Our government seems to be completely out of control.

[MannyGoldstein]

Darrell Issa, 29-year-old contractors that can wiretap anyone, and bipartisan war on the 99%.

Maybe I'm just having an off day, but it all seems pretty fucked at this moment.

Some of my friends make millions, yachts and private jets. Others have been unemployed for many months. Others on the edge.

What about having a government that works for us, too? Is that really like wanting a pet pony?

[originalpckelly]

1. It's not a pet pony...

it's like wanting a goldfish. This shit is not really that hard, we just let other people do our work for us and this is the natural result of it.

[scarletwoman]

3. Like another poster asked: if they can collect all this phone data, how come they can't crack down

on illegal telemarketers?

A: They're not interested in doing anything for US, the plebes.

(edited for typo)

[LibDemAlways]

5. +1000 n/t

[MannyGoldstein]

10. The telemarketers give them cash

and make money for the Carlyle Group.

[siligut]

15. Yes, they are of the same subset

Backscratchers.

[RC]

11. Very Good Question!

Need to be ask every time the NSA data collection discussion comes up.

[scarletwoman]

12. Credit needs to go to Thor MN (link below).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022980465

[Generic Other]

24. That was the first thing I thought of

I have been dealing with annoying telemarketers.

<snip>
If the gov't is keeping such good phone records on me

why the fuck don't they shut down the asswipes from Texas who call me three times a day on my cellphone to ask for someone I have never heard of and to tell me that a cop is on the way to my house to arrest me for a payday loan that person owes on?

Maybe the spies need to share their info with the "Do Not Call" department.
<snip>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2956015

[backscatter712]

19. Ding-ding-ding! n/t

[ohheckyeah]

35. Isn't that the fucking truth....

they can collect the phone data of millions of people but can't put a stop to telemarketers. How convenient.

[JaneyVee]

4. Republicans have given up all notion of governing. We are at an infinite impasse.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. I think most elected Democrats like it that way

It's more remunerative to help the 1% while claiming that their hands are tied, than to actually have to *do* something that will get someone upset.

The refusal to repair the filibuster pretty well makes the case.

[scarletwoman]

13. That certainly appears to be the case. (nt)

[JaneyVee]

17. IDK, looking at their votes over past 4 years, seems most are trying to pass job bills

and get the economy going, but Republicans are blocking all of their efforts.

[ProSense]

7. None of

"Darrell Issa, 29-year-old contractors that can wiretap anyone, and bipartisan war on the 99%. "

...those entities represent the best of Government.

In fact, if I notice one difference between the Bush years and the Obama years, it's the concerted effort to prove that government is the problem.

Bush did a lot of illegal crap, destroyed shit, and despite the outrage, most of it orderly, whether by members of Congress or the media, he just kept on doing it.

Now, everything is: OMG, OMG, Government, Aaargh!

It's like a plot to destroy confidence in the Government.

Fox Host Explodes At Guest For Disagreeing With His Scandal Coverage: ‘Cut His Damn Mic’
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022977676

[siligut]

16. Yes, this is the GOP's big guns

Because they are also shooting themselves in the foot. But they think that with their control of the media, they can fix things once they are assured of keeping the House.

[sabrina 1]

27. What?? 'Now, everything is: OMG, OMG, Government, Aaargj!'?

Were you around during the Bush years? Did you not notice the outrage on a minute by minute basis coming from Democrats?? We were accused then of being 'hysterical' for attacking 'our government' and told to go to Iraq and hug Saddam Hussein among other things.

There is not nearly the outrage right now that there was then against Bush. Blame DEMOCRATS who consistently helped to get Bush and his criminal administration off the hook every time they were caught committing yet another crime.

THIS issue, the one consuming everyone right now, consumed everyone back then also. We finally caught him, thanks to another Whistle Blower, spying illegally on the American people, using the Telecoms to do so.

And what did Democrats do? They quickly rushed to help save Bush and his criminal friends by altering the law he broke back to before he broke, making his illegal actions, legal. OBAMA VOTED TO SAVE BUSH back then. Instead of starting an investigation into the law breaking, they SAVED the lawbreakers. There WAS outrage, I don't know where you were, but I remember well how much outrage there was.

And now we're back to that same issue again, only to find out that the person we supported hoping he would keep his promise to end these abuses, instead he is using that vile piece of legislation and now defending what he once said needed fixing.

Stop with the nonsense. This isn't hard. We were duped, I hear the same person who told me we did not need to spy on the American people, to give up our rights, in order to keep us safe, NOW saying the exact OPPOSITE. WE ARE NOT STUPID. I will post the links if you like since you seem to have not been around when all this erupted before.

We don't care who the Whistle Blower is, we don't care about their excuses or their expected smear campaigns, we care about one thing, the American people are still being spied on using their own telephone companies that they are PAYING for as a service, NOT paying to have their info tracked and THAT is the problem, not one other thing. Just as it was when Bush did it.

Are we being spied on or are we not? If the answer is yes, then electing Democrats as we were told would help to start fixing the problem, has not worked, has it? Unless of course you supported Bush's telecom spying.

[cstanleytech]

33. Alot of the problem during the Bush years though stemmed from the fact that Bush

didnt use FISA and had the NSA wiretapping without any warrants it which is why so many of us were pissed at him but Obama as far as we know is using FISA for it was setup to do which is to review and issue warrants for legal electronic surveillance.
Could the program use better congressional oversight? Sure but right now the majority party seems more interested in dismantling the government than it does in actually governing so I doubt we will see better oversight anytime soon.

[sabrina 1]

34. Well, Republicans are now supporting Obama on this. Ari Fleischer eg, praised him for keeping

Bush's policies in place, which Obama stated in his speech the other night, and 'protecting the American people'. Which of course is not part of the oath of office, the oath states that they will 'defend and protect the CONSTITUTION of the US'.

The reason I was upset with Bush was that he was violating the Constitution as well as the, then, FISA Bill which at least at that time, did reflect the 4th Amendment, if not completely Secret courts are always a problem, but at least there was an attempt to request some kind of probable cause before spying was allowed.

Bush's law-breaking however was made legal by Congress when they altered the FISA Bill retroactively to protect him and the telecoms from accusations of illegal activities. So he was not acting illegally once that happened. Obama voted for that amendment and is now using the same law Bush was using, technically. I was not surprised or disappointed by what Bush did. I was angry but even more angry when Democrats voted to get him off by altering the law for him.

Obama promised to change all of this, his own words are still available online regarding not sacrificing our rights etc. But in his speech this week, he said the opposite. He made the amazing statement that 'we can't have 100% security without giving up some of our rights'.

We never expected 100% security, it is not possible. And how different that statement was to his own previous statements, to the oath of office he took and to what Benjamin Franklin said about those who are willing to 'give up some of their right for safety' not 'deserving either rights or safety'. I was shocked frankly, coming from someone who is a Constitutional Lawyer and someone who, as Paul Begala said, unable to defend him on this, 'was so adamant in defense of protecting our rights'.

There can't be better Congressional oversight in a country that has willingly destroyed rights using the age-old excuse of 'protecting our security'. Congress is in favor of taking away rights, they have voted for it over and over again.

It is up to the people now to decide what kind of country they want. A democracy that respects the law of the land and is not scared into giving up rights, or a totalitarian government that decides rights need to go on the promise that we will be safe. So far that promise is apparently never going to be kept since after 13 years of war and torture and the destruction of rights, we still are not safe and won't be, they tell us as we still must give up even more rights, for the foreseeable future.

Iow, as any intelligent person could have predicted, they have failed to make us safe. So now, since they've been using all these failed policies, it's time to stop repeating what has failed, assuming they really do care about our safety. How about we defend our rights, how about THEY defend our rights as they swore to do? How does protecting our rights make us less safe? Giving them up sure hasn't, according to them.

We are being lied to, first by Bush and now once again. The way make us safe is to stop invading other people's countries, stop the torture and the killing of innocent people. Get our military out of other people's countries who do not want us there. Iraq is a mess, so is Afghanistan, we accomplished nothing by invading those countries. We are terrorizing populations in Pakistan, in Yemen, Somalia and who knows how many other countries? Does make people like us? No, we are hated and feared by far more people than before all this started. That is NOT making us safe, on the contrary.

[cstanleytech]

37. Of course they are praising him as they see this as a golden opportunity to undermine him

and the other democrats for the midterm elections by engineering more dissent among us plus they hope it lessens the tarnish of what Bush did.
As for FISA I think it makes sense still that the government keep some things secret and that it would be foolish to do otherwise, I would however like them to do major overhaul on what they decide to classify and for how long because some of the extremely long time periods that they classify information just doesnt make much sense to me.

[sabrina 1]

38. Well, they could not undermine him if he did not state clearly that he kept Bush policies in place

when he was elected to do the opposite. They are praising him because they agree with him and he agrees with them. I find that pretty shocking. I don't need them to publicly agree with him to recognize Bush policies when we see them. We didn't even need him to tell us he was 'keeping Bush policies in place', we recognize them we see them.

No one said the government cannot keep secrets, for a period of time. All secrets are and should be revealed after a certain amount of time. This ensures that people know that eventually any wrongdoing will be revealed, but while it is necessary for national security, no one is objecting to that. What IS being objected to are violations of the Constitution. It is not necessary to violate the Constitution to protect the country.

Their main duty is to protect and defend the Constitution. Why do you think that is the main and most important thing they are asked to do? Their oaths do not say 'defend the American people'. There is a reason for that. Yet, we have Presidents tell us we cannot be 100% secure without giving up just a few rights??? Really? That is nonsense. They do not get to tell us to give up rights AFTER taking an oath to protect those rights. It seems to me they are making stuff up for some reason.

Spying on the American people has nothing to do with protecting them. That is the exact opposite of protecting them, according to the oaths they took. THAT is what people are outraged over, the government engaging in violating the Constitution.

[cstanleytech]

40. Some of the things started under Bush though Obama just cannot change without the consent

and agreement from congress such as Gitmo.
And the president has stated again and again that they arent listening in on everyones calls and if I understand it correctly they are mainly correlating just the numbers phones call and following the trail as it were of phones that are already actually being tapped to see who they call and who that person calls and so one in order to try to detect networks of people like the ones that pulled off the 9-11 attack.
Of course I do question if it is not a giant waste of money and time given how easy it is to buy a new phone at a walmart without a credit card or even the need to provide your name or an ID but thats a discussion for another thread.
But anywayyyyyyy if you want to worry about wiretapping then I would be more worried about China doing than our government because where do you think makes the majority of the electronics sold in this country are made?

[CJCRANE]

41. I don't remember much outrage against Bush in the MSM.

There was Keith Olbermann and that was about it.

Of course Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made fun of him but that wasn't really outrage

I can count on the fingers of one hand people who stood up to Bush or the neocons. I remember George Galloway, the Dixie Chicks, Cindy Sheehan, Harry Taylor. That's about it.

[sabrina 1]

42. Of course you don't because Congress jumped in to save him and voted to legalize, retroactively

his lawlessness. After that what was there to report? We were hoping for investigations, but once they legalized it all, that idea went out the window.

The NYT covered the story pretty well, airc, they leaked the information and I remember plenty of outrage at the time. But it was taken care of by Congress, anyone who wanted to continue accusing him of breaking the law, were called 'terrorist supporters'. That kind of chilled any media types who might have wanted to pursue it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Te ilusion that the empire is something else

Is cracking

[reformist2]

9. I hear that everyone had ponies in Poland!

[corkhead]

18. this is at the top of the greatest page at the moment:

[MannyGoldstein]

20. I can haz austerity now? nm

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. The big problem is the legislative branch

what to do with them

[MannyGoldstein]

23. IIRC, the Executive wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

loves "free" trade agreements, embraces Jamie and Lloyd but shuns Krugman, etc.

Not exactly a friend to us.

[Enthusiast]

46. This is an excellent point you make.

One that is often deliberately overlooked. [URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[mindwalker_i]

25. ...

[pa28]

22. There is a silver lining here. Let me give you a quote from a very special person.

The basic motive of the resistance was indignation!

That's the main thrust of Stéphane Hessel's essay from 2010 comparing his experience in the French resistance to the modern day fascism with a smiley face we know today.

Hessel died at the age of 95 recently but his idea caught on in France and it was very simple. Getting angry can be good for you and sometimes it's exactly what you need.

indignez-vous!

http://indignez-vous-indignacion.blogspot.com/p/english.html

[MannyGoldstein]

26. Wonderful essay.

It's interesting that after his experiences, he calls for non-violence.

Good stuff!

[delrem]

28. We've been here before, Manny, under W.

The same debate, the same arguments, only now it's inside.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

29. And there is nothing we can do about it.

We are a stone's throw away from completely losing this pretense of democracy and freedom.

We are not far from elected plutocracy where John Jackson will run against Jack Johnson (Futurama reference), while the owners sit back and laugh all the way to the bank.

Maybe that will end soon too and we'll just become Rome, with a Caesar and a rubber stamp Senate for tradition and no power.

[Amonester]

36. We are actually surrounded by (and drowning into) a global plutocracy.

Not not far from, but straight into it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101665742

[99th_Monkey]

30. Yes. It is the neo-feudal duty of all Amerikans to trust and obey, no matter what.

Hasn't anyone told you about that yet?

[YoungDemCA]

31. Be quiet, know your place, quit complaining, let your social betters run the show.....

...and be grateful that you're not living and working for nothing in a third-world nation....yet.

Did I miss anything?

[Egalitarian Thug]

39. We must engage in sexual congress with Rattus norvegicus. It's apparently a directive

straight from the official DU spokesperson for the White House.

[HooptieWagon]

32. I agree.

>How does a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approve collecting domestic data? It appears the FISA judges rubber-stamp any request put before them...are they not bound by Constitutional duties? Wheres the checks and balances?

>Where is Congressional oversight? Does it not occur to them that there might be reason to keep a close eye on this?

>What we do know is alarming enough...how bad is the stuff we don't know?

> Was this spying used on political opponents, like Occupy? It would not surprise me the least. Rather than flinging feces at all the fake scandals, how about Congress getting off their fat asses and investigating the extent of domestic spying and data-collection to see if it amounts to unlawful conduct and abuse of power?

[sabrina 1]

43. Not to worry, Private Security Corps littered with Republicans are looking out for your rights.

Plus they not only work for their Corporations, they drift in and out of Government too, like Clapper a 'former' employee of one of the Corps involved in this mess, Booz Allen.

Just go have a beer and relax, with such stalwarts as Fleischer and King looking out for us, you know we have nothing to worry about. I wonder how many investments they have in these Private Security Corps? Never mind, it just couldn't all be about money, could it?

[Zorra]

44. I disagree. IMO, it is in the complete iron fisted control of the 1%. nt

[YoungDemCA]

45. Agreed...the question is not whether "government" as an abstract concept is good or bad...

The question is, which interests does government benefit?

[Skittles]

47. I think the government is working

problem is, it is working for the 1% - they used to toss WE THE PEOPLE bones but lately we haven't even been getting those