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White House Office of Administration Not Subject to FOIA, Says White House
An anonymous reader writes with this story at USA Today: The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office. The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law.
am I right guys?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
those who think the true power browers will ALLOW a 3rd party candidate - you assholes are so out of touch with reality, you are helping to ruin things by giving people false hope.
the only way to fix this is to totally break it and reinvent it.
the current US system WILL NOT ALLOW FOR 3RD PARTY CANDIDATES. how long will it take you numbskulls to get this into your heads? america is NOT a free nation and those who run things alternate parties to keep us thinking we have a choice.
the last few decades have been mostly the same, only with some minor details as differences, to give us the impression that we have a choice.
we have NO CHOICE. we have not had a choice for decades; maybe not ever.
"but I voted independant!" you say. yeah, how much good did that do? seriously? what did it accomplish?
I wish you guys were right, but you are simply out of touch. the big guys control things and its a grand distraction to think that voting A or B (or C!) will have any meaningful impact.
the sooner we all admit voting and 2party system is fully broken, the sooner we can get real change. until then, your cute 'vote for indie' does nothing at all but make you think you are superior, all the while, still playing the game set out for you by the real power brokers.
and btw, you will never know the names of the real power brokers. the figureheads are just that; there to give you a reason to rally and fight 'the othe guy' over. but the real purse strings are held by those who are not elected and who are plutocrats, ultra rich who truly control how things go.
I wish I was wrong! but experience shows that 'voting' has not done a damned thing to restore rights to the people and over time, things continue to get worse for us, not better, no matter WHO we 'vote' for.
sigh - wish people would see this and stop believing in the fairy tale.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Not having direct power doesn't mean you can't have influence. They were given a decent opportunity comment on specifics of the ACA, and decided to rant about the bill's very existence and "socialism" instead.
Their direct power level was determined by voters, not by O. You can't blame O for that. I'm thus not clear on what you are faulting O for. What specifically would you do different if you were O?
Table-ized A.I.
It does, actually, though you don't hear much about it in the US media.
The problem is that any US citizen is expected to pay tax to America regardless of where they actually are. No other country bar Eritrea has such a system. There are lots of cases of people who inherited US citizenship from their parents, or who were born there but actually never lived there, who wake up one day to discover that they owe massive amounts of back taxes. Until recently nobody cared about this because the US was unable to enforce this zany law, but now they're actually seizing control of the entire global financial system to implement it. And lots of people are trying to get rid of their US citizenship as a result.
The problem is, the US doesn't let you give up citizenship just because you asked. There are conditions. One of them is that your tax affairs must be in order. Obviously, for people who never paid US tax because they are not actually American except in some technical sense, this is an impossible criteria to fulfil - they are often liable for enormous fines for failing to file a lifetimes worth of tax returns. The IRS keeps granting temporary amnesties to try and avoid full blown disaster but there are still lots of people around the world who don't know this is happening and won't be eligible.
Worse, if the US suspects you gave up citizenship for tax reasons, they can simply ignore the renunciation and bam, you're right back in the hot water.
And then finally there's the exit tax. It doesn't apply to everyone but it's easy to trigger because you're expected to pretend you sold all your property, and then they tax a big wodge of that. Some people cannot afford it and end up trapped that way too.
So there is this crazy situation where people are attempting to leave the control of Uncle Sam by renouncing their citizenship and being unable to do so. It's a financial Berlin wall and the people trying to leave are effectively illegal emigrants.