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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhite House Rejects End to NSA Bulk Collection because the Task Force Report was too "Liberal"
Rooting For The Laundry: The Absolute Insanity Of Decisions About The NSA Being Made Based On 'Liberal' Or 'Conservative' Ideology
from the up-is-down,-left-is-right dept--Mike Masnick
Geoffrey Stone, one of the members of the White House task force which suggested that the President needed to end the Section 215 bulk collection of phone records, has said that he was told that the White House rejected that plan because they viewed the report as "liberal."
And instead of our report being truly understood as a middle ground, based upon taking into account all of those perspectives on both sides of the spectrum, I think the White House got moved by thinking of our report as a liberal report, Stone said.
God forbid a supposedly "liberal" President actually do something he considers "liberal." And, indeed, it seemed that his non-proposal in which he pretends to reform NSA surveillance was predicated on not pissing off the hawkish conservatives who tend to support the surveillance state.
So... what happens now that the supposedly conservative, hawkish, surveillance state-loving Republican Party has agreed that the program is unconstitutional and should be shut down?
To some extent, it really does seem to go back to the corruption of power. Those in power always seem to trust themselves not to abuse that power -- and unthinking automaton partisan hacks seem to flip their position based on whether their guy or the other guy is power.
There's been an insanely stupid debate over the past few weeks as to whether or not folks like Ed Snowden, Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange were somehow "ideologically pure" enough to be supported by liberals -- which highlights the monumentally asinine level of political discourse in the country these days, further highlighted by President Obama rejecting the task force's opinions as being "too liberal."
More at:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140125/22205125986/white-house-rejected-task-forces-suggestions-as-too-liberal-just-as-republicans-make-same-proposal.shtml
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)I hope to God you forgot the link to the Onion.
tblue
(16,350 posts)All in all, how much worse could it be?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Although I suspect we'll at least get a good taste of it.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)And the BOG wonders why people aren't excited about voting for Dems.
Go ahead, Barack. Kiss up to Limpballs and Fox "News". I'm sure they'll welcome you
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)and, it's not at all surprising.
Cheer up! We can look back and say yes, we killed the party, but we did it on the high road!
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)I notice that those that have no arguments of their own, simply rely on attacking other poster's arguments.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)and will get a clarification from the President then?
The same we got an apology for the insult to Liberals and to those who supported him, hurled by his Chief of Staff who told them their ideas were 'retarded'?? I don't recall anything from Obama after that.
Seems the Third Way which has taken over this party thinks they don't need Liberals, except at election time. Well I think if they don't need them or their 'retarded' ideas AFTER the election, they don't need them at all and maybe it's time to let them start depending on their Third Way and Moderate Republican buddies to keep them in power.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)over there, somewhere.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)The greatest threat to the corporatist Democratic Party is anyone to the left of Jimmy Carter, followed by the fulminating far right. He may change while in office; he may change after he's out. This may depend on any viable threat by Warren, who would challenge the Party's grasping attempts to displace the GOPers as the storefront for our corporate state. Obama already considers himself an 80s Republican. I agree with His assessment.
reddread
(6,896 posts)God Bless Saudi Arabia...
I need to learn more about this subject before I jump to any rash conclusions. k&r for exposure.
-Laelth
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)840high
(17,196 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)The swipe at liberals is merely the, expected by now, cherry on top.
tridim
(45,358 posts)Woo me with bullshit.
frylock
(34,825 posts)what gives?
Being barely employed, my measly little $ didn't amount to much, but I definitely spent more on t-shirts and buttons than I could afford, as my way of contributing $. And I spent many long days volunteering at the local Dem campaign office, not unlike many DUers. But I didn't do any of that to get this result. I don't feel like I demand a whole lot in return. Just be a true Democrat. Just stand by our core principles. Is that too much to ask?
questionseverything
(9,653 posts)it is about being a true American, defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights
that is any presidents first duty
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And they take...and if we don't then it is the crazy people that win.
It is bad cop or bat shit crazy cop, so who are you going to support?
EastHarlemGayDude
(10 posts)that voting is no longer the answer. Massive, peaceful protest is. Will we, as Americans, do this? Doesn't seem we are up for it.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And welcome to DU...
EastHarlemGayDude
(10 posts)I need to underscore that I don't make that assessment lightly (and it is, frankly, not original). At its core, that assessment means that our "democracy" is, in fact, dead and that the thing that makes a democracy a democracy (voting) is nothing but a show.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And I don't say that lightly ether.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)And how many Progressives are in this Administration? I know there are plenty of Republicans but I have a hard time thinking of any Progressives in this administration's cabinet.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)How long until the country resists?
Logical
(22,457 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)frwrfpos
(517 posts)too liberal? what in the fuck has our country become
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)No more. Never again. I will never again vote for a democrat who has such contempt for liberals and liberal policies.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)liberal and I believed him. Now it's too late.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)K&R
KoKo
(84,711 posts)I wonder what "they" would think of that...if yu could get close enough to ask the question:
As with the old defense lawyer's adage that you should never ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to, the next time the White House forms a task force they should ask them the questions before they'll let them be on it.
BlueCheese
(2,522 posts)"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
jsr
(7,712 posts)Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)polynomial
(750 posts)So America is doomed to work in a sweat house of terror fear mongering, with retribution and retaliation. Its just a good dose of Charles Dickens Oliver Twist only this is the royal society of America, Please sir Mr. President can I have another bowel of porridge after a hard day in the workhouse.
Middle America is left with dirty watered gruel the soil so fractured the corn whisky Kentucky makes is tainted with carcinogens thats hard to sell. But they ditched it to the Japanese for a couple of billion. So Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul have a deep pockets for the next free speech election.
What would really be cool is to declassify the whole shooting match. Yep, make all that metadata stuff free to public like a refreshed weather report, only now Americans get the newest and greatest news about terror. Wow now thats liberal. Common if your going to scare everybody do it right. Its with a laugh and chuckle to say that because so few get to know so much.
Metadata gives a panoramic view of what is going on in the economy. Cecil B. Demilles would drool to be able to have such resources. Such as, material flow transactions, political mapping to gerrymandering, or just plain voting corruption, plus the latest idea of industrial spying; who is purchasing what material from whom. Knowing the bulk rail road traffic is very insider stuff, that transportation indicator leads the economy.
Or better witness the metastability in the system to better systems secretly designed to swindle Americans. For the science and economist that is the derivative with the infamous natural logarithm. The secret complex domain Wall Streeters get to play, the trillion dollar back room secret deal gamers the electorate is convinced to hail to the chief and bail to the CEO.
The natural logarithm of swindling is the game being played in the Federal Reserve our Treasury and the few the proud the military industrial complex, and cant forget the subcontractors. Booze Allen should stand alongside Halliburton, it figures Bush and Cheney strike again but the mainstream media will not talk about that.
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Ive become numb to the complete infiltration of the party. And its evident the rot goes right to the top
Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)from one of those 'bottom of the barrell' teachers that Arne talks about . Didn't hear any 'clarification' of that. I guess I know where I, and my colleagues, stand.
solarhydrocan
(551 posts)How much more clear does it have to be?
Does he have to land on an aircraft carrier in front of a sign that says
"Mission Accomplished"?
Even then people would call those that don't get excited about mandating
everyone to buy corporate insurance or embracing 24/7 surveillance
or agreeing with intensified drone strikes "Racists".
Sad, really. Some of us don't bend our principles around lying politicians.
Never have, never will.
okaawhatever
(9,461 posts)to think someone would promote this sort of agenda against their fellow Democrats. Of course, you aren't concerned that the individual never said the quote came from Obama or even that he was told it directly. NO, someone told him that's what the White House said. You have the intellectual honesty of Fox news.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)When was the last time the white house dismissed a republican idea on the basis that it was "conservative".
It is extremely telling when a Democrat president feeds the meme that "liberal" is a bad thing.