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Marco Rubio Wants To Permanently Extend NSA Mass Surveillance (nationaljournal.com)
SonicSpike writes: Marco Rubio wants Congress to permanently extend the authorities governing several of the National Security Agency's controversial spying programs, including its mass surveillance of domestic phone records. The Florida Republican and 2016 presidential hopeful penned an op-ed on Tuesday condemning President Obama's counterterrorism policies and warning that the U.S. has not learned the "fundamental lessons of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001." Rubio called on Congress to permanently reauthorize core provisions of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act, which are due to sunset on June 1 of this year and provide the intelligence community with much of its surveillance power. "This year, a new Republican majority in both houses of Congress will have to extend current authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and I urge my colleagues to consider a permanent extension of the counterterrorism tools our intelligence community relies on to keep the American people safe," Rubio wrote in a Fox News op-ed.
I don't remember one of the fundamental lessons of the 9/11 attacks being that we weren't watching everyone all the time without a warrant.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion...
And not just a summary of summary of the op-ed.
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
If we should have learned anything from 9/11, it's that we should stop pushing terrible foreign policies on other nations. Also, stop meddling too much in their affairs. It is much easier to protect out nation by getting other countries to like us, instead of beating them into temporary submission.
Freedom is more important than safety. Privacy is a freedom that you are too willing to throw away. Please stop being such a pussy.
Thanks,
An American Citizen.
I hadn't read or heard much about this guy, but since he seems like he'll be the #3 between Cruz and Trump (who are both so unelectable it hurts) it's good to know that he's as awful a candidate as anyone else the Republicans have up.
...
Never expect anything from a politician, and you might be disappointed by them only half the time
Mario will come back to the center once he gets the nomination. Career politician.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It's time people started to accept this very important fact: being sellouts who want to sign away your rights is not a party issue.
They're all pretty much acting like it's better to live in fear in a surveillance state than it is to remember you can't "defend" freedoms by eliminating them.
Aren't these clowns all supposed to take an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution? Instead they're all deciding it doesn't apply.
Republicans, Democrats ... they're all happy to spy on everybody and act like it's normal.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
When you get goodies like warrantless searches, you never want to give them up. Like Ben Franklin said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". Never were truer words spoken. Next we'll be using methods we condemned Germany and China for to "monitor for threats". From this respect, it's true We haven't learned from national or world history.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
of the American Revolution.
Indeed. Our post WWII conduct with other countries was often extremely shameful. I termed my service as 'cleaning up the messes of our parents and grandparents'.
We should have a policy of conducting ourselves with honor - we make a deal, we keep it. We don't support people who are anti-ethical to our beliefs. Democracy isn't wrong, even if the population doesn't like us. Keep acting honorably and they'll eventually change their minds.
I don't read AC A human right
I fear that I will see in my lifetime the event that signifies the beginning of the end of the American Republic as Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon did for Rome's
Indeed. Our post WWII conduct with other countries was often extremely shameful.
Trust me .. it didn't start with WWII. Even Hawaii was a business deal framed as a military action.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
but what the hell did the founders know?
While I agree with your sentiment in terms of how we should treat the other peoples of this planet, I don't believe the radical Muslim world's hate for the US and the West - and what they represent, for that matter - has anything to do with how the West has treated them.
I mean, come on. They attack and destroy girls' schools, just because they exist. They destroy irreplaceable historic monuments, just because they exist. What did either of those do to them to "earn" their wrath?
#DeleteChrome
Security lessons in the post 9/11 world: 1) Airline metal detection is worthless. 2) Espionage is more useful against Congress than against lone wolf terrorists. 3) It is very easy to use the threat of terrorism to get elected.
Also, throw in some bull about a 'new GOP dominated Senate' on the ridiculous belief that you will win, when the majority of polls continue to show the Democrats leading, and that the GOP would rather vote for crazy people like Trump and Cruz than elect a competent person.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I'm pretty sure Rubio has a bigger issue with immigrants from Canada than he does the middle east right now.
Yes, his position can be summarized as:
- Obama failed by not spying on the innocent citizens enough;
- I propose we continue to spy on the innocent citizens, as Obama does, forever!
His political need to attack Obama results in an incoherent position statement.
The Florida Republican and 2016 presidential hopeful penned an op-ed on Tuesday condemning President Obama's counterterrorism policies...
I have it from a very good source that one of his aides actually penned that. Now, don't ask me how I know that, please don't ask...
Besides help Europe break the whole area up into countries that didn't make any sense from an ethnic perspective. The problems in the middle East are ancient but when a group can self organize and rule themselves they are less likely to lash out. We helped make geographical decisions that split tribes and force enemies to live together.
Before our intrusion these militant wackos would pop up and the rulers would crush them. Note there aren't any real rulers so the wackos get to run the region.
We discuss this topic quite frequently and much more passionately than most, and many other topics that can be considered related. I don't think it's far fetched to think that Slashdot is monitored. Shit, there may even be one among us. I want that to sound paranoid, but it would not exactly be a big job. No, I am afraid that does not sound paranoid. I suppose there are many arguments one could form that based on how mass surveillance works, looking at something so small on a very big internet is unlikely. To this I say do not let what sounds unlikely fool you.
Queue the jokes.
Oh, and fuck you NSA man.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
I saw this coming the moment the US enacted the "temporary" Patriot Act, and I've reminded people every time they extended it. Once the government has power, they never give it back. I can't find examples to quote (other than the 1st Rule of Acquisition), but I'm sure everyone can think of at least five cases in history where this pattern has been repeated.
The only sane course of action when governments try to enact legislation like this, for any reason, is to block it at every available opportunity. These laws never get repealed, and the "temporary" emergency laws always become permanent.
Fuck 9/11. History already taught me that governments never waste a good opportunity to grab power, that all emergency powers become permanent, and that no government, ever, can be trusted with these powers.
"Government is like fire; a handy servant, but a dangerous master." -- George Washington
The Fourth Amendment still needs that warrant.
Pushing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act into a domestic setting is not legal.
Just as the Church Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... found back in the mid 1970's
Using one finding, act, transit authority, policy, directive, annex authority, special procedures, executive order does not allow any US court to use color of law to get around the Fourth Amendment.
The US and others collected all with projects like BLARNEY, FAIRVIEW, PERFECTSTORM, STORMBREW, STELLARWIND, PRISM,.
Does collect it all work?
It works well to enrich contractors, offers great over time and lucrative new roles for the private sector. Renting the network collection tools as no bid contracts is also great for profits.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
https://xkcd.com/538/
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Distrust.
So while it might sound like a nice ideal, he's talking about trying to change something that is about as much a part of the human condition as living, breathing, and dying.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
..can both go fuck themselves, sideways, with a rusty chainsaw.
End all NSA mass surveillance, now!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Don't you just love it when some agency is savvy enough to abuse Slashdot to forward the political agenda of its clients?
I see someone's invented a -1, Insightful moderation option...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Where I'm not ready to call them sheep, it sure seems that the establishment is going to line up behind Rubio as their last hope now that Bush has proven to be unable to get *any* votes. But I expect that the newly released voters who support the candidates who are now going to be exiting the Republican field to be switching to their 2nd choice. For the most part this *won't* add much to Trump who is nobody's second choice. How that breaks between Rubio and Cruz is the $1M question, and the establishment is clearly going to do what it can to help Rubio..
What's going to be really telling is how the ex-supporters of Huckabee and Paul fall, given that the candidate tried to throw their support at Trump for some reason that escapes me. Maybe they are not thinking clearly and think that Trump has a chance here and are angling for a VP pick? It's pretty clear that Trump is only going to fade from this point because he won't be able to gather support as the field narrows with people dropping out. He has negatives that rival Hillary's in the Republican party.... Yea, he's going to win a primary or two in the liberal states, but in purple and blue states he's going to be soundly beaten by Cruz and Rubio who are the two viable candidates in this race now. Carson is out of money and only has maybe two more primaries before he's going to be forced to pull the plug, the rest of the field who are still in this (Like Bush) will just ride out the money they have and follow suit. By the end of February we may be down to effectively three contenders, which is when Trump will start to fade into the background..
I'm not ready to call the race between Cruz and Rubio, but Trump will finish this behind them. He has money, but no experience in the "ground game" like Cruz or the Television presence and speaking ability of Rubio. If he continues the shrill "It's not fair" mud slinging fest he's been engaged in with Cruz over the last few days, he may finish way back from the field.
In the end, We are going to have a president of Cuban descent in 2017 because just like Sanders hasn't a prayer being the democratic nominee, Hillary hasn't a prayer in the general w/o an independent or third party candidate to suck away the middle right votes. She's establishment, though and through and this election is about throwing the bums in Washington (DC) out.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Republicans who want bigger, more intrusive, more expensive government. And how will this bigger government be paid for? With higher taxes, thus showing tax and spend Republicans are no different than Democrats.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Terrorism may be the last reason we need deep surveillance. Look at what happens when we have video of cops in action. Suddenly it becomes evident that much of the negative information that we have had in the past was true about cops activities. Surveillance can increase our freedoms. I shudder to think how much crime can be detected if we really start applying technology to our daily lives. For example, people lie to get medical and life insurance and they even lie to their doctors. What if your doctor could easily view all the groceries you or your family purchases. The dope industry could also take a huge hit if electronic money becomes the standard. It becomes hard to buy dope as it shows as a strange expense on your debit or credit card, Tax evasion could be eliminated. Also, salaries could be scanned as a public service as some employers cheat on payrolls. And imagine car insurance if your actions while driving are recorded and automatically notify your insurance agency of speeding, running red lights, or mileage other than what you report at purchase time. Technology could eliminate most of the crime in America if we encourage surveillance and data mining for law enforcement. Even a requirement to carry a good, national ID that would trigger alerts if a person did not have a valid identity or failed to have their card with them at all times. How about auto facial recognition at ATM machines? The wrong person could never make a withdrawal. This issue is not a one- way issue. Our freedom could actually increase due to surveillance and data analysis. Perhaps we should embrace rather than resist it.
I came for the Republican bashing, but if we're honest with ourselves it's pretty clear almost every candidate on both sides would do the same thing. They may say they won't, but they'll still do it.
Here's a clue. Clinton gets to the twice as much Wall Street money. Wall Street firms have always been the Clinton's largest contributors. Now you have a clue.
Bonus:
Wall Street hasn't bought Cruz. The largest sector backing Cruz is real estate.
British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, and the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, is who is to blame for much of this mess. He's the one who came up with the current "map" of the Middle East after the Ottoman Empire was defeated.
But assume we have Rubio's envisioned monitoring program in place. Could the attacks have been prevented? Doubtful, because everyone involved in country had a clean record and the chatter between 20 Middle Eastern guys would not have stood out as unusual.
After the fact, phone records could have helped to sort out what happened and identify accomplices still alive. But I don't think any of them would remain behind to collect the deposit on a rental van after they made that mistake once. So the same shit would go down. We'd just know who pwned us sooner.
Have gnu, will travel.
Girls schools are where girls learn to be independent women. That's too Western for many of the locals.
The guys blowing up the monuments are, by and large, westerners. Lots of French and Belgians, but also quite a few Brits and no small number of Americans. They are fighting in Syria and Iraq largely because the West has no use for young men who never went to college, and tends to be really hard on unemployed brown men. At least this way they can be more then a pothead.
All this said, I don't think there's a particularly easy solution for any of this. Supporting the destruction of Israel would help a bit, because the unsettled nature of Israeli borders causes problems everywhere in the region, but it's not gonna solve everything, and there are obvious moral issues there. Redrawing the borders sounds good when PhD idiots say it, but if it was actually as simple as un-drawing the map the WW1 Generation and Victorians hashed out why have there been more failures (ie: Somalia, Ethiopia including Eritrea, Senegambia, the United Arab Republic), then successes (Tanzania) when the locals try it?
Some magical economic policy that allowed us to a) employ all young men in jobs with $20k a year and benefits, b) provide sufficient economic aid to third-world countries to let them catch up to our level, without c) raising taxes would do the trick.
Rubio didn't say that. Here's what he said is a fundamental lesson to be learned:
-- Quote- -
Syria, Yemen, and Libya are all examples of our failure to learn one of the fundamental lessons of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- that failed and failing states breed instability and are potential safe havens for terrorists who will eventually turn their attention toward us.
--
Also, now that the mass surveillance of metadata is no longer legal and has theoretically stopped , Rubio also supports keeping the currently-legal intelligence programs. I disagree with him, but I'm not a liar so I'll be honest about where we disagree. The summary posted to Slashdot is a lie misquoting some spin.
That would imply that there are enough responsible Republicans left to raise taxes to pay for spending. No, the new Republican party just spends and lets deficits grow while arguing about how to cut taxes more. Both parties over-spend, they just spend it on different agendas.
German and Japanese POWs that were housed on American soil, I know of camps that were in Maine and Kansas, were not extended rights under the Constitution. If the Gitmo prisoners are POWs why would they be extended rights not extended to the WW2 POWs?
The Middle East has been a mess since long before the Sykes-Picot Agreement, granted that didn't help but is wasn't the start by any means. See the Crusades.
And then there's always "War is a Racket" by Marine Corp General and Commandant Smedly Butler. (Two Medal of Honor awards also). He was telling his story in the 1930s after the attempt to recruit him to run the Coup to depose FDR.
I think the hawkers of this isolationist ideal in foreign policy have a really short sighted view of the world and don't understand the real reasons why the USA is not viewed kindly in some places.
I don't think we are prepared to fully go isolationists or that we understand what that looks like. I think those that push this idea want their cake and eat it too. On one hand they will decry the so called abuses of our past interventions, but in their next breath will bitterly complain about us not taking actions to stop the massive waves of violence and death that would come if we went 100% hands off.
I also think we do stick our noses in places it doesn't belong and are fickle about what actions we do choose to make. Osama Bin Laden spoke of this fickle USA that would intervene one day to stop atrocities, then withdraw, leaving the locals to clean up the mess the next. Where the USA easily gets tired, looses it's resolve and goes away. He was right, we are driven by the news cycles and what's important to us now, doesn't matter next week, so that leads us to things like the Iraq war, where we went in, guns blazing with nearly 100% popular support after 9/11 to voting in some guy advocating we cut our losses and run, before the Iraqis where able to defend themselves. We depart, the situation falls apart as was expected, and now with the advent of ISIS we face a situation on the ground which is horrible for the people we liberated from Sadam. Yes it was and is our fault, and we all can agree on that regardless of if you think the war was wrong or if the premature departure was wrong.
Somewhere in all this there has got to be a balance between just not getting involved and being the world's policeman, between bombing the heck out of one group, arming another group or letting the world to it's own devices, regardless of how bad it looks.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Whut? What makes you think any in their sane mind would want to vote for Republicans? "Center right" simply doesn't exist.
"... voting in some guy advocating we cut our losses and run, before the Iraqis where able to defend themselves."
...
The withdrawal and its timeline were negotiated by the Bush Administration. The Iraqis wanted us out anyway and Obama, like Bush and all True-Blooded Americans®, wouldn't, in the event of an extension, consent to our troops being held accountable to Iraqi law enforcement and justice should they happen to break the law.
Besides, "cut our losses and run" reminds me of Reagan and Lebanon
All true, so why do we "cut and run" then when we KNOW that the mess we leave behind will cost those who are stuck there dearly?
Oh, and blaming Bush went out of style shortly after his successor took office in my book. Yea, there was a mess in Iraq we needed to clean up better, but at some point Obama made the choice to withdraw. The Iraqis where in no condition to dictate terms with the USA and obviously still needed our support so had Obama wanted to stay and "finish the job" or at least leave a stable Iraq, he easily could have. But he wanted to cut and run for political reasons at home, so many Iraqis died largely for political gain in the great ol' USA. The very kind of action OBL accused us of when he was alive.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Don't American politicians learn about basic civics anymore? What about the ideals upon which America was founded? Where's the reverence for principles such as "no unreasonable searches".
I was wondering the same thing. To me, Rubio just demonstrated why he is unqualified to hold the office he is campaigning for. The funny thing is, it was an unforced error. Saying nothing would have been much smarter than coming out against the Constitution.
Whut? What makes you think any in their sane mind would want to vote for Republicans? "Center right" simply doesn't exist.
With the exception of the last presidential election a LOT of people have been voting Republican, from the Federal level on down. Republicans have gained seats in the Senate, and the house, have more governorships than we've seen in modern history, and made gains in state legislators nation wide almost without exception. Maybe everybody is nuts, but it seems that there are a LOT of people doing the crazy thing here.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I don't care who gets elected they will find some way to allow the program to continue. If they can, they will expand it. NSA Mass Surveillance is a power grab, plain and simple. None of them have the guts to get rid of it because the moment they do, and there is any sort of attack no matter how small, that politician will have blood on their hands.
So it gets sold to the American public as something that is for our own good. Big brother to the rescue. Never mind that our government has blown billions of our tax dollars so far on this charade with little to nothing to show for it. If anything the attacks have increased, not decreased. But in typical government fashion, when something doesn't work throw money at it until it does. Meanwhile our freedoms continue to erode.
The whole thing just reminds me of those home alarm company commercials where they try to scare you into buying the alarm to keep away the "bad guys". You're better of just putting a sign on your lawn that says you have an alarm. Just as effective.
Quite true, but their drawing lines on a map with zero regards to the actual ethnic populations is what has caused much of the current violence. Yet, I'm not sure if we had instead more "pure" countries made up of single religious sects would have turned out any better...it probably would have just resulted in the larger Sunni countries ethnically cleansing the smaller Shia countries years ago.
With the exception of the last presidential election a LOT of people have been voting Republican, from the Federal level on down. Republicans have gained seats in the Senate, and the house, have more governorships than we've seen in modern history, and made gains in state legislators nation wide almost without exception. Maybe everybody is nuts, but it seems that there are a LOT of people doing the crazy thing here.
I think you are ignoring (perhaps willfully) that much of that gain in the R column is the result of changing the rules, not necessarily an increase in voters. The Republican side is pretty notorious for outrageous acts of gerrymandering, for a start. Continuing on from there, Citizens United has benefitted Republicans *much* more than Democrats. And if you really want to wade into the muck, we have heretofore unseen levels of voter disenfranchisement, primarily at the hands of (you guessed it) the Republicans.
So are there more Republican voters? Maybe. Maybe not. But by most estimations, that's not what has increased their grip on the government. And that is, by my reckoning, circumventing what little democracy we had left in this country.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Ted Cruz and Rand Paul both oppose mass government surveillance and want the government to get a warrant - just as our constitution dictates.
Rand Paul, however, has dropped out of the race.
Many of the other candidates have the same stance on this as Rubio - Christie, Bush, Kasich, and I believe (but I don't know 100%) Carson as well. Not sure where Carly Fiorina stands on it, I hear so very little about her because she doesn't tell advertisements on the networks the way Trump does.
If this issue is important to you, then there's really only one candidate left who is on the side of privacy - and that is really, really sad. It should be all of them.
Love sees no species.
but he can Veto the shit out of a lot of bad stuff. I'll take gridlock over whatever the hell Rubio is going to do any day. Some of us _don't_ want to watch the world burn...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
we had a VP who openly commuted them, and I don't mean Uncle Joe Biden.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
yeah, a potato can win against *anyone* in this GOP field. The 'conservative' brand is almost irreparably tarnished; the *only* thing they have now is fear and that gets old fast.
How many people die from terror attacks in the US annually? 10? maybe 300 if you include 9/11 (which if you do is a hell of a strike against conservatism keeping us 'safe').
Rubio is the currently one with at least some substance and popularity. That doesn't make him electable in a general election. The GOP only controls the house thanks to massive gerrymandering that's starting to be ruled illegal. (all gerrymandering should be illegal so this isn't a GOP vs Dem issue).
on just about every issue, the GOP positions are lockstep with 1995.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
1. The most gerrymandered districts are democratic. Look at the maps.
It's not which districts are worse its the NUMBER of districts that are gerrymandered one way or the other. in VA it's been ruled illegal because they stuffed ALL the dems into a few districts to claim they had representation...but the majority of seats are GOP.
2. Democrats get equivalent amounts of campaign funding, from corporations or unions. Once again, look at the numbers.
Problem...most GOP money is secret, ala Super-PACs
3. Voter disenfranchisement? Like putting black panthers with nightsticks outside of polling stations? ID to vote is common place in most western civilized countries.
Indeed it is. PHOTO Id isn't though. The US Gov does not require people to have any more ID than a voter registration card. It is fundamentally unconstitutional to require anything else. There is NO voter fraud - this is simply not a problem in current existence.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Somewhere in all this there has got to be a balance between just not getting involved and being the world's policeman, between bombing the heck out of one group, arming another group or letting the world to it's own devices,
Let me know when you figure that out.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How exactly is Sanders "nutty"? Does he want to cancel taxes for ultra-rich (like Rubio)? Or start several new wars with Cuba, Iran and probably Canada (Cruz, Rubio, Trump)? Or maybe he has Putin as a role model?
Sanders is a freaking _moderate_. He wants universal health care, education and tighter control of Wall Street. What exactly is insane here?
a socialist trying to give away free everything to anybody
Sanders is not trying to "give away" anything. Nobody who supports Sanders expects to get things for "free", either. He openly states that taxes will have to go up or other parts of the budget will have to be cut. However, Sanders supporters are intelligent enough to realize that these are - absolutely and without challenge - the best investments that the government can possibly make. Money spent in prisons is never recouped. Money spent on education is recouped on average 5-10 times over (and often much more than that). Money spent on war is almost all lost. Money spent on health care is almost always returned.
The only people who think that Sanders is going to "give away" anything for "free" are the people who hate him too much to bother listening to what he actually says.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Conservatives value individual freedom, limited government, lower taxes, etc
You must have been going for a funny mod here. Conservatives believe in big government which has a main role of stopping people (and nations) practicing individual freedoms that they don't like, and they're willing to go into debt to do it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Reality is that we have five candidates to choose from. If one is twice as bad as another, yes that's worth knowing.
Give Rubio some time to grow up and someday he may make a fine POTUS.
There is one republican who could have a chance in the general. But he wont be the nominee for the same reason. Kassich is just too close to sane.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I think the reason Paul threw his support to Trump (whatever remained of it and as if his followers really care) is that Cruz has shown repeatedly that he only cares about himself. In that sense, he's no different than Trump. However, there is a personal nastiness about him. Trump is nasty too but in a general, offend all comers sort of way. With Cruz, I get the sense that he personally enjoys sticking the dagger in someone's back and then hiding behind his "ideology" to cover his tracks.
You do realize that Republicans gained control of the legislatures which allowed them to do this when the districts had been gerrymandered by the DEMOCRATS to maximize their representation in the legislatures, right? The Democrats did the same thing when they controlled the legislatures. They even gamed the system in states with "non-partisan" committees to lay out the districts so that those committees were overwhelmingly Democratic Party.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I live in a nice suburban neighborhood, and I sure don't recall having seen any panthers, black or otherwise, outside my polling stations (in a generally pro-Republican district) the last few federal elections or so.
:)
Now, I did see a few Jaguars, but I don't remember the color offhand. Maybe maroon-ish? Dark grey?
3. Voter disenfranchisement? Like putting black panthers with nightsticks outside of polling stations? ID to vote is common place in most western civilized countries.
Indeed it is. PHOTO Id isn't though. The US Gov does not require people to have any more ID than a voter registration card. It is fundamentally unconstitutional to require anything else. There is NO voter fraud - this is simply not a problem in current existence.
Up north the Conservatives pulled the same bullshit in our last election, and thankfully they still had their asses handed to them. They actually implemented increased identification requirements which mostly affected the poor, spouting nonsense about massive voter fraud. Meanwhile the government agency which actually oversees elections was repeatedly asking for the evidence, because they actually have the data and it doesn't show any fraud. Ironically there were a number of cases of political campaigns violating the Elections Act. Sadly all the ridiculous changes rushed through in the last two years means the Liberals get to spend most of their first year in office undoing the damage.
Major General Smedley Butler never was Commandant of the Marine Corps. He was a very brave man, a great battlefield leader, and an exceptional Marine. Out of uniform he was a political crank that associated with communist affiliated labor unions and organizations, and worked to prevent US participation in World War 2.
I would be inclined to follow him anywhere on a battlefield, but nowhere near a voting booth.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The short version: Don't want to worry about terrorism ? Quit bombing shit.
That's right, because if history teaches us anything, it is that refusing to ever use military forces leads to peace...
Well, either that or violent military repression at the hands of those that ARE willing to use it, I think you an I maybe confuse those two lessons sometimes...
Don't confuse them with the facts...
Their real problem is they don't like the score so they are complaining about the rules and how the field is striped. Problem is, democrats helped write the rules and stripe the field all before the game started, and you can bet that if the roles where reversed, they'd be saying what I am now, "Tough luck now play the game or go home." How do I know? I've seen it happen...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Well young'n you got some learn'n to do 'bout politic'n. The sooner you catch on to the fact that just about everybody is parsing their words carefully, generally talking about doing things "if elected" they won't have the power to actually do, and that this ability to tailor your message to your audience seems to be a skill that politicians develop over time, the better you will be at filtering out the rhetoric from the principle. Vote on principle and be ignoring the rhetoric the best you can.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Somewhere in all this there has got to be a balance between just not getting involved and being the world's policeman, between bombing the heck out of one group, arming another group or letting the world to it's own devices,
Let me know when you figure that out.
Sure, I'll be running for President when I get to the point I can clearly explain it too..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
ok, I'll vote for you
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
All labor unions at that time were considered de facto communist affiliated. Let's no kid ourselves about that. FDR's and his inner circle were considered communists by many.
Seriously? Sanders calls himself a "Socialist" and means it. How he gets traction is by promising to give away stuff that there is no way one could tax enough to pay for. He is the shining example of "Tax and Spend" mentality, except that he takes it to a whole new level of absurd. We are NOT a socialist country, our constitution just doesn't fit that model, it's antithetical to our founding Calling him a nut is being charitable if you ask me.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You do realize that you sound like a partisan hack to me right?
Have a nice election year..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Oh come on, of course failed and failing states breed instability and of course the US is actively destabilizing regions all over the world. Rubio knows that, we all know that unless we don't want to hear it, and the brainwash you quote is just sickening. "[N]o longer legal and has theoretically stopped"? You might not be a liar, but you are certainly naive.
Don't get me wrong, it would be nice if we could still see the world the way you do, but it takes an awful lot of ignoring facts to do so.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
The dems are mostly the same as the republicans when it comes to this.
The only two candidates who seem to be against this bullshit are Rand and Bernie.
Another demonstration that, at least until the last year, overwhelmingly, what Americans know about socialism is identical to what Good Germans knew about Jews in 1938.
mark
he could make decisions and policies without worrying about appeasing any lobbyist's and campaign donors
Perhaps. there's another quote that might give some pause:
"There is no one freer than one who has nothing left to lose."
Not without drawbacks but having something to reign in extremes can be pretty useful...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
There is a difference between "considered communist by many" and actual Communists (orders from Moscow, the whole thing). Make no mistake, there were Communists working to infiltrate and organize the labor unions as well as actual communist run unions.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Agreed. They are also the same group who talk freedom and practice creeping corporate fascism. A natural fit for the GOP and the Clinton-loving Democrat leadership.
Only boring people are ever bored.
Truth is partisan. It votes Democratic.