21–30 of 75 posts
If the OP is correct, then this is some blame that might stick to Obama. In this case, my reading is that he will rush to correct the situation.
So, first step, pin the blame on Obama, and then let him suffer with it until he changes it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty hard to take your point seriously when your second paragraph is so clearly wrong and more a SNL sketch than reality. No President in the modern era has been stupid. The psychotic need to perpetuate this is one of the ideas making politics in the USA worse than it should be. The evidence and interviews with the former President show him to be very intelligent.
What evidence shows Bush Junior to be particularly bright or competent? His grades at Yale? His running into the ground of multiple business? His embarassing performance as President? Don't get me wrong -- there are a lot of smart, competent conservatives I think are sometimes wrong and or just on a different side of class interest from me. Say, Dick Cheney, Bush Senior, Ronald, Nixon (off the charts smart, really).…
And again, the foreigners' right to protection of their privacy is not even up for discussion.
I'm tempted to say this is un-american. But thinking it over, it seems to actually have become the new "american".
In any case, this kind of attitude can not come from nation that sees itself as "the best country in the world".
particularly galling pull-out para: "Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approa…
That's one way to look at it. Another is that the policies were put in place under Bush/Cheney, and they are being exposed under Obama.
Obama ran on transparency, and things are definitely becoming more transparent, albeit through unconventional means.
Politics is a complicated game and a delicate balancing act, especially when its intertwined with the military, the agencies, and the powers that be. We may be observing a complex line on the grand chessboard, and unless we are able to see the whole board, we won't fully understand the moves or the strategy in play.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I blame them all, but even more so, I blame the people. Snowden isn't the first whistleblower to emerge; google William Binney, Mark Klein, and Thomas Drake. This knowledge has been within earshot of the public for nearly a decade now, yet people just don't seem to care enough to do anything about it. There seems to be some kind of implicit collective trust in the government, that whatever they're up to is for our ow…
> yet people just don't seem to care enough to do anything about it What can we do about it? I honestly can't think of a single thing I could do, or 100,000 citizens could do that would make a lick of difference.
I agree with the parent comment, people have too much trust that this all will not affect their lives. The fact that a functioning democracy becomes impossible when political opponents can be retroactively wiretapped for years into the past is something esoteric that simply doesn't strike home.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty hard to take your point seriously when your second paragraph is so clearly wrong and more a SNL sketch than reality. No President in the modern era has been stupid. The psychotic need to perpetuate this is one of the ideas making politics in the USA worse than it should be. The evidence and interviews with the former President show him to be very intelligent.
What evidence shows Bush Junior to be particularly bright or competent? His grades at Yale? His running into the ground of multiple business? His embarassing performance as President? Don't get me wrong -- there are a lot of smart, competent conservatives I think are sometimes wrong and or just on a different side of class interest from me. Say, Dick Cheney, Bush Senior, Ronald, Nixon (off the charts smart, really).…
particularly galling pull-out para: "Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approa…
The Cheney administration was openly deceitful, as it were, a brazen set of liars fronted by an idiot stooge. This turn of events - particularly given Obama's rhetoric and the expectations of him - seems in many ways much more insidiously dangerous. That's one way to look at it. Another is that the policies were put in place under Bush/Cheney, and they are being exposed under Obama. Obama ran on transparency, and thi…
“The [surveillance] Court documents declassified recently show that in late 2011 the court authorized the NSA to conduct warrantless searches of individual Americans’ communications using an authority intended to target only foreigners,” Wyden said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Our intelligence agencies need the authority to target the communications of foreigners, but for government agencies to deliberately read the e-mails or listen to the phone calls of individual Americans, the Constitution requires a warrant.”
The Obama admin hypocrisy on transparency is astounding. No public debate, no checks by Congress on the authority to wiretap and collect enormous amounts of data on US citizens. Yet the people who voted for him are still making excuses for this admin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people who worked for him have pointed out he was quite a lot smarter than them[1]. The interviews he gave during his library's opening. Dick Cheney has said Bush is smarter than him. This SNL BS is seriously messing with how people think. It's like the number of people who believe Ford was an unathletic clutz. 1) one example http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Cool. His friends like him and wrote a blog post about it ;) I still think history will judge his administration as being 8 years of screw-up, class warfare, and embarassment. Note that I am not saying that about his Dad, Ronald, or Richard....
BTW, the Obama admin has zero evidence in public of scientific samples or intel proving use of sarin gas by the Syrian government: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE98603A20130907?irpc...
Reality check: Obama and Bush are cut from very similar policy cloth. Both warmongers and NSA expansionists who don't give a damn about the civil liberties of the American public.