Slashdot Mirror
George W Bush Made Retroactive NSA 'Fix' After Hospital Room Showdown
circletimessquare writes: New details have emerged about the 2004 conflict between George W. Bush and his Attorney General, John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized when he forcefully disagreed with the president's authorization of the NSA's sweeping new collection powers after 9/11. The New York Times has discovered that the conflict was about a retroactive alteration of the President's wording on the legal theory by which the NSA is allowed to siphon up metadata on all Americans, not just certain targets or classes of targets, such as suspected terrorists. 'Mr. Bush, for the first time, explicitly said that his authorizations were "displacing" specific federal statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and criminal wiretapping laws... the president had "made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities" and that the Justice Department could not act in contradiction of Mr. Bush's determinations.' The president faced a severe backlash from the Justice Department, including a threat of mass resignation.
A discussion of constitutional limits of power ten years ago? How quaint. In 2015 we pretty much expect the president to do whatever he/she wants without regard to law of any kind.
"The DOJ promises to thoroughly investigate its boss and find no wrongdoing."
When someone we don't like does an evil, it's because they are evil. When someone we do like does an evil, it's okay, because they have goodness in their hearts.
So, Bush actually went full Gestapo, and the Justice Department and Ashcroft Backed it Down a bit?
That's fucking amazing, really. I'm sure this is Bullshit, but I'm not sure which parts, or how much.
Since Cheney isn't implicated as the originator of the Full Gestapo move, I'd be more willing to bet He's the one now trying to throw Bush under a bus for some reason.
I dunno, but, like Obama found out: You can't vote out the Gestapo.
Once they're here, it takes lives to go back.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
One evil doesn't excuse another. But overlooking an evil because it is your kind of evil is the worst kind of evil.
Further, Obama has had six years to fix this "evil" and hasn't. And yet, nobody is blaming him for not doing anything about it ... because he is "your kind of evil" so you overlook it.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
/em Watches Slashdot rage about Bush retroactively and unilaterally revising law passed by Congress re: the Patriot Act /em Watches Slashdot not rage about Obama retroactively and unilaterally revising law passed by Congress re: Obamacare
Not to mention that prick who retroactively stole all that private property from half the states.... Lincoln. Because those three things are all exactly the same.
What are you talking about? There is no end of Slashdotters complaining about all aspects of Obamacare and everything Obama has done with regards to it. You're hardly the first one to whine about it.
Congratulations! It only took a few minutes before someone already brought the ACA into this.
Fuck Ajit Pai
I think there are two permutations of this "worst kind of evil".
1. "My guy is doing it, so I'll look the other way.", and 2."The other guys got away with it, so I might as well use it to my advantage too"
The first coup of the century was in the USA all along.
Stop supporting the lessor of two evils .... Cthulhu all the way!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I think they are both evil, how about them apples. Am I allowed to criticize them yet, as I have unique criticisms for both of them and would like to share the criticisms without having to list all of my criticisms of the other in the same breath.
Your justification of torture and spying on Americans makes no sense.
One act of insanity and unconstitutional lawlessness does not justify another.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Really, anyone about to post condemnations of Bush should consider the fact that Your Hero as he same policies and have argued in court to keep them.
Never mind that President Obama implemented the Republican agenda — Middle East foreign policy, tax policy and healthcare policy — with the Progressives looking the other way. He's probably the best moderate conservative president since Ronald Reagan.
Either that or it was the invitation to a hunting trip with Dick Cheney...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There's no truth to that. Ashcroft had been hospitalized with acute pancreatitis. He had surgery the day before Bush and other White House staff members visited him. Bush didn't cause it, but it certainly says something about the legitimacy of the program when Ashcroft's authorization was sought while he was extremely ill and likely quite medicated.
M-I-Z
kU still sucks!
So...More proof that Bush was just as slimy as Obama.. I used to be an (R) but once I learned that both parties are spawn of the devil, I changed my party affiliation... I'M A FUCKIN' AMERICAN......
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Will PBS re-make "Spying On The Home Front" in the light of subsequent revelations? The Ashcroft hospital incident is documented.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...
It's still worth watching.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
And what if we don't like either of them?
It's the new Godwin.
Serious question here - I understand that people love to hate Obamacare/ACA. But I don't understand why. What's bad about federally mandated healthcare that says the health insurance companies must offer all people coverage, cannot drop us after they pay out a certain amount (no lifetime maximums), and in general sets a specific lower rung for basic minimum coverage to maintain quality of life? This is similar to minimum car insurance requirements for all people who drive. Why does everyone hate it so much? I've always had good health insurance through employers, so I'm not aware of any effect it has had on me. But my policies have always had lifetime maximums, and now that is removed. Over time (a decade or so), I would expect that since everyone has insurance, there will be more doctors, likely driving the cost of doctors education down. More people filing insurance claims means a higher number of incidents. All of that works together to lower the actual cost per incident (insurance company paid $5k each for 20,000 procedures, but now they only pay $4k for 30,000 of the same procedure. Where's the downside? End users win with better insurance, doctors win with more patients (more procedures) and hopefully lower educational costs since there will be more medical schools competing for them, insurance companies win both with lower costs and a larger client base. Plenty of other countries already do this. Why is it so bad other than somebody is forcing me to buy something I didn't have to buy before (meaning a lot of times I personally subsidize those un-insured emergency room visits with my own taxes)? I really don't get it, and I'm not looking to start a flame war, so I'm posting as AC on purpose. If you have an intelligent response, I'm very curious as to what you see as the downside. There are specific scenarios for a small percentage of people where costs went up significantly because they make a bit over minimum wage and don't qualify for reduced fees, and maybe they chose not to have good insurance before (see my comment about public subsidized emergency room visits). But for low income, middle, and high I don't see the problem. It's just the extreme lower middle with an issue from what I can figure out.
I long for the days of the petrified Natalie Portman and hot grits... in those days trolls were trolls, and not cowish fairies.
Definitely a wording problem here. The summary makes it sound like he was beat senseless *because* of his disagreement.
Slashdot is a website composed of comments from a wide variety of people. Since the first year of Slashdot, I have seen a variation of this reply over and over again, almost as prevalent as hot grits, natalie portman, and first post. That sweet cry of Hypocrisy! as if the commentor has discovered some conspiracy by a non living entity website.
I thought Putin was?
How about "I hate Bush for creating this mess, and Obama for continuing it on his watch"
He's had six years in power and hasn't done shit. So he is equal to Bush, no better, no worse.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
And what if we don't like either of them?
Then don't post that because fanboys from both parties will mod you down.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Downside is that with no robust public option (a promised lie) the profiteers of healthcare (big insurance, big healthcare, big pharmy) continue to raise costs and premiums. This is what is happening, insurers will have huge rate hikes for 2016.
Obama has increased the violations of privacy started under Bush; he is worse
That's what Hitler thinks.
When a plan or process exists it can be revised. No plan, no process, it's tough to even get the ball rolling.
ACA is a start. It's far from perfect. Its shortcomings hopefully will lead to further revision, now that we have something to actually revise.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's funny.
Reading this just made me realize that Ashcroft took a stronger stand against spying than Obama has, if I judge only actions and not words.
Given that you are raging about Obama and not Bush, you've proven your own statement wrong.
I see that Slashdot is much more anti-Obama than anti-Bush. But then, I was here in the Bush years, and watched the support as he did those things in real time. The same consistent support here has never gone towards Obama.
Learn to love Alaska
When someone we don't like does an evil, it's because they are evil. When someone we do like does an evil, it's okay, because they have goodness in their hearts.
We tend to overlook the evil things done by people we like.
It doesn't mean every controversial thing done by someone we like is actually evil.
To the extent that Obama has "retroactively and unilaterally revising law passed by Congress" with the ACA he's done it to work around things that most here would recognize as bugs, ie words in the law that make the law do things we didn't actually want it to do.
The issue we're talking about with Bush wasn't a bug fix, he added new features to make the law things it was never intended to do.
I stole this Sig
Problem is, if you criticize one you are automatically assumed to be a fanboy of the opposite party. Politics is like a sports game, you are required to choose sides.
It's funny because it's true. I get modded down all the time, from both sides. I'm a classic liberal, and that makes me hated by both sides, and the anarcho-capitalists who call themselves "libertarian". Though classic liberal is centrist by US political standards, just not the right kind.
Learn to love Alaska
Cheney, on the other hand...
Is Obama's increase more than Bush's increase over Clinton? Evil isn't just an absolute, but also the move towards absolute evil. If Bush moved us there faster than Obama, then wouldn't that be more evil?
Learn to love Alaska
It helps the poor, and we hate the poor. If they didn't deserve it, they wouldn't be poor.
Learn to love Alaska
Don't forget freedom itself. You are now obligated to purchase something from a third party because of nothing more than being a citizen and of legal age.
Not to mention that roe v wade was decided largely on a right to privacy in that the protections from search prohibit the government from nosing into your health care. Now the federal government has a distinct right to be involved via the ACA which calls roe into question.
because it doesn't have a fucking thing to do with this topic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Never mind is about right. You cannot invent a position and assign it to a group of people while ignoring their objections to it. That's like saying that the black lives matter movement is advancing the agenda of the national police unions.
From TFS:
'Mr. Bush, for the first time, explicitly said that his authorizations were "displacing" specific federal statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and criminal wiretapping laws... the president had "made an interpretation of law concerning his authorities"...
That's the heart of the issue right there. President Bush wrongly believed the threat of terrorism gave him authority to break constitutional law. It actually doesn't, but no one has thus far found a way to correct this mistake. It's absolutely stunning to me after 14 years. The Orwellian-named Patriot Act was supposed to be a temporary measure and yet it's still in place.
Whether I agree with your statements is not the subject of this post, but here's something for you to think about.
Spying on my communications pisses me off.
Keeping me alive and not dying for lack of medical care, is something I can't be angry about.
Does that clear up anything for you?
I take it you are talking about slaves?
Well they were stolen property in the first place, and all the abolition of slavery did was return them to their rightful owners.
You can't say that Lincoln "stole" them from anyone.
i'm the submitter
i wrote
i meant
i didn't mean
apologies, there was no bad intent, i just wrote the summary without being aware that my wording made it possible of someone finding a novel secondary meaning
fuck the english language
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
yup. that was my fault. bad wording, apologies
http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"i knew a guy once who murdered someone and got away with it. therefore we can never criticize any murderer anywhere"
this is your "morality"
when your "morality" means "someone did something bad so someone else should be free of criticism for being bad" (aka, two wrongs make a right) you really don't have any morality at all
it's entirely possible to criticize BOTH bush and obama, for the *separate* things they did wrong. you understand that right? criticizing one does not mean we can't or won't are aren't criticizing the other. what bush did wrong is not linked to what obama did wrong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Because behinds the scenes, it's the same people running the show.
Do you seriously think a Black Lawyer who had a small time civil rights practice can become president without being bought?
It cost 100's of millions in Americas corrupt political system to become president.
46137
Funny how Americans still think of King George III as a tyrant, when in fact his powers were far more constrained by law and parliament than those of Bush II or any other recent president.
While a hostile congress makes it harder for the President to pass new laws, they are getting better and better at finding ways around the law.
Oh, I do blame him. It's just that, by itself, it was not enough of a reason to vote for the sorry excuse for a candidate that the Republicans ran against him and there wasn't enough other things to justify electing the Romneytron.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
It's a great language, you just write it shit.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
when being a grammar nazi asshole, you really have to represent with the good grammar. otherwise it kinda makes you look like a dick AND a hypocrite
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's like when a puppy craps on your living room floor. That puppy isn't evil. But when your brother does it, that's a different story.
well, this isn't a doctoral thesis here
my meaning was well represented. that an alternative meaning could be construed is a limitation of the language
i really think it is more important for the reader to parse the different meanings before assuming one meaning is the one and true intent
it happens a lot in life. yes, we must be precise in our choice of words, but we're not functioning on all cylinders 24/7, looking at every word choice like a chess move. so it is beholden on the reader/ listener to give the speaker/ writer a little leeway
regardless, i now know why obama speaks with this slow, cerebral, ponderous cadence. he's choosing every word carefully so some hysterical retard somewhere doesn't assume the worst meaning possible
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The wording in Obamacare was deliberate. Parts were necessary to get it passed; it would not have passed without those "bugs" in place. Other parts were there to punish uncooperative states; that backfired on Obama.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Long term, it helps nobody.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
One thing that amazes me about American politics is how they get caught up on certain issues forever, while a lot of other countries seem to just move on to newer problems after making a decision. Abortion is a good example - I could barely believe how Planned Parenthood funding was a core debate subject at the Republican leader debate (sad when that was the most entertaining TV on).
Just in the last year, I've added single payer health care to the list. We had some staff from a subsidiary in the US come up here for a few days (Canada), and how vehemently and confidently they would disparage a health care system clearly so much better than their own.. the cognitive dissonance against their better interest is staggering. Even typical extreme conservatives can't follow the logic of how a single payer can drastically reduce costs, nor understand how they're already funding social health care for the most expensive groups, the poor and elderly. Health care in the US is an ideological issue, and I don't get why.
Stealing from me to keep you alive incites my fury.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Mostly because Obamacare is not what we got. we got Romneycare.
Obamacare was going to be single payer free healthcare. We instead got a system to make insurance companies even richer that was penned by the republicans.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You are the only one that has a true argument. Most everyone else here is a stupid parrot whining about "obamacare"
The real problem is that he not only made sure the bush spying and war on freedom was continued, but he also increased persecution of whistleblowers trying to make public gross government spying and overstepping.
I still firmly hold the opinion that anyone that voted for or signed the patriot act and any of it's extensions is actively working against the american public.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Because it allows them to increase rates at 25% a year. insurance companies have been making RECORD profits. They should be required to make 25% reductions yearly.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Actually the poor are better off not on it. because if they get sick they are covered completely already.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's like when a puppy craps on your living room floor. That puppy isn't evil. But when your brother does it, that's a different story.
And when your girlfriend does it, you're probably into scat porn.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
One evil doesn't excuse another. But overlooking an evil because it is your kind of evil is the worst kind of evil.
Further, Obama has had six years to fix this "evil" and hasn't. And yet, nobody is blaming him for not doing anything about it ... because he is "your kind of evil" so you overlook it.
To be correct, a lot of people have been yapping about it a lot.
But it just gets lost in the Demon Baby from Kenya birth certificate claims, the claims he's a muslim, his FEMA death camps, his death panels, and all the other batshit crazy accusations that have made most Americans numb. And somtimes roll with laughter. So it just gets thrown on the pile with all the other kooky stuff.
My favorite one, and I shit you not - is that He made a secret deal with Mexico for them to send diseased Illegal immigrant Mexicans across the border to infect and kill Americans.
That one doesn'e even make any sense. It's right up there with the conspiracy that W. Clinton sent all his bodyguards to Waco so the Branch Davidians could kill them - which means the Davidians were in cahoots with Clinton. All of this makes me wonder if conservative Republicans are seriously into meth.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You are not forced. You are simply not eligible to not pay an income tax penalty for forcing the American public to be the guarantor of your ER visit.
The wording in Obamacare was deliberate. Parts were necessary to get it passed; it would not have passed without those "bugs" in place. Other parts were there to punish uncooperative states; that backfired on Obama.
You mean the thing that just went to the supreme court? Everyone understood the subsidies went to all the states right up until Republicans started arguing differently. The only evidence offered to the contrary is a single individual, making a single argument, several years later.
For all we know he forgot about that section entirely, saw it during the talk, then made up a justification on the fly.
I stole this Sig
Because behinds the scenes, it's the same people running the show.
Who? If you can't give names, it's just paranoia.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
So delaying the corporate mandate was a "bug", in that no on really expected ACA to go into effect for *everyone*, even up until this very day?
You're a useful idiot.
It was written for a specific set of conditions, those assumptions were slightly off meaning the original timeline wasn't possible, that's exactly what I'd call a bug since the intended end state is the same. Running the program intelligently (and fixing bugs on the fly) is precisely the role I think the US President is supposed to fulfil on domestic matters.
The alternative is any significant legislation requiring modification by several successive congresses to work properly. Forcing a President to execute a broken law to the letter strikes me as a very dumb way to run a country.
I stole this Sig
If President Obama implemented a Progressive agenda, we would be out of the Middle East and the Guantanamo Bay prison closed, the Bush tax cuts would be repealed and the Clinton budget surpluses restored, and single-payer healthcare would be the law of the land. Bernie Sanders, if elected, will make that happen anyway.
If you pay close attention to the Republican presidential candidates, you may noticed that they have no new ideas for making America great again. President Obama took a page out of the Clinton Playbook and made foreign policy, tax cuts and healthcare reform his own. The Republicans are going out of their way to disown their own agenda to prove that they oppose the president's agenda.
"Stealing" aside, you paid for other people's healthcare before ACA. Now you pay less. A single-payer system would save you even more.
I do no understand the conflict at all. It is illegal to obey an illegal order, just put in writing the order and, the affected legislation. They fire you and you sue them and demand payment for you losses and as a bonus demand they be prosecuted for attempt to issue that illegal order. Don't be a chick shit, a illegal order is an illegal order.
The bug problem is the repeated failure to prosecute all those individual who broke the law based upon illegal orders and pursue those prosecution up the chain of command to those who issued the orders. You are bound by the law and not by those individuals who are temporarily in charge.
They want to issue an illegal order, then demand they put it in writing and then use that instruction to force their prosecution, in writing or not, you never obey an illegal order. I know the US in-justice system is hugely corrupt at the moment but it does not matter, do not be a part of the corruption and the more that resists and refuse the sooner the corruption comes to an end.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Clinton looked the other way while the Rwanda genocide happened.
The Republicans said to not get involved, then bashed him for doing what they asked. So when Somalia came up, he did get involved, and was bashed for getting involved. That you bring that up labels you a party hack. Clinton was evil for not sending Americans to their deaths to stabilize an African country, and Clinton was evil for sending Americans to their deaths in Somalia trying to stabilize an African country.
Like any good spinner, you try to be fair and balanced, while being neither. I've voted in every election since '92, and never a winner. So you can't blame me for not voting, and you can't blame me for voting in the idiot who screwed things up. Still not sure who to vote for in '16. The choices aren't set. I may break my streak and, for the first time ever, vote for a winner. Now I'm curious. I've voted in every primary I was eligible for as well, and I think I've also never voted for a winner there, but I hadn't thought about it until just now. The choices are always so bad, primary and election.
Learn to love Alaska
fuck the english language
what a strange thing to say!
this ambiguity is the basis of most non-slapstick humour
in fact it is the reason why your nick is amusing...
you got me
i'm part of the MSM
we try to avoid great internet geniuses like yourself who find us smearmongers and prevent our devious conspiracies from working out
"FALSE FLAG FALSE FLAG FALSE FLAG..."
oh no, the heroes have found us!
fellow lizardmen: abandon plan BlackHand34A for this sector. report back to illuminati headquarters
curses! we cannot defeat these great minds!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the ambiguity is in the incongruity
of word and phrase
it goes on for days
and the tower of babel is unfazed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Which, in turn, makes you a villain in world's story... so why should anyone care?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Thanks for making it weird.
Try to make up your mind.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Thanks for making it weird.
That's what she said...
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Stop supporting the lessor of two evils .... Cthulhu all the way!
I'm the lessor of two evils!
Sadly, both the Democrats and the Republicans have 99 year leases, with an option to renew.
Is Obama's increase more than Bush's increase over Clinton?
My health insurer keeps begging for my SSN. I consider them having that to comply with the ACA reporting requirements for the IRS being a substantial invasion of my privacy.
I'm sure most people have just naively called the toll free number and handed it over, so they are pretty screwed, if an industry well known for their lack of information security gets hacked. Again. After the new information is in their system.
That's a pretty steep escalation right there.
It cost 100's of millions in Americas corrupt political system to become president.
It's OK; if the Trans Pacific Partnership passes, his debt will be considered paid in full.
ah, i'm being accused of accused of carrying on too long. fair enough accusation. but it is coming from someone who makes believes their own posts in tandem don't exist. that's some heavy psychological projection there friend
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You do realize that the fact that they can't negotiate the prices of pharmaceuticals is due to the republicans and the Bush administration. That occurred before Obama took office with the Medicare part D aspect and now they're cashing in. I just read an article today about how the drug for treating toxoplasmosis went from $13.50/tablet to $750 overnight despite being a 62 year old drug. The drug companies are basically price gouging the US public. In another case they raised the price of Doxycycline, an antibiotic from $20/bottle to $1849/bottle.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Serious question here - I understand that people love to hate Obamacare/ACA. But I don't understand why. What's bad about federally mandated healthcare that says the health insurance companies must offer all people coverage, cannot drop us after they pay out a certain amount (no lifetime maximums), and in general sets a specific lower rung for basic minimum coverage to maintain quality of life?
You've answered the question yourself, and you don't even know it.
The answer is "insurance companies".
What the hell do they have to do with healthcare? In the ACA situation, this is what:
* They charge people for health insurance ...and then, when they have a claim, they do their damnedest to deny it, so it becomes an out of pocket expense for the insured.
* They charge doctors for malpractice insurance
* They charge nurses for malpractice insurance
* They charge hospitals for malpractice insurance
* They charge doctors with practices or clinics for liability insurance on the premises
* They charge medical equipment manufacturers for liability insurance on their products
* They charge hospitals for liability insurance
Even better: when they have to pay a claim: most of the money doesn't go to the provider of the insured, it goes to the providers insurance company. Which may or may not be the same company that is paying the claim.
Meanwhile, most of the tort reform that would help limit the damages in any of these cases is held up by the legislators, who get major campaign contributions and endorsements... from the insurance industry.
And the funny part of the last one is that, most of the legislators (including the current president) are lawyers.
And when any of the claims (especially liability or malpractice) get litigated, the people doing it are ...the lawyers. Who would make less money if there were tort reform reducing the maximum damages on liability or malpractice claims.
The funniest part of all? Lawyers *also* have to carry malpractice insurance (and liability insurance, if they have a physical premises)... payable to the insurance industry.
They own us, lock, stock, and barrel.
that as a principled conservative he was actively blocking some of this spying on Constitutional grounds. Instead of honestly reporting this stuff at the time, and explaining to the public that there was a split between the "establishment" and "neocon" Republicans, and the actual conservatives, the journalists in DC were amusing themselves and each other trying to embarrass and provoke Ashcroft. They actually made a game of always trying to position the news photographers so that whatever picture they took of him at justice would have in the background one of those topless female statues, presuming that this would embarrass him with conservatives in middle-America. When the man got annoyed with this "game" and all the distractions it was causing and ordered those statures draped, the press then ran around laughing that he was a prude and writing that he was such a prude he had covered up all the breasts on the statues - very dishonest since he only took the action to try to stop their adolescent game.
Never a peep of honest journalism about Ashcroft and his defense of the privacy rights of the American public, only hostility and attacks by "neutral" journalists who absolutely refused to report on anything good the man did that might even get the support of people on the left. The man was still opposing the spying while very seriously ill in the hospital, when a less-principled man might have used that situation as an excuse to do the politically (an personally) easy thing: give-in.
Too bad Mr Obama never nominated an equally principled Atty Gen and instead insisted on a DNC boot-licker named Holder who has never crossed anybody in his party.
The public option plan existed also (and indeed, was the preferred one). It was scuttled.
It's debatable whether ACA is actually better than what was before it long term. It does force you to buy insurance without putting any meaningful price controls in place on the cost of said insurance.
RINO = moderate Republican.
Heck, Reagan was a RINO by modern metrics.
My understanding of the package of laws designed to 'defend' against ter ror ism is they have essentially nullified due process in America and a good portion, if not all of the Bill of rights under the constitution have been wound back by the passage of these bills. So who's defending the Constitution against the domestic enemies that seeks to take America over from the inside?
W.Bush passed the laws however Obama hasn't restored due process, so one can only conclude that the American government is no longer controlled by the American people. This is not a political issue any more, it a democratic one of why aren't the people in control anymore? It should be at the top of the list and front page news but it isn't even being talked about. I *wish* our country had the same rights as American citizens however it seems to be that the apathy over what should be the *most* important issue has been glazed over by ignorance and nationalism described as patriotism.
People died for what you have, but no one seems to care. The really cool thing about America was that it was a mercantile nation open for business, not that she is the worlds police.
There is little hope of pleading the first with a media so controlled. 1st: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. How many times do you see protesters being told to move along when they do?
I only have to look at youtube to see blatant and regular violations of the 4 and 5th
4th: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause
5th: nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
6th amendment was obilt 8th amendment violations occur even before a trial
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Continuing on after I accidentally posted:
The 6th amendment was obliterated by the anti democrac^h^h^h^htewworism laws: 6th: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
And 8th amendment violations occur even before a trial 8th: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
So with all the vows of defending against domestic enemies, who actually *is* defending the American Constitution against *its* enemies? Furthermore, if the laws passed to suppress democracy to "defend against terrorism" are against the constitution, how can they be legal or even enforceable?
I hope the reminder is welcome because as far as I can see tewworists don't pass laws and something very precious is being lost to ignorance.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Cthulhu is actually a mild one. Nyarlathotep or Yog-Sothoth are big league.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
It has helped less desperately poor by making it easier to qualify for that coverage.
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The only one of those things Bernie Sanders could possibly do any better is not starting more wars in the middle east. Everything else you mentioned is controlled by congress, and Obama tried to change each of those things but found congress would not let him. Presidents are not dictators.
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They hate it because
Black, muslim Obama, born in Africa. Dirty liberal communism and praise our Lord and Savior Donald Trump.
Is what about half of US population has in their heads. Courtesy of Fox News.
God put Jesus in the midst of Jews with His own spirit in Him.
Is that near the bit where the cat's smile is still there even though he vanishes? I sometimes get these things mixed up.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Let's see: The USA has the most expensive education service, health service, legal service on the planet. It has the biggest military system and prison system on the planet. This is a consequence of small government ideology where small government means corporate welfare means mandatory fascism. A bit like religious fanatics, Americans want to obey the commandments of 'small government', 'tough on crime' and actual Christian ideology (abortion, prostitution, homosexuality) regardless of its real contribution to society. In that rather large aspect, US government is a theocracy.
Domestic corporations use this 'eevil gubermint' mindset to tell Americans that what is good for the wealthy is good for the poor (trickle-down economics, capital gains tax-cuts), and what is good for their competition is bad for everybody else (Google fibre, multiple casinos).
The 'land of opportunity' isn't really an ideology, it's just a example of a slightly or moderately rich person using the legal exploitation of others to become extremely rich (Bill Gates, Donald Trump). The genuine rags-to-riches story is really an anomaly in the labour resource that occurs because the middle layer (tradespersons, white collar employees) of that resource is a meritocracy.
That's pretty much it. He had to water it down so congress would pass it, and in the spirit of bipartisanship he went along with it.
He should have insisted it was done properly, or not at all.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Who is forcing the American public to do anything?
Why do you invent scenarios trying to justify the confiscation of freedom and pretend it didn't happen at the same time?
The government should just boycott the debt that the people of the USA supposedly "owe" to the private bankers who own The Federal Reserve. After 3 rounds of "Quantitative Easing" these scumbags are now the largest single holder of U.S. treasuries.
Currently, The Treasury Department creates an interest-bearing note which they then sell to The Fed for money that the Fed created out of thin air. The income tax is used to pay the interest on this supposed "debt"?
There is no reason that the Treasury Department could not create a debt-free U.S. dollar and bypass the banking cartel entirely.
Does this mean 'while he happened to be in hospital for something or other, Ashcroft forcefully disagreed with the President's authorization...'
Or does it mean how it reads? "Due to disagreeing forcefully with the President, Ashcroft was hospitalized....
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
The number of people believing something to be true has no bearing on whether or not it actually is true.
The biblical claims of godhood/Jesus' supernatural origins and actions are without any historical or scientific evidence, so there's no reason whatsoever for a rational minded individual to take them as anything but fables and allegory, just like any other old myths.
This is not to say one cannot appreciate the teachings of the supposed character of Jesus, but again, just because you have 2 billion people believing that 2000 years ago the supernatural invisible ruler of the universe fathered himself from a virgin and then schemed to have himself executed as a sacrificial gift to himself to save us from the sin he himself implemented to begin with, does not mean any of this is true, empirical, or logical.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
He's probably referring to the fact that American emergency rooms are not allowed to turn away anyone, regardless of whether they have health insurance or money to pay the bill. Ultimately, the money for an ER visit comes from tax dollars -- the American public.
Running the program intelligently (and fixing bugs on the fly) is precisely the role I think the US President is supposed to fulfil on domestic matters.
No the role of the president should be to implement and execute the law as written by congress. If the time lines were supposed to be felible congress could have easily have said, "starting not before tax year 2014" and left it to the executive to determine the specific when. They did not write that though, they wrote specific dates, which the president then simply ignored and did his own thing, which he is not entitled to do.
The President has a chance to second guess Congress, its call the veto. if a law is so specific as to be unworkable the president should veto it, and tell Congress why. "I am vetoing this law that I generally like because I can't possibly implement it as written with resources allocated, either send me a version with looser constraints or give me a larger allocation of assets to work with" would be a perfectly presidential response IMHO. Just ignoring the parts you don't like or can't effect on the other hand is just illegal. The rest of us don't get to do that!
Sorry mister firemarshall I would have installed a centralized fire detection system while converting this to a commercial space but you known the building is old, and there was no way we were going to be able to run the cables in time... Would not fly.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
it's nice to have stalkers, i guess
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Health care in the US is an ideological issue, and I don't get why.
Because we are programmed from the time we can walk to know that 'communism' and 'socialism' are evil.
Business interests have convinced Americans that a single payer health system = socialism (or communism to those who can't tell the difference), thus the ideological aspect of the discussion which is actually a capitalism vs. 'communism' propaganda issue.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Obama has increased the violations of privacy started under Bush; he is worse
The implication of that statement is that he has no real control over the situation. He is a different person from a different political party. Things should be different, not necessarily better or worse, but definitely not the same. It is like a new president was never even elected.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
If Obama doesn't have control over the situation, then neither did Bush, and liberals should stop blaming GWB. The problem is, they want to blame everyone with an (R) behind their name, while absolving everyone with a (D). Party politics is poison to the brain.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The crazy is strong with this one.
Wake up, you need to see a psychiatrist to get your issues looked at.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Keep thinking that and not understanding why people hate you for being a partisan asshole.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
You're right it's illegal to obey an illegal order. But often most of us can't predict which orders will be illegal. Orders in general are prima facie legal, and when an executive arm of government says its legal, it's pretty hard to disobey it, not least because they can fire you, so it takes big balls to fight it.
Sigh, There are times that it is good to see the past changed, this is not one of them. 1. The Congress and Senate were both controlled by Democrats. 2. There was a Republican Senator that was ready to vote yes on anything that came down the line, and publicly stated so. (Senator Olympia Snow). 3. This gave the Democratic Senate Filibuster Proof votes. 4. There was no problem with the House for the Democrats. In summary, President Obama said (paraphrasing), This is what I think should happen, (Did not actually propose any legislation for it) but you guys hammer it out. Then the Democratic Party came up with what we have today.
One thing that amazes me about American politics is how they get caught up on certain issues forever, while a lot of other countries seem to just move on to newer problems after making a decision. Abortion is a good example - I could barely believe how Planned Parenthood funding was a core debate subject at the Republican leader debate (sad when that was the most entertaining TV on).
That is amazing to you? If you believe abortion is murdering babies, then you aren't going to "move on." Anti-war protesters don't "move on" until the war ends or their country stop participating. You're talking about things that are an affront to these people, and expecting them to shrug it off and talk about highway funding or fiscal minutia is naive.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Not progressive enough does not equal the republican agenda. Come back to reality.
The price control is called "competition". The classifications and marketplaces are intended to allow comparison shopping. An insurance company that charges a lot more than the others will have no business, while one that undercuts the others will get a lot of business.
I am required to buy auto insurance, since I insist on driving on public roads. I can shop by price, and change insurance companies to save money. It works essentially the same way.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
ah, i'm being accused of accused of carrying on too long. fair enough accusation. but it is coming from someone who makes believes their own posts in tandem don't exist. that's some heavy psychological projection there friend
You definitely have been carrying on too long. You should've passed on with Ruston and the other early Kurobots. It's always astonishing to run into your persona online, still going ~20 years later. You have been practicing the desperate need for self-validation provided by Internet discussion for lo these many years, but apparently you like Bono still haven't found what you're looking for. How long til your soul gets it right? Can any human being ever reach that kind of light? You should call on the resting soul of Galileo, king of night vision, king of insight.
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
The price control is called "competition".
Yeah, right.
I am required to buy auto insurance, since I insist on driving on public roads. I can shop by price, and change insurance companies to save money. It works essentially the same way.
Yes, and it's equally ridiculous. In BC, for example, the auto insurance company is run by the state, allowing it to control prices, so mandating it makes sense.
Bernie Sanders definitely wouldn't get a budget surplus. A few places have taken a look at his proposed policies and found that even with his tax hikes, we'd be adding about 11-12 trillion USD in national debt over the next decade. We can't maintain that on top of what we already have, thanks to the last two presidents.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
The WSJ article on Bernie Sanders claims that his policies will add $18T to the national debt isn't true.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Robert-Reich/2015/0921/Opinion-Four-reasons-why-The-Wall-Street-Journal-attack-on-Bernie-is-bogus
He's worse, because his Democrat party traditionally has been one that was more believing in privacy, at least for the last 20 years. Before that, not so much. The fact of the matter is, Democrats are as evil, if not more so, than Republicans, mostly because they are the intellectual heirs of Trotsky, Lenin, and Stalin, and act accordingly.
I'm not sure I believe that - your source makes a pretty big error. It claims that expanding Medicare for everyone would save $10T over the next decade by removing for-profit administrative costs, pharmaceutical markups, etc. but those are private savings, not public ones. Furthermore, while private administrative costs would likely go down, public ones will go up, especially initially as we have to hire people to understand the new rules. Pharmaceutical "markups" pay for research (and marketing, to be fair). As it stands now, America subsidized other countries; our high drug prices are most of the money that goes towards research. If we give the government the ability to negotiate - and I think we should, just to be clear - we can't expect costs to match what other countries are paying right now, and their costs will likely go up.
Furthermore, while I agree that making college tuition may save money overall, that's still money that the government is spending, and will count towards the national debt. Sanders hasn't proposed large enough tax increases to cover this or his other plans.
Essentially, while his plans might make things cheaper overall (depending on how they're implemented), they will add large amounts to the debt unless taxes are similarly increased. The csmonitor source makes the distinction between public and private costs, but then argues that shifting from private to public shouldn't count against him. However, it will count towards the debt, unless more of the money that would have been going to private costs goes to public ones instead.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Actually, some of us citizens of the USA who are genuine conservatives (probably a small number) think all of these people are obscenely evil and deserve to be sent somewhere else in the universe - alpha centuri, perhaps, because they have mostly destroyed this nation, and the western world, and continue to do so. Unfortunately, it's the liberals who have embraced the 1984-esque scenarios whilst the "conservatives" have embraced the Brave New World scenarios. And the difference is?
The problem with these presidential proposals is that they look forward ten years into the future. The real financial crisis is 20 years out when the Baby Boomers are retired, the tax base (workers) is substantially smaller, and Social Security/Medicare is 2/3 of the federal budget. Taxes will have to go up to pay for everything else. This is a well-known problem that the politicians have been punting since the Reagan Administration.
Er, whatever. Sad thing is, I'm not making this shit up..
Oh, I agree - shifting demographics is going to be a real problem, one way or another. Hopefully we can get through that and then find a nice stable population level.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Running the program intelligently (and fixing bugs on the fly) is precisely the role I think the US President is supposed to fulfil on domestic matters.
No the role of the president should be to implement and execute the law as written by congress. If the time lines were supposed to be felible congress could have easily have said, "starting not before tax year 2014" and left it to the executive to determine the specific when. They did not write that though, they wrote specific dates, which the president then simply ignored and did his own thing, which he is not entitled to do.
The President has a chance to second guess Congress, its call the veto. if a law is so specific as to be unworkable the president should veto it, and tell Congress why. "I am vetoing this law that I generally like because I can't possibly implement it as written with resources allocated, either send me a version with looser constraints or give me a larger allocation of assets to work with" would be a perfectly presidential response IMHO.
And just like software mistake happen and you have to deal with them.
Just ignoring the parts you don't like or can't effect on the other hand is just illegal. The rest of us don't get to do that!
Sorry mister firemarshall I would have installed a centralized fire detection system while converting this to a commercial space but you known the building is old, and there was no way we were going to be able to run the cables in time... Would not fly.
The rest of us weren't given an electoral mandate specifically to implement laws with some degree of discretion.
Clearly he doesn't have complete discretion, the specific line is for the SCOTUS to decide, but I think saying "this deadline as laid out is clearly a problem because of X which the law didn't anticipate".
Consider the alternative which is software code where you literally have to cover every possible contingency and even trivial bills would take months or even years to write and be orders of magnitude larger.
Or you could make the bills so vague that the president really can do whatever they want.
Given that I think the current system "this is what we want, get as close as possible without being stupid" works pretty well.
I stole this Sig
Ignorance of the law is not excuse, unsure about the risk, check but make no mistake, there will be an accounting, a new Nuremberg trials and claiming to be a chicken shit will not save you.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Do you actually want government price controls? I'd rather have market-based competition. It tends to make the economy work better, when applicable.
The drug price gouging you referred to is possible only in a monopoly situation, which is why I don't want to be in an area where there is a "the auto insurance company". If there's five businesses competing for my money, and I can pick and choose, there will be an option at a reasonable price (considering costs of production and whatever).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I want either a true free market with competition (i.e. the one where I'm not required to go shopping), or else a properly regulated market. Anything in between is unacceptable, because it is forcing me to buy a product from a private party without limiting how much the party can charge me; in such a market, the natural strategy for the providers is to collude on prices.
Lol. First of all, I was rounding the number because the ex act number of claimed years is irrelevant to the point that I was making, which is that there's no evidence that any of the supposed miraculous claims occurred. Do you obviously believe I am so stupid I don't know what year we're living in, or what the Gregorian calendar is supposedly based on? Really, are you that dense?
Secondly, if you had any clue as to how the timeline was actually derived back when the church was trying to calculate it, you'd know that the probable estimated birth date of Jesus is not in fact AD 1, but closer to AD 4-7. So not only is your logic of latching on to a rounded year figure dumb as fuck, you're also ignorant of the actual historical estimates of the guy you hold, without any evidence, to be the son of God.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Did Bush promise "hope" and "change"?
Foreign Affairs: Bush promised a humble foreign policy with no nation building. He had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that."
One of the only things he's remembered for is nation building, interventionist policies that invaded Iraq for fabricated reasons.
So no, Bush didn't promise Hope and Change. But he didn't deliver on any of his promises, rarely do candidates.
Learn to love Alaska
In something like this, there are going to be people looking for price collusion. It doesn't seem to have affected the auto insurance market.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes