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Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

thehill.com

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Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#141

Post by rapala »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #79
mpyne wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? It's understood in the commercial sector that you have to pay (both on benefits, quality of work/life balance, pay, etc.) to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. How can we all take that very important lesson and completely throw it away when considering the leadership of an entire nation? I'm not sure I'd take Pres. Obama…

I think you're almost onto something here, but I think the problem is not compensation or benefits. It's that the President has too much power. And if I may quote Spider Man, with great power comes great responsibility . The constitution wasn't written under the assumption that the federal government would ever be as large as it is. It isn't set up for it. So the President is in charge of too much and is consequently…

Is there any chance that the people would ever vote for the multitude of these positions? There's probably (I'm not a US citizen) hundreds of federal bureaus. The people can't even bother to vote in the current federal elections.

Also, would the people even know better? Who even knows what the director of the FBI really does, what is the concrete executive power that he or she wields?

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#142

Post by AnthonyMouse »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #139
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I say "pay me 50 dollars, and I will give you X", and then you pay me and I just grin at you, and the WORST you can do to me is to say "fine, then we won't do that again", that's not accountability. Sure it is. You're presumably selling X to me at a profit, so if you screw me now, you're losing all of your future profits, which keeps you honest when that's worth more to you than the benefit of screwing me out of…

Yay, more FUD. But even your worst examples seem peanuts compared to something like the Iraq War.

Almost anything will seem like peanuts compared to a war.

You're just misunderstanding what I'm arguing: It isn't that corruption isn't a problem, it's that sortition isn't a solution.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#143

Post by voltagex_ »

lessnonymous wrote: post #127
e3pi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>looks like he's waiting for the government to lie themselves into a corner before dropping them in the limelight. He's that good? Knows the `infinitude' of time? Chess gambit(@)? I like him. (@)The word "gambit" was originally applied to chess openings in 1561 by Spanish priest Rúy López de Segura, from an Italian expression dare il gambetto (to put a leg forward in order to trip someone).

Re Gambit: Learned this on an episode of Jeopardy screened in Australia this week. Never knew that it originated in Chess.

OT: Jeopardy screens in Australia?

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#144

Post by infinite8s »

tsotha wrote: post #134
throwaway10001 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is but tell that to NSA and to all those angry Senators and Congress people--and especially to those lobbyists from the military industrial complex. He will be kept "in isolation because he can leak secrets even from jail"

The NSA and Congress don't run the justice department. We've had high profile civilian criminals before.

The NSA and the Justice Department are part of the same branch of government.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#145

Post by tsotha »

infinite8s wrote: post #144
tsotha wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA and Congress don't run the justice department. We've had high profile civilian criminals before.

The NSA and the Justice Department are part of the same branch of government.

They are, but the lines of authority only meet at the very top. The NSA only has influence on the Justice Dept to the extent it can influence the president.

Re: Senators skip classified briefing on NSA snooping to catch flights home

#146

Post by lessnonymous »

voltagex_ wrote: post #143
lessnonymous wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re Gambit: Learned this on an episode of Jeopardy screened in Australia this week. Never knew that it originated in Chess.

OT: Jeopardy screens in Australia?

Foxtel on Fox Classics. It's about 5 months behind (I think) and the Friday ep is always out of sequence for some reason.
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