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Courtesy of Kaiser Foundation
Should you live or die from an accident or life threatening illness? Depends apparently on where you live… If you live in the Blue, you survive. If you live in the Orange, goodbye… Simple, clear, concise.
Served to you courtesy of ALEC and the Republican Party of the United States of America
The Daily Kos puts together a great list. This was the first time I’d seen everything on one page, some of which I’d missed over the weekend, and it deserves wide spread viewer ship. Some excerpts:
1. The NSA lost a huge court battle, and was found to be acting unconstitutionally by the Secret FISA Court. The Obama administration is keeping this judgement secret, even though the secret court said, secretly, that it should be public and produced to all America. Even Congress has been denied the secret decision from the secret court, keeping this judgment secret about how the secretive NSA violated your and my rights…
2. The NSA not only gathers and keeps data on your web and emails, it also tracks every single phone call of every single American.
3. The Obama mistreatment of whistleblowers far exceeds anything that the Cheney Bush administration ever did. Snowden’s fear of returning to this country doesn’t seem all that farfetched, given how Bradley Manning was tortured.
4. The Obama administration continues to lie to the American public, insisting that congress is fully informed about FISA and the NSA, despite every congressman and senator who answers the question, denies that they are getting any information from them.
5. Cloud computing providers report that their international business is crashing. Various bar associations must examine whether lawyers can even use cloud computing for their offices, because of the great probability that their data is being access and scrutinized by the feds – which causes every cloud computing attorney to be violating their oath to keep the attorney client privilege intact.
6. Those intimately involved with FISA, repeatedly allege that daily, constant, and comprehensive domestic spying on 320,000,000 Americans has resulted in absolutely no actionable data that could catch terrorists or prevent terrorism.
7. Remember the original Patriot Act Color Coded Threat Alert? It took 8 months, but even conservative critics began to notice that any rise on color assessment board (which looked like it was designed by a TV game show producer) had nothing to do with actual, viable threats, but rather, it was raised anytime and every time that the Cheney Bush Administration faced a potential political nightmare.
And so today… Sunday August 4th, Embassy closings galore in every Muslim country.
Hmmmm. (I bet the absence of any attempt will be touted as being the result of secret phone tappings by the NSA that were disallowed by the FISA court but were done anyways… ) Let’s see how the spin comes out on Monday.
Ever had something smell so bad, you just stay away from everything associated with it? Like a likable girl at work, who just one times farts the most horrible obnoxious smell, and you choose never to see her again? You’re not mean. You just throw up in your mouth at the Pavlovian response to seeing her image.
Well, even though almost no one has been paying attention, Darrell Issa in his House hearings on the IRS scandal, has refused to release the transcripts of his interviews regarding the IRS scandal, and has instead, only released readjusted transcripts that point to a giant arm of government reaching across state lines to investigate right wing conservatives….
Instead of shedding light on what actually happened, Issa is trying to manage the release of information to form a narrative that the activities were politically motivated, and driven from the highest levels of the Obama administration….
Well enough was enough.. Democratic Elijah Cummings called Issa’s bluff and released the full transcripts. Here is the release in two…. parts…. . Issa was lying. Caught in the act, he has painted the Republican party again with the same portrait it carried last year: it lies about every single thing…
America is sick of lies. That is why Republicans, even good ones, can’t get traction among the American people… Their leaders are so odious, no one even wants to push a button listed next to a name in the Republican column… They throw up in their mouth at just hearing the word… Republican…. UUUgggpPPP splish,splop,splap….
it is probably time to discuss this.
For years we have quietly known and accepted the negatives of having an NSA. Things like we need it for our protection, or it makes things safer, tended to overide our fears that they know too much already, and I can’t do anything in private anymore…
We accepted that as progress.
However, when you have an organization so secret, that members of Congress are shocked to find out what it is doing, that no one knows who is authorizing who gets spied upon and what, that when brought before the courts for overstepping the Constitution, it can’t be prosecuted because a) it operates under “secret” laws, b) with “secret operations”, c) authorized by “secret courts” …. it is time to shut the entire operation down.
Why do we have the NSA when we have the CIA and the FBI. The FBI covers domestic spying. The CIA covers international spying. So, unless we find out that there are aliens and the NSA is really running the world while we think otherwise, then it probably ought to go.
I find it interesting that those on the far right, and those on the far left are the most outraged by this disclosure. We’ve been stating that news on this blog after the story was broken back in 2007-8 and not one press person cared. I supposed the AP Story opened their eyes this time. Struggling to put a finger on why, I came up with the theory primarily by looking at Congress, that it is the libertarians on left and right who are against, and the conformist, primarily in the center who are acceptive. So this gives us a split where the bottom third and the top third of the political body are opposed to the middle third… If you look at Congress that is exactly how it splits up. Moderates are pro domestic spying, the libertarians are not.
Probably similar is the theory that those beholden to corporate interests are pro-spying, after all, that is normal in the corporate environment; interoffice spying is not limited by any judicial system because it is deemed to be private. Those aghast, tend to fight corporate intrusion from their original political perspective, either left of right.
What the NSA does, watch everything to discern what is happening to increase its chances of survival, is not new. Intelligence has been the secret success of many an empire. Knowing what someone will do before they do it, is pretty comfortable in a world where in a day, we probably pass within 10 feet of 10,000 people (that includes inside our vehicles).
That is what all governments with the capacity, do. The biggest argument against it, is that it is un-American. Sure we have the “ability” to do it, but do we have the restraint, not to…
America has always been ruled by restraint. When Washington was entreated to be the King, he restrained and said no. When the heads of Europe all bet that Washington would invent a method to stay in power, he restrained, and government turned over peacefully. When the US was left in charge of a broken Europe, it put it back together and went home. The only country to invade another and give it back willingly to its original owners.
We had a scare in Boston a while back. Did the NSA protect us then? It’s a secret, no one knows. In Newtown 26 bodies littered the floor of an elementary school. Did the NSA protect us then? When a gunman burst into Aurora firing into the audience, did the NSA protect us then? When Gabby Gifford took a bullet, where was the NSA? Did the NSA protect us then?
That is the point. We are always in danger. But our personal lives are more at risk if our private information should fall into a competitors hands, than being victim of a terrorist. In Boston just 2 people died. In Newton 26. But each and every one of us, is at risk that selective information from ones past, can be used in secret to smear each and every one of us, should it fall into the wrong hands.
What would happen if we shut the entire agency known as the NSA down? A big nothing. They overstepped. It is not knee-jerking anger to respond “Shut them down right now!” It it calm, cool reasoning tipping the balance, that points out simply that is the right way to go.
I just laid down a stinging rebuke over at Delaware Politics of the Right’s assertion that Obama caused the Sequester. The aim of their article was to blame President Obama for coming up with the sequester about to floor us on March 1st.. Nothing could be further from the truth… For in negotiations, it is not who comes up with an idea that matters, but who provides that idea with enough support, that it becomes so.
It appears that the sequester idea when it first appeared was nothing more than a leaf falling off a tree.
The sequester began in the budget crises of 2011. Here are the facts.
- For the first time in history, the Tea Party forces Republicans to put limitations upon the raising of the debt ceiling.
- On May 16 the US goes into technical default, but weaseling can extend the money until August 1.
- April 2011: Obama says debt limit must not be tied to any other deals.
- May 11th; Obama’s chief economic advisor writes that hobbling the debt limit would be “insane”.
- May 31st; 2011; Obama’s request for a clean debt limit is voted down in the House; All 236 Republicans vote no.
- Up thru August, Republicans were screaming “it’s gotta’ have catastrophic budget cuts” and Obama said “no”.
- Republicans caused Standard and Poors to collapse our rating. Republicans insisted they didn’t care and would still default.
- The White House asked: if we could “guarantee that cuts would occur in the future” would Republicans climb on board?
- They said” yes”; as long as it was solid law that the sequestration would eventually take effect, they would raise the ceiling
- Finally, when the Budget Control Act was passed, it was the Republicans who passed it. 218 voted yes for sequestration. It could not have passed without their support.
Bottom line, no matter who brought up the idea or where it came from, if Republicans had acted rational at any point along the way, we would not be on the edge of losing 700,000 jobs this March, 2013.
John Boehnor, and Delaware Politics spent much time saying that Obama is the author of sequestration….
Red State Politics disagrees….
Here is their quote…
“Republicans act as if the sequester is a natural disaster. They make no mention of the fact that they caused it and voted for it knowing that the sequester would take effect.... So why did they vote for it? None of them ever connect the dots and apologize for voting for it. The reality is that John Boehner said that he got 98% of what he wanted from the deal…..”
There you have it. If Red State proudly stands up and takes credit for engineering and forcing the sequester to tighten the vice grips upon the American economy, I certainly not going to stand in their way.
For Delaware Politics to go against Red State, and point their finger at Obama as originator of the “sequester”, can only show Delaware Politics doesn’t have the balls to be anything close to a real Conservative… They are Faux Conservatives at their best… or Ostrich Conservatives the rest of times, when they are not even close to being at their best.
Despite any words otherwise, Republicans own this sequester; good or bad.
It probably hit mass culture with Star Wars. Where, when in a pickle, one made some adjustments to a computer, pushed a button, and one was suddenly in another part of the universe.
Then came the TV show Quantum Leap in the 80’s, where after a certain feat had been changed, one jumped through space and time into a new body, to begin a new episode the following week. Remember Ziggy?
I was reading one of my earlier pieces that for some random reason yesterday had caught a flicker of interest, and back then I had used that concept, that of “jumping”, to explain why America was finally settling on Obama as their candidate of choice….
America had been milling around in stagnation and needed a “jump” to move us forward. Clinton and McCain could not engineer that, I proposed and that is why we needed someone new, to “make the jump” forward.
That was written during the campaign of 2008. This summer will be 5 years hence.
America still needs to make that jump.
But just as we almost get there, Republicans sabotage it by pulling the computer’s plug…
Now you reading this may be a Republican but please don’t take offense. You are actually a big part of the solution which you will see, if you read through to the end.
Let’s look at a few things.
- Starting in the 80’s the Middle Class has consistently been losing ground against the top 1%. Now the Middle Class has spent their retirement savings just to pay normal expenses , and we are still heading downward.
- Immigration reform was supposed to be completed and done in Reagan’s time. Thirty years ago. We are just getting serious now.
- Our interstate system is 50 years old. We haven’t reinvested adequately. 11,000 bridges are held up by paint, and could drop out from under us at any moment.
- Our tax system is still after 30 years, in disarray. The wealthy get breaks, the poor get pissed on.
- Our Social Security and Medicare Programs are going bankrupt. They were also supposedly permanently fixed in Reagan’s term, again 30 years ago.
- We have been at the mercy of oil speculators for the past 13 years. We still are. What did you pay today?
- Capital investment in America is at an all time low, yet the wealthy have parked $13 trillion in savings. Why no investment?
So America, why are we still stuck in the 1980’s?
Republicans. That is why. Conservatives.
That sounds so simple that one must wonder why we haven’t moved them out of the way?
And that answer, is because for some crazy reason, we keep changing the rules to let them play longer. Citizen’s versus United is just one case in point. Allowing one person to fund a candidacy opposing the people’s true choice, obfuscates the entire playing field, and in the fog, makes the minority appear to have far more clout than is endowed to it by the American people.
Voting tallies prove that we have had over the past 24 years, 5 popular vote victories for Democrat presidents, and just 1 for Republicans, and to be fair, that was to a wartime president who barely got re-elected into office. Voting totals are the only non-spin, the only unobfuscated time we ever get to see how America truly feels.
The majority of America want us to jump forward. They are tired after thirty years of nothing.
Right now, Republicans have killed the America dream. College grads do not see them using their knowledge in their future jobs. Retirees see their golden year’s savings swallowed up by profits of gigantic medical corporations. Everyone is making tremendous amount of money, except 99% of the American people.
The majority want to jump forward. Yet it is always Republicans holding us back.
Holding us back on Immigration Reform. Holding us back on higher revenue. Holding us back on budget cuts. Holding us back on health care reform. Holding us back on Chuck Hagel’s nomination….
It is just stupid.. It is done simply to achieve drama, and is only done for dramatic effect; it still is just a stupid waste of time and your money. It is as if Republican behavior was patterned after that of a six year old child who drags his feet before going to school. That child knows he has to go there eventually, but he whines, supines, and acts recalcitrant, just to get attention…. maybe make someone feel “sorry’ for them… Boo hoo.
America is playing the role of the parent to these recalcitrant Republicans and is damn tired of it.
One simply has to look at today’s looming sequestration, which is strictly a problem Republicans created and brought down upon all of us, and across this great nation, Americans shake their heads in unison, remembering that if a Republicans had never been elected President in the year 2000, by 2008 and Obama’s election, our national debt was on track to have hit zero… Yes, Democrats would have paid off the entire National Debt by 2008, if we had never had George W. Bush slip into office.
And now, we preparing to slash $86 billion over the next 9 months. Then do the same over the next 12 years…
Under the Budget Control Act by 2021 discretionary spending will be at 5.5% of GDP which is its lowest level of GDP since 1931. (We all know what happened in 1932!) And we propose to cut it lower?
Yet we have $13 trillion in savings owned by the top 1%. $86 billion of $13 Trillion is…. 0.7th of one single percent. If you increased taxes on the wealthy by only one penny per every dollar over $1 million, we would have yearly budget surplus... just like that. One penny per dollar over $1 million. That one penny would even give us an additional 0.3 of one percent extra which could be applied to lowering the deficit… Unbelievably easy…. If you own trillions, who is going to miss a penny?
But we can’t do it for one single roadblock. Republicans won’t raise taxes.
America needs to “make a jump”…… and we need to make that jump now.
If this were Hollywood or a television drama, Captain America would pull out his sidearm, kill the insubordinate (spy) officer, and ask his attache to step into his position. We would then, finally be able to save our ship.
Americans could then dream again about prosperity. There is only one reason we don’t still have it today.
kavips 