of the House of [pseudo]Representatives) to gut the bill.

Re:House != White House

[nigelo]

Is there any evidence supporting your assertion, apart from the summary?

Thanks,

Re:House != White House

[nigelo]

Actually, isn't it just the title that is getting it wrong?

" This is quite disappointing given the consensus by the public, Congress, the President, and two independent review groups that ending bulk collection is necessary."

Re:House != White House

[Tablizer]

Since when did they listen to Mr. O? They generally try to do the opposite, often seemingly out of spite. They even turned down certain tax-cuts in a few cases!

Hmmm, maybe he's using reverse psychology now.

Re:House != White House

[Anonymous Coward]

As if Obama could have any influence over House Republicans. They're way too full of hatred of our president to even communicate with.

Re:House != White House

[Aighearach]

No, and there won't be, because the House Leadership are Republicans who actually don't care what President Obama wants on any issue.

From my perspective the original bill was a "weak" reform package. The EFF wants to claim that it was originally strong in their press release, but that is kinda silly. It was already weakened by the committee before, so that they just had to use the right words to bulk collect. You could say they would be forced to bulk-ish collect instead of bulk collect. That was pure House of Reps committee politics that weakened it that much. So now it is even weaker. Nowhere does the President even get consulted in this timeline.

When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked?

[dcollins]

The House Leadership is all GOP. They've claimed that their number one priority is stopping whatever Obama wants. Mostly they've done that -- except on this one single thing, namely freedom online, they decide to roll over. So this serves as a pretty good test for both parties as to what their true priorities are.

Obama's a pretty terrible President, but when push comes to shove it's a good check-in that the reason for that is that he really wants the same things as the GOP.

He Knows Power

[SuperKendall]

Recall that he stated strongly

Recall that he states everything strongly, often against something he stated strongly before. Therefore only pay attention to what he does and you'll see the true picture.

Extensive surveillance is not just great for catching terrorists, but finding out who is a conservative and what they are doing you can use the keep them quiet.

Re:He Knows Power

[SuperKendall]

Obama is more conservative than Reagan.

It's interesting that you think so but really you are just self-rationalizing so that you can bring yourself to vote for another person just like him.

Re:He Knows Power

[Tailhook]

Recall that he states everything strongly

Barry says "MAKE NO MISTAKE!" and libtards planet-wide get a tingle. He was doing it again this morning with the VA scandal, amped up so high he was clipping. They're so impressed with his political theater they bounce around the Internets with weasel words like "stated strongly" and are astonished when people point and laugh.

Re:He Knows Power

[epyT-R]

Uh no. Obama is a statist not a conservative.

Re:He Knows Power

[Vitriol Angst]

Domestic surveillance is a great way to control who gets in office, and selective law enforcement when everyone is breaking the law is a great way to quell the public trying to change the status quo.

But we don't need domestic spying to uncover Conservatives and if making them quiet were the goal -- they've failed on both counts.

Re:He Knows Power

[Vitriol Angst]

More Conservative than Reagan and Nixon.

You can provide a lot of links to support this notion -- but I'm fairly sure that SuperKendall has never researched anything before taking a strong stand.

Re:He Knows Power

[geekoid]

No he is not more conservative then Reagan, not by a long shot. Obama is moderate.

Re:He Knows Power

[mellon]

No, he really is. Have you read his books? Reagan is his personal hero. You think he's less conservative than Reagan because the Overton window (look it up!) has moved so far to the right that the Republicans have had to repudiate every sensible policy they ever supported. Nowadays there are people in congress trying to move things to the left again, but Reagan^H^H^H^H^H^HObama is resisting as best he can.

Re:He Knows Power

[david_thornley]

Okay, show me ten real conservatives on the Hill. They really don't make 'em like they did when I was a kid.

Re:He Knows Power

[I'm New Around Here]

OK, I'll play this game. Here are five topics that Reagan had a strong position on. How does Obama compare?

1. Abortion

2. Unionized workers

3. Communist regimes (such as in USSR or Cuba)

4. Drugs

5. Relations with the UK

Can you compare Reagan's and Obama's public stances on those items?

Re:He Knows Power

[I'm New Around Here]

Oh please. If Clinton had an 'R' after his name instead of a 'D', you'd be asking why he was never brought up on rape charges.

But because he plays for your team, you overlook every bad thing he did and give him credit for good things that others did.

Re:He Knows Power

[sumdumass]

Why don't you provide some links... I've heard this claim before but never see the links from a creditable source.

Re:He Knows Power

[Aighearach]

Reagan was center-right when politics was much further left than it is now.

Obama is center-left after the nation has moved very far to the right.

To me seems obvious that Obama is similarly conservative as Reagan, and who is farther left or right depends on the issue. On many issues Obama is indeed right of Reagan.

I don't think Obama's preferred polices are right of Reagan's, but as a centrist Obama cares mostly about what is doable in current politics, what consensus is available on an issue. And that is what he tries to push, rather than just trying to get his way. So it is natural that with the politics generally having moved so far right, the compromises available now are to the right of what they were under Reagan.

Reagan seems to have been a similar sort of centrist, but whose personal views were far to the right of what he usually proposed.

Re:He Knows Power

[Aighearach]

"You know, the truth of the matter is when you look at some of my policies, in a lot of ways Richard Nixon was more liberal than I was. [He] started the E.P.A, you know, started a whole lot of the regulatory state that has helped make our air and water clean." -- President Obama

It has been fairly widely discussed in the media recently.

Re:He Knows Power

[Aighearach]

Right, but is a moderate today left or right of a conservative in the 80s?

Clearly a moderate from the 80s would be a "far left liberal" today. President Reagan would be run out of the Republican party as a RINO (Republican In Name Only) if he was alive today and help the positions he held in office.

I think the window has indeed shifted far enough right that a moderate today is right of a mainstream 80s conservative.

Re:He Knows Power

[sumdumass]

The comment was about Reagan not Nixon.. Or can you not tell the two apart?

Obama is more conservative than Reagan.

I guess a reply under it mentioned Nixon.

More Conservative than Reagan and Nixon. But I wouldn't say the EPA of the time was liberal or conservative. We caught rivers on fire and did so somewhat often. We had trashed the area and it was a health concern more than anything. What makes it liberal/conservative now is how much cleaner the environment is or isn't. One seems to think everything needs to be regulated under it and the other thinks it has been enough. Only if you look with today's eyes would you think it is a liberal concept.

Re:He Knows Power

[mellon]

Pretty much the same on drugs and the UK. Abortion isn't a liberal/conservative issue—it's an issue that politicians state an opinion on that agrees with their base; what they actually think is anybody's guess. Communism? He's taking a pretty firm stance with Putin, who appears to be trying to revive the worst aspects of the Soviet Union, but of course that's complicated by issues that are new in the intervening years. Unions? Pretty much the same.

It's interesting though that you didn't ask about monetary policy, regulation, energy policy, or any major issues—you really tightened down on some pretty minor stuff.

Re:He Knows Power

[dryeo]

Has there ever been a successful conservative who wasn't a statist? The left has actually produced successful non-statists though not in the Americas. Gandhi, Mandala, and the Dali Lama are some examples of leftists who were not statists.

Re:He Knows Power

[I'm New Around Here]

Quite honestly, I don't know whether you are being serious with that post, or if I'm just feeding a troll. Nothing you posted bears the slightest resemblance to the truth. Well, other than the fact that Putin isn't being very neighborly. But you pull off into left field with that aspect too.

Abortion isn't a liberal/conservative issue? But they take positions that appeal to their liberal or conservative base? So you contradict yourself, while being wrong concerning both presidents. Reagan was certainly pro-life. And Obama was obviously pro-choice when he was running in 2008. If anything, Obama down-played it during the election to appeal to the other guy's base.

How are they the same on drugs? Reagan started the War on Drugs, and Obama's only contribution was removing a large amount of it from the local supply, while in high school. And for what it's worth, I think the criminalization of drugs is one of the worst policies in American government.

Now for the UK. Reagan was a strong supporter of the British government, especially with Margaret Thatcher at the helm. Obama brushes them off, no matter who is in charge. It's almost like he dislikes the country that colonized his family's land. (Yes, I have read his books..)

You are right about Putin. President Obama is being very tough on him, freezing bank accounts and holding press conferences in the Rose Garden. President Reagan only went to the Berlin Wall and demanded it be torn down.

However, you did a quick little sidestep there, hoping I wouldn't notice. Putin is not trying to bring back communism to Russia. He is happy to allow capitalism to enrich his cronies, and himself of course. How about you make an observation about Cuba, or Venezuela instead?

Finally unions. The defining difference between the two is that Reagan didn't promise the unions anything, and didn't put up with their shit when they broke the law. Obama promised the unions everything, and then ignored them once he got their vote. He still blows kisses to them once in a while, but it's obvious he only used them for political gain.

It's interesting you only think certain government issues are worthy of comment. I certainly didn't limit my scope to non-issues. Just to ones you are apparently uncomfortable with, as well as unfamiliar. But the three you chose are odd examples of similarity between Reagan and Obama.

Reagan weathered a recession by keeping a tight money supply, implemented by Fed chair Paul Volker. Obama has pushed billions of dollars per month into the money supply to try to end the current recession (that supposedly ended five years ago).

Government regulation? Are you kidding me? People still blame Reagan for bad airline service because he deregulated them. Have you heard of the small regulation called Obamacare? Maybe you should read up on it. And we all know Obama would push a single-payer system if he thought he could get away with it.

And finally, energy policy. Did Reagan ever hold up approval of a pipeline until after an election? Did his administration rescind leases of public land to be used for oil drilling, shut down active drilling operations, and even lie to the courts in order to do so? Because Obama's administration has done all that. So, really, I don't see the comparison you are looking for.

Re:He Knows Power

[mellon]

Obamacare is a Republican health care package that was enacted into law by a Republican administration in Massachusetts and was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation. You seem to have a lot of energy to throw out chaff, but why don't you deal with that one before we go on to the next one?

Re:He Knows Power

[Aighearach]

Nixon is who was discussed in the media as having been more liberal. If you're not aware of what is going on in the world, guess what, that isn't news.

Re:He Knows Power

[I'm New Around Here]

So, of all the things I wrote, the one argument you can throw back at me is that the individual mandate, which is just one part of Obamacare, was endorsed by RINOs. Please don't feel insulted when I say that I expected something more substantial. Still incorrect, but substantial.

Here is my substantial reply:

First, I had to go back up and read what I said about it, because I thought we were comparing Reagan and Obama. That's right, Reagan pushed deregulation of industries, and Obama has pushed greater regulation, in direct opposition to your original claim of their similarity.

So, having lost that fight, you want to focus just on Obamacare, because your talking points memo has a few bullets to support you. Fine, I'll accept your concession of all the major points, and focus on the red herring you are waving in place of the white flag.

Obamacare is a Democrat law passed by Democrats in the House and Senate. It is of dubious lineage at that, because of the many lobbyists and special interest groups that wrote various parts of it. Many of the various parts are counterproductive, such as specifically taxing companies that make medical devices, which will in turn drive up the cost of those same devices.

The individual mandate part of Obamacare was originally put out by some stupid people who thought they had a great rebuttal to Hillarycare. Turns out they were just idiots, and have since recanted. But you love to use their mistake as representative of all Republicans. Good for you.

(By the way, I'm not Republican, or Libertarian. I voted for Jill Stein in 2012, and would again.)

As for Romneycare, I have no problem at all with Romneycare. That is because the US Constitution does not state that Massachusetts cannot enact such a law. As long as Massachusetts' own charter does not prohibit it, there is nothing untoward about a particular state having the individual mandate. Shocking, I know. States' Rights, and all that.

Even at that, I prefer Hawaii's system more, and it worked far better than Obamacare could. In Hawaii, businesses have to provide insurance coverage for their employees. Employees were not obligated to sign up for the insurance, so it wasn't an individual mandate, but an employer mandate to offer it. The costs of the coverage also had to be reasonable, with a ceiling of some percent of the employee's pay.

But that sounds like the employer mandate in Obamacare, so I have to oppose it, right? Wrong. Again, a state can make laws that the federal government is not allowed to make. Just as the federal government can make laws that the individual states are not allowed to make. So Hawaii, in its aloha spirit way, has a law that requires businesses to provide for their employees. And it works quite well, if not perfectly.

So, is that detailed enough for you? Or do I have to go into the real muck of Obamacare? Of course, everything I say against your ideology will just be brushed aside, so I don't plan to write another novel for you here.

Re:He Knows Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it's not great for catching terrorists either, as the NSA's own statistics show. It may be a great tool for targeting political dissidents though, which is probably closer to their true aim. They don't have any change or revolution here, they want to lock us all down and fuck us over HARD. It's been a wet dream of the oligarchs for centuries (that is, being able to create a truly totalitarian state in order to keep an iron grip on power ala North Korea) and they are in the process of realizing it.

Re:He Knows Power

[sumdumass]

What the price of tea in China is at any given time has nothing to do with a specific comment made. If you cannot follow along, please sit down until someone explains it to you.

Here is a hint about conversations. Someone says something. They use words to convey a message. You or someone else will receive and process those words and respond based on those words. If you have something to add, then by all means add it. But do not ignore the words in order to impose something completely outside the conversation.

Hope and change!

[SSCGWLB]

How is that working out?

Re:Hope and change!

[Opportunist]

The slogan was "yes we CAN". Nobody said anything about DOING anything.

Besides, nobody who managed to rub two brain cells together expected any change for real. Why should the one side of The Party change what the other side implemented?

Re:Hope and change!

[gurps_npc]

1) We got healthcare, a major political reform the Democrats worked on for over 30 years.

2) We killed Osama Bin Laden after Bush failed to do so for 7 years

3)We stopped insulting every other country and going to war on bad information.

So most Democrats consider that a big success. The only things we dislike about Obama are when he continued GOP programs (programs they started and did not object to when Bush did them), such as the NSA and the drone killing of Americans.

So in general, Hope and Change got us exactly what we thought it would, if not quite so much as some of us desired.

General grade B+/A-, vs Bush D+/C-, and Clinton's A-/A.

Re:Hope and change!

[nwaack]

1) We got healthcare

We got a badly implemented form of mandatory health insurance (notice, I said 'health insurance,' NOT healthcare) that further penalizes the poor for not being able to afford it.

2) We killed Osama Bin Laden after Bush failed to do so for 7 years

Yep

3)We stopped insulting every other country and going to war on bad information.

This is purely some well-spun subjective opinion which means absolutely nothing in terms of hope and/or change.

SO basically the only hope and change that occurred was that Bin Laden was finally killed; and it wasn't like Obama had much, if anything to do with that directly. If you rate that as an A- I have some choice real estate to sell you.

The truly scary thing about all this is that you, along with so many others, have actually convinced yourself that he's a good president.

Re:Hope and change!

[SSCGWLB]

We? Have a mouse in your pocket?

#1) By healthcare reform you mean forced to buy insurance? I don't see a lot of reform going on, so far it hasn't exactly been a stunning success (and major parts of it have been delayed repeatedly). More signs of awesome I am sure.

#2) So 'we' found Osama? Or years of work (started while Bush was in office) finally bared fruit? It's not like Obama was out there with a flashlight.

#3) 40% of Democratice Representative and 58% of Democratic Senators voted for the Iraq war. Both parties own that war. I realize that 'we' have a short memory.

I really hope you can come up with some bigger wins then that. Maybe the fact that Obama has added more debt then any other president in history? Go him!

Re:Hope and change!

[SSCGWLB]

I conceed your point. Maybe the printers left off the second part of the slogan:

"Yes we CAN ... do exactly the same thing as the other guy"
"Yes we CAN ... keep the status quo"
"Yes we CAN ... screw up everything we touch"

I certainly didn't exact anything to change. I just enjoy poking the people who did. I have to admit, they aren't fighting as much as they used to. Now they just twitch a little, I guess the realization has finally set in, shame it took them this long.

Re:Hope and change!

[gurps_npc]

The question was not how does the GOP feel about Obama, but how do the people that voted for Hope and Change feel about Obama.

Your insults and personal opinions about Obamacare belong to the far right, not to the people that voted for it. For example you talked about mandatory health insurance, rather than the many positive things like no refusals for being already sick.

We, the Americans that are in the far majority, LIKE 99% of Obamacare's provisions. So your personal dislike of the things we like does not in any way affect how we feel about it. we

So basically the hope and change we got was Obamacare - something we the people that voted for Obama love and you, the people did not vote for Obama hate. That is the major reason we gave him an A.

The fact that you personally dislike the thing we love does not mean I am foolish enough to fall for blatantly false lies - such as real estate that you want to sell. Instead it means you are not competent enough to realize that other people disagree with you and are happy with the result.

Killing Bin Laden was a real decision made by Obama that was NOT made by Bush. Bush's people knew about Bin Laden's suspected location but did not have the guts to go after him.

Stopped invading other countries is not well spun subjective opinion. It is a real fact. You called it an objective opinion because again, you don't like that we did it. But we, the people that voted for Obama LIKED that we did it.

The truly scare thing is not that I believe he is a good president but instead that:

1) You do not understand that the things you hate are the very things we love.

2) That anyone that disagrees with you must be wrong.

3) You are so arrogant as to think that I must be lying when I say I like the president, as opposed to actually intelligently liking the things he has done,

Let me ask you a question. Assume that a president gets elected and institutes a flat tax at 20%, makes abortion illegal, and makes it legal to conceal carry or open carry any gun - from a pistol to an ak-47. You personally would consider that man a great president, correct? Do you honestly think that Democrat would agree? Are sentient enough to realize that everything I just said is a GOP dream come true but also a DNC nightmare? A president that you would love is one we would hate.

Now for the big intellectual jump on you side. Don't you think the reverse is also true? That a president you personally hate is one the other side might love? That every single thing he does that you hate is in fact the very thing we love?

President Obama has successfully delivered multiple large victories to the left. Yes, if Congress had been more liberal, he could have got more done - but you personally would have hated him even more. That is WHY you hate him - and also why we love him.

The fact that you personally can't understand that the people that voted for Obama love him for the very things you hate him is what makes me ask - am I talking to a real person or just some bot paid to insult Obama by the GOP.

Liberals like the things you hate. That is why we are Liberals. If you can't understand that basic fact, than I can't sell you any real estate because I don't cheat the gullible..

Re:Hope and change!

[ganjadude]

we got HC - which is broken according to anyone who has anything to do with it, it cost us as much as the 2 wars did and arguably is causing more problems then before implementation. Not to mention new taxes imposed on americans who choose not to participate in the scam

we killed bin laden. ok thats great, and what has that done for us? Hell we couldnt even see the proof that it even happened! and we still got attacked in boston eventhough we were told about the bomber by other countries. Bin laden was a pawn in the larger game called jihad

we stopped insulting every other country? ok, and instead now they all insult us based on the information that snowden leaked, on top of all that there is the issue of us not having any balls on the international level anymore. we just straight up allowed russia to invade another country and take some of its land and we didnt do jack shit about it (the sanctions imposed are a joke)

if the democrats consider this a big success, Id hate to see what you call a failure

Re:Hope and change!

[bussdriver]

1) RomneyCare is better than nothing. Besides the irony has been enjoyable. It won't be called ObamaCare for long some already are dodging the label now people are waking up. It still sucks but the free market anarchy we had was worse. Again, it still sucks!

2) Bush didn't care about Osama. Publicly said so. 2002. Then did more later; that is, more to STOP doing anything about it, even to the point it was a legitimate criticism in the 2004 election. Then after that, he retasked the CIA/etc away from the little work they were still doing. Look it up. If anything, they didn't want to take out the symbol of their most effective propaganda ever. It's one thing to be half-assed and it's another to do what they did (or stopped doing in this case.)

3) Many of the Democrats lost their seats since then. Many are still around too... and they should totally have been booted for trusting Bush but gerrymandering...

The budget is done for the coming year. 1st year of Obama it was the previous government's budget. Bailouts included in that. Also, a huge chunk of the debt is simply interest on the existing debt. Since the debt grows continually forever... even if it doesn't grow the interest makes it grow... Every president is going to set a record; including Clinton who fixed the deficit but NOT the debt. BTW, when he did, Greenspan was right out there telling everybody we needed more debt quick! They wouldn't have paid off much debt since "The Great Wizard of Econ" said not to, pay no attention to the bankers behind the curtain.

Obama is more than a disappointment; he is just the other side of the coin... with just a sliver of real difference between him and McCain or Romney. The class war continues to be lost while people fight over splitting hairs. BTW, the class war never ends, it's the longest running war in human history and longevity is rooted in human nature.

Re:Hope and change!

[Opportunist]

Well, considering there wasn't really a choice, what should people do? He still was the lesser evil.

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

The truly scare thing is not that I believe he is a good president

No, that's pretty scary, because objectively he's been a terrible president, and the fact that you think he's a GOOD president probably means your history education is seriously lacking.

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

"We, the Americans that are in the far majority, LIKE 99% of Obamacare's provisions. So your personal dislike of the things we like does not in any way affect how we feel about it."

I think you really mean like the majority like 99% of the provisions that make up key talking points. Do the majority of Americans like that medical device manufacturers get extra taxes on their devices (which will be passed directly on to the patient)? Are the majority of Americans happy that they contributions to FSA plans are reduced, thus increasing their taxable income? How about the people that were promised they could keep their insurance if they liked it? And there's more. That 2700 page document has hundreds of provisions, and a whole host of regulations that are still in development. Most Americans are only familiar with a small subset ("Free" birth control, stay on parents plan until 26, no pre-existing conditions, government subsidy), carefully promoted and sound-bited to be popular with the majority of Americans.

I don't hate him for some of the think you things you like him for. I'm against him for many of the things that most people simply don't know about and like him anyway. And often, I like some of the things you like, I just am against the Federal Government being the one that does them, and taking money and freedoms from me in order to deliver them.

One of my favorite quotes is from Will Rogers: “I can remember way back when a liberal was generous with his own money”.

My main reason I'm against Obamacare is because I am now required by Federal Law (under penalty) to purchase a private product. I'm against the government dictating the contents of the product that is fashioned as a "1 size fits all". I'm against the Federal Government handing the insurance companies 20% of every health dollar we pay and allowing my premiums to rise and accomplish this. Just because you happen to like this "product" is irrelevant. Next time, maybe a Conservative will get in office and legislate you have to purchase something without regard to your wishes and selection of options. But Liberal-You are now trapped because you've already abdicated purchase decisions to the Federal Government, proclaimed glory that it's Constitutional, and no longer have legitimate redress. Unfortunately, I've seen Liberals change laws and push agendas that suits their fancy, and scream "unfair" when those SAME LAWS AND AGENDAS work against them when the political pendulum swings back the other way (remember the MA law regarding replacing a Senator was suddenly "unfair" after Ted Kennedy died - when they wrote and voted for the law. They freaked that a Conservative was likely to replace him and break their super-majority in the Senate).

Conservatives don't always hate the things you love. I love some of the things you love, too. They just don't think the government should replace your (and my) personal and social responsibility in the matter. And unfortunately, I think that's what you can't understand.

Re:Hope and change!

[nwaack]

Whoa whoa whoa, back the truck up here a second. You're assuming that because I don't like the president I MUST be a conservative Republican. Not true, I am a moderate Libertarian, so every argument (and all the name calling) you used that was based on this false assumption is rendered invalid from the get-go. Now, on to the others:

We, the Americans that are in the far majority, LIKE 99% of Obamacare's provisions.

Are you delusional? There are multitudes of surveys and poles that say the exact opposite.

Stopped invading other countries is not well spun subjective opinion. It is a real fact. You called it an objective opinion because again, you don't like that we did it.

I wasn't talking about the war part being subjective, I was talking about the, "We stopped insulting every other country" part being subjective, which it is.

Let me ask you a question. Assume that a president gets elected and institutes a flat tax at 20%, makes abortion illegal, and makes it legal to conceal carry or open carry any gun - from a pistol to an ak-47. You personally would consider that man a great president, correct?

Hard to say, I liked Clinton, hated Bush and hate Obama.

President Obama has successfully delivered multiple large victories to the left.

Funny, I thought he was the President of the UNITED STATES, not the President of the liberals.

Yes, if Congress had been more liberal, he could have got more done - but you personally would have hated him even more. That is WHY you hate him - and also why we love him.

No, I hate him because he's been an incredibly bad president. Just like I hated Bush because he was an incredibly bad president. Don't tell me why I like or dislike something.

People like you are a huge part of what's wrong with the country today. It's this stupid us vs. them mentality and you've played right into it. I'm sorry you're a liberal Obama-loving shill. Hopefully at some point you'll start voting and thinking based on results, not on the party line.

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is the third party doctrine: you don't get any expectation of privacy unless you vote for a third party.

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know where you are going. It makes sense. But.. the country is ridiculously in debt, there was no need for universal healthcare in this decade. It was just an attempt to do something big and put his name in the books. With that said, private industries and capitalism is what has grown this country and what has allowed for the best to come out and the worst or the unsafe to slide into nonexistence. It is what has filtered out all the shitty stuff and let the good stuff rise to the top. I think healthcare is a very risky thing to take out of that competition.

But regardless of all that, there is a rough 50/50 split support for the ACA last time a checked, with support a little higher than unsupport. How many of of that 50 percent do you think just want to accept something free(cheaper), I bet it is more than 2 percent. When your hungry and someone is handing you food, you do not not take it because there is a gun to the person's head giving it to you. A vote is a vote, support is support, but I feel like the motives behind the support are in question. For instance I do not support the ACA because I'd rather pay for my own health insurance. Also do not want to pay for anyone else and I think that money could best be used elsewhere, inf act i want my taxed money to be used elsewhere(although i understand by the nature of tax it becomes not my money anymore). If we were to hyperbole the situation, and say that everyone that was against the ACA were a rich 10%, and everyone in support for it were a miserably poor 90%, then if it was just up to support, then the government legally would be able to take the money from that 10% and redistribute it, simply because more people want more free stuff than not getting free stuff. That would basically be mob rule bureaucratically giving themselves free healthcare off of the finances of that 10%, i ignore the money the 90% contribute into the ACA fund, because this is a hyperbole, and money they put in would be insignificant or else they would not support it because they could pay for their own stuff (or maybe they have morals you may say).

I guess the point I was driving at asks is the majority such a noble metric in this hyperbole? Is their happiness that important if it comes at the expense of others? I didn't think we were a utilitarian based society. Just bullshitting now, but I would like to think we were a Deontological based society

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

We really should just be discussing domestic spying, not bipartisan bullshit that will scew the convo off track, as what fueled your child posts my man.

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

nevermind, take it all back. fuck healthcare this article should be about domestic spying and this bill. These always turn into a bipartisan clusterfuck

Re:Hope and change!

[Anonymous Coward]

No he wasn't.

Re:Hope and change!

[Opportunist]

Well, first time the alternative was a mummy and a dud bombshell, the second time it was a religious nutjob and ... who was his vice-to-be anyway?

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[qeveren]

Well, political-spectrum-wise, Obama sits right where Saint Reagan does, so this isn't all that surprising.

As November approaches...

[ChilyWily]

Everything will be done by shrewd politicians to distance themselves from Obama/Obamacare etc. to appease or confuse voters (in the short and perhaps long term?) that Obama is at fault here... Meanwhile, all of them secretly never wanted to do this...

Don't worry!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama will put a stop to all these Bush abuses of our rights once he's President!

Simpler: Obama is a lying scumbag

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama wanted to be President, and lied about caring about civil rights right up until taking office. Then they got in his way of maximizes his power and the power of his political cronies.

You know, just like the American left claimed they cared about "tolerance," "free speech," "due process" and "diverse opinions" until they came into positions of power. Now all of those are hindrances to exercising their power, to be discarded when they become inconvenient to wielding the power of the state to further their goals.

TFA: "cooperated" TFS: "pressured"

[Anonymous Coward]

House Leadership was pressured by the Obama Administration

I couldn't even find a mention of Obama in the EFF link

For the CTD one, the closest I found is somewhere down the middle:

"Today, House Leadership, acting through the Rules Committee and in cooperation with the Obama Administration, approved a managerâ(TM)s amendment to USA FREEDOM
that makes significant changes to the bill it comes to the House Floor for a vote."

Apparently that passes for King Obama pressuring the powerless righteous folks in Congress again to do his bidding.

captcha: jokers

Re:TFA: "cooperated" TFS: "pressured"

[Anonymous Coward]

Its all semantics. "The Obama Administration" includes entities like the NSA, CIA and FBI who may very well be blowing smoke up Obama's ass w.r.t. their activities. Technically, he is in charge and could knock some heads together about such goings-on. But the last president that tried that got a limo ride through Dealey Plaza.

Re:TFA: "cooperated" TFS: "pressured"

[StevenMaurer]

This is what makes modern day slashdot worthless. Reading through 100+ comments of misinformed libertarian ranting screaming that "Obama betrayyyyyyyyyyyeeeeed ussss!!!!!" Except the EFF document says absolutely nothing about who was pressuring who to do what, much less tell the other side of the story, which also might be interesting to read.

Vote Republican in 2016

[L. J. Beauregard]

so critics of NSA spying can be called commie Islamofascist America-hating terrorist sympathizers again.

Re:Vote Republican in 2016

[nwaack]

No. Vote Libertarian, Green Party, etc. If enough of us do this eventually it won't be a wasted vote.

It's probably the name

[Anonymous Coward]

When you call something by a clear propaganda slogan "USA FREEDOM ACT" as opposed to an informative act, it makes you look like a douchebag trying to hide a vile piece of crap who thinks people are too stupid to actually read the bill.

Call it something descriptive, like "Restrict Espionage Against Americans Act" and people respect it a lot more.

Pressure

[niado]

Yes, I'm sure their arms were twisted.

Re:Pressure

[Aighearach]

He had to twist their arms really far, otherwise why would they possibly refuse to pass a bipartisan bill? They compromise on everything else, surely there must be some sort of way to blame the President that the House Republicans finally opposed compromise. Right?

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[reboot246]

You need to get another spectrum. Yours seems to be broken.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[asylumx]

political-spectrum-wise, Obama sits right where Saint Reagan does

I'm surprised how many people refuse to admit this...

NSA understands NO only when you shout

[RandCraw]

Unless this law explicitly and forcefully disallows bulk warrantless data collection of the public, NSA's top creeps (like Clapper and Alexander) and unprincipled gov't lawyers (like John Yoo) most certainly will crush the Constitution underfoot at their earliest convenience.

Anything else is just rearranging deck chairs...

Re:NSA understands NO only when you shout

[fustakrakich]

NSA understands NO only when you shoot

Re:NSA understands NO only when you shout

[Aighearach]

Yes, originally it totally banned bulk data collection. Well, for certain values of the words "totally," "banned," "bulk," "data," and "collection."

Personally, I find partially banned bulky metadata retention to be even more frightening than outright bulk data collection.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[jeffmflanagan]

No, his is correct. Republicans used to be a lot more sane than they are now. And Democrats are more sane than they used to be. Both parties moved to the right, and the Republicans went so far right as to be unrecognizable as the party of Lincoln, or even Eisenhower.

Oddly, many of the more conservative Republicans still claim to be the party of Lincoln, when really they're confederates who want to break up the US because our president isn't 100% white. They think they can take credit for Lincoln, as if the conservative takeover of the party didn't drive every progressive like Lincoln out.

I'm very confused by this story

[Calibax]

The GOP has made it very, very clear that anything that Obama favors will automatically receive a negative from the House of Representatives that they control. They have done this multiple times. They have openly stated that their primary objective is to oppose Obama on everything.

Now I'm supposed to believe that Obama pressured the GOP to weaken the bill? That seems... laughable. The GOP would never bow to Obama's requests - they have their image to consider. It seems more likely that the GOP revised the bill because Obama said he supported it in its original form.

It's also strange that the mainstream press doesn't seem to have picked up on such a monumental achievement by Obama. I'd have expected that any such successful pressure from the White House on the GOP would be a major headline in most newspapers that cover US national politics. But the best we get is a press release from the Center for Democracy and Technology. The EFF also had a press release about the amendments to the bill but they don't suggest that the White House or Obama was generating any pressure for the changes.

Re:I'm very confused by this story

[mrchaotica]

The GOP has made it very, very clear that anything that Obama favors will automatically receive a negative from the House of Representatives that they control. They have done this multiple times. They have openly stated that their primary objective is to oppose Obama on everything.

You missed the fine print: "oppose every Obama initiative...except ones that fuck over the citizenry."

(The Democrat policy has fine print too: "support every Obama initiative... except ones that fail to fuck over the citizenry.")

99 Rise

[oneiros27]

I was in San Francisco a few months ago, and ran into a protest from 99 Rise. As best I can figure out, they're what happened to Occupy San Francisco. (this was right after the supreme court decision that allowed corporate spending on elections)

I have no idea what the other Occupy groups are doing now, but they're still out there.

On what planet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reagan=ProLife, Obama=ProChoice

Reagan=Gays banned from military (same position as JFK), Obama=Gays in military

Reagan=No gay marriage (same position as JFK), Obama=Gay marriage

Reagan=Women not in combat (same position as JFK), Obama=Women in combat

Reagan= "Peace through strength", Obama=Carter-style unenforced "red lines"

Reagan=600+ship navy, Obama= fewer than 300 ship navy

Reagan=Staunch opponent of national healthcare, Obama=ObamaCare

Reagan=private reasonable student loans, Obama=Nationalized student loads driving tuitions through the roof

Reagan=America as an exceptional "Shining city on a hill", Obama=America not exceptional

Reagan="Government IS the problem", Obama=government is solution to all problems

Reagan=Build another space shuttle(after Challenger), Obama=Get rid of all shuttle assets so program could not be saved or re-started

Reagan=Proud NRA member (post-governor years), Obama=gun control for Americans, but machine guns for Mexican drug gangs

Reagan=Cut taxes and cut government (to the extent possible with Democrats running house and senate), Obama=more taxes, more government

Reagan knew we had 50 states, Obama thought we had 58

Reagan knew what a Navy medic was and knew the difference between memorial day and veterans day, Obama failed boith tests - rather publicly

Reagan did NOT snoop on the phones of all Americans

Reagan did NOT think he had the right to re-write laws on his own, Obama does and pretends to have done it

Reagan did NOT think he could kill American citizens without any trial, Obama does and has done it

Reagan knew a President could not declare the Senate in recess and then make recess appointments, Obama has done this and been spanked by the courts

Reagan supported ALL American energy and gas = $1.25 a gallon, Obama opposes fossil fuels says he will make coal unaffordable (nearly half our energy) and gas is $4.00 a gallon

Need I go on showing just how stupid and/or dishonest you are????

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[Sir_Eptishous]

No, Obama isn't Reagan, but Obama isn't even close to being a liberal. The last real liberal president the US had was Carter.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[Sir_Eptishous]

Obama sits right where Saint Reagan does

Actually it's St. Reagan

Physical Force?

[Anonymous Coward]

With the way things are going, the end of a barrel will be the only thing people will see as being able to make a difference.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[Sir_Eptishous]

All that it means is what we've known for the last twenty years or so.
It doesn't matter who is president or who is in congress.
The real power is controlled by the lobbyists for those with the most money and power.
The charade of representative democracy is wearing quite thin indeed.
Republican or Democrat, they both kowtow to the 1% and their aims.

Liberals 2008 vs. Liberals 2014

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals 2008: "Bush is a liar! Obama will tell the truth!"
Liberals 2014: "All politicians lie."

Re:Liberals 2008 vs. Liberals 2014

[I'm New Around Here]

Liberals 2008: "Bush is a liar! Obama will tell the truth!"
Liberals 2014: "All politicians lie."

It deserves more visibility.

Re:Liberals 2008 vs. Liberals 2014

[zlives]

for me it was
Independant 2008: All politicians lie... i want the mccain from 2000 but i will take obama
2012: fuck it all

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[mrchaotica]

No, his is correct. Republicans used to be a lot more sane than they are now. And Democrats are more sane than they used to be. Both parties moved to the right, and the Republicans went so far right as to be unrecognizable as the party of Lincoln, or even Eisenhower.

By agreeing that Obama is like Reagan and claiming that Republicans used to be more sane, you seem to imply that Obama is sane too. You also claim that both parties have moved more "right" (i.e., "conservative").

Neither of these things is the case. What's actually occurred is that the President, the Republicans and the Democrats have all become much more authoritarian (and corrupt) than they used to be. They have not moved "right", they've moved up.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[slinches]

How so? I've heard this claimed a few times, but there never seems to be any substance to back it up. Searching for "Obama Reagan policy comparison" just turns up a bunch of blog posts with obvious biases (of all types) and poor arguments backed up with cherry picked anecdotes and intentionally misleading data.

Where are the links about the supposed pressure?

[VP]

In the link provided shows the reaction of the CDT, where "CDT Senior Counsel Harley Geiger" states quite the opposite: "This is quite disappointing given the consensus by the public, Congress, the President, and two independent review groups that ending bulk collection is necessary"

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[Terwin]

political-spectrum-wise, Obama sits right where Saint Reagan does

I'm surprised how many people refuse to admit this...

Hmm...
Regan:
Reduced the number of tax brackets and substantially reduced the top marginal rate
Increased defense spending
Strongly opposed the USSR and 'damn commies' world wide
Used the cold-war arms race(including threats of the 'star wars' system) to bankrupt the USSR and remove them from 'World Power' status
Stood by Americas international allies and faced down potential threats, even if it meant American boots on the ground
Tried to unite the country with patriotism
Repeatedly took his case to the American people to get them to change the votes of their legislators(explaining his position and why it was the right thing to do)
Took a stagnant economy and promoted growth(mostly through lower taxes and consumer confidence)

Obama:
Tax increases on 'the wealthiest Americans' to pay for various programs(including ACA)
Is pumping money into the stock market(either to hide the state of the economy or pay-off contributors, not sure which)
Is standing by while Putin re-builds the USSR
Draws 'red lines' or promotes hash-tags whenever there is something bad happening, but does not back them up.
Puts American diplomats in harms way to prove terrorism is gone, then blames a video when the terrorists show they are not gone
Tries to divide the country with racism(Rev. Al Sharpton; New Black Panthers; Prof. Gates; etc)
Repeatedly changed laws passed by the house and senate by either refusing to enforce them(border/immigration; Black Panther voter intimidation) or delaying enforcement(ACA) under his own authority
Repeatedly lied about his signature legislation to protect it from being seen for what it is.
Took a growing economy and promoted stagnation(mostly through uncertainty and higher taxes intermingled with one time give-aways to buy votes)

Admittedly, they both promoted growth in the stock market, even if Regan did it through growth and Obama is doing it through government backed bonds.
Aside from that, I just do not see it.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[mrchaotica]

"libertarian vs. authoritarian" is the spectrum you're looking for.

a wierd switch

[micahraleigh]

Obama is to the right of Republicans on this.

As a tea party guy, I support Obama on this one!

I am not joking.

The US government should shrink and spend less of my tax money on reading my emails.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Reagan basically did none of those things. He raised taxes, increased spending across the board, used divisivness to create political capital, struck deals with internal Russian forces to get economic advantages within the Russian sphere of influence, was very selective about where the boots on ground had the most economic interest impact, deregulated for an illusion of economic health, and used fear of communisim to enact state-expanding laws.

ARTICLE TITLE IS WRONG, surely?

[Anonymous Coward]

more than that

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[Anonymous Coward]

Does that even make sense inside your head? The GOP wants to refuse to do what he wants because he wants to do the same things the GOP wants to do?

Not a question of Democrat vs. Republican...

[erp_consultant]

it's a question of who is in power vs. who is not in power. When Obama was a Senator he was against mass surveillance (and Guantanamo for that matter) but when he gets in power he sees things differently. Same thing would have happened if Romney or McCain got elected.

The problem is that to ascend to those levels you have to make so many deals with big business and assorted money men. Then when you get in power they are all knocking at your door looking for favors.

The American government has brainwashed it's citizens into believing that there is an actual "terrorist" threat (whatever the hell that means) and that the only way to contain it is to collect information on everyone. Bullshit. You want "terrorists" to leave us alone? Then stop taking sides in the Middle East conflict. The US has, and will always be, strongly Pro-Israel. At the same time, they present themselves as mediators. How can a country be a mediator when it is so clearly in favor of one side over the other?

The United Nations has looked into it and passed numerous sanctions against Israel, mainly concerning the occupied territories and the continuing settlement building. All of them are ignored.

Re:Not a question of Democrat vs. Republican...

[rahvin112]

Obama actually did try to close Guantanamo. He was blocked by Congress, with particular blocking by some very strong Republican opposition.

Personally I think we should charge them and put them in a nice supermax for life. We're wasting time, money and valuable assets holding those guys in Cuba and it's beyond stupid. Bring them home and let civilian guards watch them, let them "congregate" with US prisoners. Bush's claim that you couldn't get them convicted is just BS. Every single terrorist they've tried in the US has been convicted and received HUGE prison time. The only reason not to bring them home is you don't have any actual evidence they did anything.

White House pressures?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the tri-cameral government we're supposed to have? Why should the White House (Executive) be able to do anything to pressure Congress (Legislative) except declaring it's likely to face a Veto. Make the White House make that statement public. Make Obama (or whoever is next) put their name on the Veto against the will of Congress (and supposedly the people) and stating they are against protections of the 4th Amendment.

Down with BETA

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, /., no one likes your beta version. Stop already.

who do I have to pressure around here

[c5402dc53929211e1efb]

to have the legislators gutted instead?

The Surveillance Singularity

[Libertarian_Geek]

I predict the "Surveillance Singularity" is near.

That will happen when the party in office reaches the capability to completely manipulate opponents, the media and citizens through intel gained via NSA surveillance tools like PRISM. At that point, the last party shift will occur at the presidency, then congress and the supreme court will align to whichever party holds that office.

Sad times are ahead if we cannot change this road before us.

Re:What does Obama know that we don't? - we Know!

[gabrieltss]

The reason is the guy is a PUPPET! Just like Bush was and like Clinton and Bush before him. Our congress is controller by big money and corporations. Voting is useless! You are given TWO choices - Dickhead 1 or Dickhead 2 - pick your Dickhead - both have already been "tampered" with. Our whole political system has been compromised. It's all nothing but a bag of dicks! Once you have understood this you will KNOW what is going on....

"IN COOPERATION WITH" != "PRESSURES"

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when I cooperate with the Police, I am actually pressuring them?

Anybody who bothered to read that book...

[Anonymous Coward]

would instantly see how ill-informed you are being when you attempt to interpret the title that way. You "open-minded" so-called liberals really ought to try READING books instead of TRASHING them or BURNING them (it was Germany's National Socialists who burned books, and you modern lefties sure spend a lot of effort trying to encourage poeple to avoid books you don't want them reading).

Goldberg's use of the title "Liberal Fascism" is NOT an attempt to claim there is such a thing as "Liberal Fascism" (using the original, traditional meaning of the word "liberal" which would, indeed, be an oxymoron) but rather that the left-wing big-centralized-government ideology we today call "liberal" (which is nearly the opposite of the traditional meaning of that word) has a very long and solid tradition, set of beliefs, ideals, and most-importantly behaviours which are fascist and quite compatible with both the 1940's Germanic fascism and the 1940's Italian fascism. The "fascist" German NAZIs were the "National Socialist German Workers Party" (English translation) and Benito Mussolini's "fascists" in Italy were also nationalistic self-identified socialists.

Any well-informed and well-educated person cannot help but see not only the vague similarities but the same words in speeches, the same promises, the same ideals, the same policies, etc. How many of the big NAZI speeches have YOU personally READ sir? How many of Benito Mussolini's speeches have you READ? I'm sure you have seen a few movies, and in school you were probably taught (by unionized Democrat school teachers) that NAZIs were fascists and that fascists are "evil right-wingers", but if THAT's the depth of your "edumacationary experience" you REALLY need to put down the tablet (facebook, twitter, HuffPo, Kos, and other intellect-destroying fountains of ignorant snark) and READ A FEW ACTUAL BOOKS and the ACTUAL FULL SPEECHES of important historical figures. If you leave out the anti-Jew rants (a long European tradition that went on steroids in Germany under Hitler) and the nationalistic jingos about German (or Italian) greatness (to be expected in ANY nation involved in a major war - including the US, Britain, Russia, etc), most of the rest of what those two fascist regimes spewed was pretty-consistent with "Occupy Wallstreet" or Obama-era Democrat talking points: anti-income-inequality, national control of education, national healthcare, the impotrance of the collective society - all the usual socialistic drivel that DEPENDS on an audience getting wrapped-up in the utopian promises and not thinking about implementation (the quality of the likely results, evil mechanisms that will be required to implement, the sort of people who are willing-and-able to implement, and the powers you will have to grant to that sort of person). Sorry, but a duck is a duck whether it quacks in English, German, or Italian. The reason this socialist/fascist garbage re-surfaces among the youth in the US every-other generation is that it only grabs hold of young people who are too ignorant of history to know better, and you need a generation between each generation that falls for it, during which time the memory of it can fade.

You seem to have your DNC talking points confused

[Anonymous Coward]

It was NOT the House Republicans who publicly stated their goal was to stop Obama... it was Senator Mitch McConnell and you guys even take THAT out of context as a talking point and a political tactic. How about this little gem:

"Why should we put a plan out? Our plan is to stop him. He must be stopped. " - Nancy Pelosi (Dimwit, CA), about Bush in 2005 interview

Of course, she frequently complains that Democrats NEVER treated Bush harshly (Ignoring things like Democrat Dennis Kucinich filing over 30 Articles of Impeachment against Bush, her own pledges to stop all his policies and force him to adopt all her policies, etc). What's HILLARIOUS about all the Democrat whining that Republicans want to "stop Obama" is - and ANYBODY can verify this via Google - NEARLY EVERY LEFT-WING WEBSITE AND ORGANIZATION spent the Bush years demanding that Democrats "Stop Bush" and Pelosi and Reid did everything they could to stop Bush (including blocking every budget and nearly every proposal he made after they took over congress in 2006)

The Republicans do NOT oppose everything Obama does - they have confimed many of his appointees, and have given him the money to run ALL of the government (including things they oppose, like planned parenthood and Obamacare) even though this outrages thier base supporters. The fact that a party opposes policies that are completely contrary to its principles is a PRINCIPLED opposition, NOT blind reactionary opposition or "racism"

Allow me to point you to The Obama Administration itself for proof that they Republicans have cooperated on many things - not one of these laws would have reached Obama's desk as bills to be signed had they not been supported in congress by the GOP. The funniest of all is the Ted Cruz bill about Iranian "diplomats" which Obama signed into law WITH A SIGNING STATEMENT saying he would not enforce it (EXACTLY the hypocrisy he denounced in his 2008 campaigned, and promised to never do.

Remember WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Obama actually did try to close Guantanamo. He was blocked by Congress"

He tried to let them go either directly, or indirectly (by tranferring them to the "custody" of countries where they would be let go) - that was a non-plan that sucked so badly even Democrats in congress would not go along

He tried moving them to civilian jails within the US, giving them the same rights as citizens and then offering them civilian trials (where battlefield activities do not constitute proper civilian criminal "evidence" with a proper chain-of-custody, reading-of-rights, etc and sentences can end up as "20 years, with time-off for good behavious and early release for prison overcrowding, and probation - so a year or two of actual incarceration and then release onto the streets of an American city) - this was also such an embarrasingly bad plan that even Democrats could not support Obama and Holder on it. Holder, Obama's Atty Gen, is a BIG advocate of this , and he's a former lawyer for terrorists...

Guess what? It turns out that it really sucks to be a terrorist (a fighter who [1] by not serving in a uniformed military [2] by targetting random civilians). It even sucks more if you're not from a nation that signed the Geneva conventions ... because absent that, the traditions of war kick-in: You can be held in a POW camp until the war is over (which is tough if you represent a "philosophy" rather than a nation, which will NEVER end the war)

Congrats on Furthering the Surveillance State

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that those crazy tea partiers who "don't have such good ideas" are also screaming about the surveillance state?

Say what you want about other positions they hold, but the simple truth is they are as anti-mass-surveillance as anyone here. Especially considering they were directly targeted by another mass surveillance entity - the IRS - just for having unpopular political views.

You don't like them. Fine. But when it's your turn on the mill wheel (nobody is safe from a too-powerful government; it will always need people to persecute), you will regret not reaching out to anyone who could have helped stop it from turning your way.

Hang together or hang apart. It's an old notion we've lost, and I think it suggests we've lost some wisdom over the years. Success of our republic does not mean we all agree, it means we work with those whom we disagree to do some common things. And because the number of things we agree upon might be small, it limits what the government can do against us. In this case, we see the Tea Party types and the liberal types agree that snarfing up this data and spying on the people of the USA is a Bad Thing(tm) that needs to stop.

But we won't get there if we keep calling each other crazy. Your willingness to "other" the tea party means you have reduced those who oppose the mass surveillance state into a bunch of small faction groups: yours, theirs, etc. Again, you will some day regret not joining voices on at least this one issue and stopping it cold.

Disclosure: never been to a tea party event and don't consider myself part of that label. But I do see value in working with others on the things we agree.

Re: Congrats on Furthering the Surveillance State

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tea Party supported Arizona's mass surveillance immigration bill.

wasn't that the point of it all?

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant help but think, wasn't the EXACT PURPOSE of the US constitution to allow for a revolution in the case of government overreaching and creating a plutocracy or some such demon? Just sayin... I'm so going to get black bagged in the middle of the night for posting this.

Re:When the Hell Has the GOP Done What Obama Asked

[dcollins]

Obligatory xkcd. Look at the House since 1992.