The Republic has cancer...and yes, it does look fatal.
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Dems Cowardly Surrender 4th Amendment - Comments Page 3
The Republic has cancer...and yes, it does look fatal.
Greetings, gentle Readers...…
Article comments
76 - Andy Marsh
troll - I was always taught that if you don't vote you can't bitch...so, does that mean we'll have no more bitching if no one votes anymore? If that's the case...I'm all for it!
77 - troll
ah yes Andy - the universal blissful state that would be achieved as fat cats attain enlightenment in response to the boycott would put an end to all of the inequities of irrational capitalist practice...and the bitching as well
78 - Andy Marsh
Wow! That was a mouthful!!!
79 - gonzo marx
well i am forced to disagree with troll that "none of the above" would perpetuate the status quo more than not voting at all since if the plurality went to nota, they would need to toss out all the candidates and try again with different ones
if disgust with both Parties are rampant, this can go on until a viable third Party candidate wins, or someone who is not tied to either machine takes the vote
i think that voting policy, combined with the public financing of election could go a long way to ousting the corrupting influence of lobbyist cash..and perhaps get us some Representatives who will actually represent U.S. rather than the special Interests...
could just be me
Excelsior?
80 - troll
in the spirit of 'hands across America' - while I doubt that nota would lead to representation for the working class and the surplus labor population it's certainly worth a try and could be forwarded as the organizing principle and goal of a dramatic '08 boycott
81 - Dave Nalle
Both parties are offering candidates in the primary who can be considered antiestablishment candidates full of integrity and deserving of your vote. If you want to make a mark, go vote for Paul or Gravel in the primary of your choice. That's a protest vote that certainly has more value than just not voting.
Then in the general election you can vote libertarian or socialist or for whatever loony party most closely represents your beliefs. If enough people do it someone may pay attention.
Dave
82 - gonzo marx
@ #81 - decent points...
but i still think the *none of the above* option would help make not only those fringe candidates more viable, but help clean out the flotsam in both Parties
if they can't foist the same olde shit on U.S. they would be forced to allow those with Ideas rather than perfect hair/smiles to rise to the top instead of the constant appeals to the least common denominator that our elections have devolved into since the advent of television
Excelsior?
83 - Andy Marsh
that is a nice idea...but those third party groups are always so out there! They seem to fit what I might like, but then there's always some out of left field idea that just throws a wrench in everything!
Or they're some crazy little fucker with charts and graphs and a weasely little voice...smart as hell, but something about a guy like that just scares you...
...or some Howdy Doodie lookin' fucker...that seems to know money like the back of his hand...but...he looks like Howdy Doodie for christs' sake! I know...the hair and smile thing...but come on!!! Why can't we seem to find one intelligent, normal looking, honest person to run our govt?
Probably because they're to smart to run for president. I think in this day and age, you really do have to be crazy to want your life turned upside down like they do for people running for office.
All those decaying skeletons in the closet make for some nasty odors! Your closet...not mine...you just stay out of there!
84 - troll
#81 - bah humbug...there are no anti-establishment candidates for president or any other office running nor will there be any until elites loose their power through mass revolt that disrupts the normal functioning of institutions - preferably 'non violent' as in strikes and boycotts
85 - Al Barger
Brother Gonzo, you know I love you - but aren't you just a wee tad bit hysterical here? our government can now tap all your communications without a warrant
No, I don't think that's quite what it said. I stand to be corrected, but I thought the main point of this recent legislation was clarifying the process of tapping the phones of foreign terrorists - especially in situations where they are calling someone in the US. I remain a little skeptical, but there seems to be at least somewhere halfway toward making a legitimate distinction between domestic criminal law vs military powers which are necessarily broader. Or do you propose that American soldiers get warrants from American courts before searching a terrorist lair in Afghanistan?
I appreciate your skepticism, but maybe you could break out the exact statutory language that has you going so gonzo. How big was this bill, how many words or pages?
86 - Dave Nalle
Wasn't it you who said earlier that 'none of the above' just kept the establishment in power, gonzo?
Dave
87 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dave, that was troll at comment #66.
88 - gonzo marx
heyas big Al! thanks for dropping by...
oh here's the Law, again, in pdf format for your download or perusal...
Al...read the damn thing...section 105b is just chock full of possible abuse, and the language of 105b and 105c are such that they are not only paying telecoms for the info "at the standard rate"..but the telecom can't even say no to the AG et al and get a proper ruling due to the secrecy provisions..even hesitating and the AG can automatically slap the offender with contempt
there's more..it's a fucking brilliant bit of Evil, not only can't you check up on anything after the fact, but you don't even have checks and balances as to who can actually serve the orders to a telecom/ip provider for the data (any data, ALL data as long as the AG and NSI director say that somewhere along the line a bad guy could "reasonably" see/hear it, again based on their say so...
plenty more, it is a short document, for a Bill...butthe twists and turns are there...up in the Article is the FISA law itself...this was an addendum to that Law...
take both in, and it's easy to see that now the Administration, on it's say so with NO checks and balances (those are considered provided by the AG and NSI director) to tap any phone line (grabbed as data it could be "reasonably" considered to be possibly going overseas, by the definitions in the Law)or data mine ALL internet traffic
the link in comment #40 has a great tech geek kind of overview and FAQ..i highly recommend it, and reading FISA as well as this new addendum yourself.
what does YOUR hillbilly self tell you on this one, Al?
even better, let me pose this one to you and all those who think this is "just fine"
how about after Jan '09 with Hillary/Obama in office...Janet Reno back as AG and ohhh...Wes Clarke as the NSI director...
will you care then who is tapping your phone/e-mail/net habits?
Excelsior?
89 - STM
I honestly don't understand why compulsory voting should be regarded as an infringement of rights, especially if the punishment meted out is a measly $70 fine. Also, you don't actually have to vote after having your name ticked off if you really don't too - it's a secret ballot so just register an informal. It's bollocks believing that it somehow cuts into your "rights" (possibly the most OVERUSED word in the US).
You get fined for jaywalking or parking in no-standing zones, for God's sake, and you must obey the laws of the state/country. In short, there are already a raft of laws that no one thinks are that bad (except the parking ones and taxation).
Really, what's the fu.king difference. And it really does give you a voice because you know that 99 per cent of voters have turned out at the polls to make their feelings plain, and aren't just influenced by a big-spening campaign or pitches at groups like right-wing evangelicals.
It tends also to keep the politicians honest - they tend not to have to invent issues, because they know people will vote on issues falling into that old but important grey area - the regular, day-to-day stuff that so impinges (or not, as the case may be) on our workaday lives.
I reckon if the US doesn't introduce it soon, you will all be really buggered, rather just buggered.
You'll all be rooned.
90 - Dave Nalle
I think the objection is to the idea that the state can say 'you must be in this place at this time and engage in this activity'. That kind of infringes on the right to be somewhere else doing something else instead.
Dave
91 - Christopher Rose
Stan, in Bill Bryson's excellent book about Australia, which I've nearly finished, he says that the people in the Northern Territories are required to vote in all your Aussie elections but don't have any political representation. What's that about?
92 - STM
Rosey: The Northern Territory isn't a State. Originally (from 1922), it had only one member of Parliament with limited voting rights on bills etc, and actually used the US model current at the time for representation in Washington for the Alaskan and Hawaiian territories.
However, Bryson is wrong ... they do have representation in Canberra in the House of Representatives, but I believe have only one Senator. Territorians also voted against their own statehood a few years ago, which would have given them a second Senator (the NT has a very small population). Prior to 1978, when they became self-governing and were considered a state by Canberra just in terms of how the Commonwealth dishes out the states' share of the nation's finances, its state-type affairs were run by the Commonwealth, and much earlier by South Australia.
The two territories (the NT and the Australian Capital Territory) each have a senator and must have at least one Member of the House of Representatives ... although the latter changes with population, so you could have one, two or three etc. Currently, I believe, the NT has two.
The NT Government is now essentially a State Government in everything but name, and has its own Legislative Assembly - as does the ACT.
Therefore Bryson is wrong if your claim is correct (I haven't read the book). You could argue that they are underepresented, federally at least just because of the size of the place, but the population argument is most compelling. The NT only has 200,000 people in that vast expanse of nothingness, most of them in Darwin and the smaller town of Katherine.
Thus, democracy IS most certainly at work here.
93 - Silver Surfer
Dave: "I think the objection is to the idea that the state can say 'you must be in this place at this time and engage in this activity' ... "
But why's it such an issue, Dave? That's a nonsense. At the last election here, which was a State election, I drove up the road on my way to work on the Saturday, parked my car outside the school/polling statiom, walked in and got my name ticked off the list, was handed a ballot paper, cast my (secret) ballot in a booth, put it in the box supervised by an election scutineer, walked out and and drove to the office. The whole thing took 10 lousy minutes.
Kids are made to go to school, when there's a war on you have to turn up at a certain time for national service medicals, if you want to travel you need to make an appointment at the passport office, if you take action in a court or are sued, for instance, you have to go at a certain time ...
Mate, it doesn't make sense to me that the US government - and more to the point, the people of the US, which is meant to BE the government - has allowed this situation to develop and that poll turnouts are so low.
The situation, of course, being the hijacking of power from you, the people, into the hands of big business, lobby groups, and what have you - in short, those with enough bucks to sway votes and opinions.
The answers: Cap election campaign spending, put an electronic media blackout in force a week out from the poll, and make people vote.
Soon, they regard it as a civic duty and come to enjoy voting out bastards - or voting them in, if that's your preference :)
94 - gonzo marx
well now..as i said, you are not going to see compulsory voting in the U.S....for a few reasons
1 - those in charge sure as hell don't want it, it would fuck up their system of lobbyist money and the like...so they won't pass it as Law, not even bring it up for debate
2 - many citizens would have a knee jerk reaction against it exactly as #90 states
3 - the special Interests sure as hell don't want it, it would mess up their influence peddling, and they would pay to keep it from happening and leverage their investments in current political representatives to keep it from even coming up for debate
Excelsior?
95 - gonzo marx
we appear to have drifted off...and still NO ONE has tried to Answer this simple Question i posed earlier...
"what does YOUR hillbilly self tell you on this one, Al?
even better, let me pose this one to you and all those who think this is "just fine"
how about after Jan '09 with Hillary/Obama in office...Janet Reno back as AG and ohhh...Wes Clarke as the NSI director...
will you care then who is tapping your phone/e-mail/net habits?"
anyone from the R side of the aisle care to take a stab? any defenders of this legislation want to share how they are going to feel if/when it ain't their Party calling the shots on this new J Edgarism?
Excelsior?
96 - gonzo marx
just as an Update from today's news cycle...
Congress still seeking surveillance documents...
from the Article - "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on Wednesday set an Aug. 20 deadline for administration officials already subpoenaed to provide documents and testimony about the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program.
In a letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, Leahy noted that he granted the White House's request to postpone the subpoenas' original July 18 deadline. Leahy, D-Vt., said Wednesday he'd wait no more.
"You have rejected every proposal, produced none of the responsive documents, provided no basis for any claim of privilege and no accompanying log of withheld documents," Leahy wrote to Fielding.
The committee on June 27 subpoenaed the Justice Department, National Security Council and the offices of the president and vice president for documents relating to the National Security Agency's legal justification for the wiretapping program."
the tip of the iceberg, as it were...even under the previous statues, the Administration has avoided congressional oversight....with this new Law...there is even less ability to try and get documentation or perform ANY kind of oversight by either Legislative of Judicial branches...
and so it goes...
Excelsior?
97 - gonzo marx
well now..it appears as if yer gonzo was ahead of the MSM curve once again with this Article...
starting to see them catching up
Reason Magazine has a very good article on the topic...this little bit shows some of why this is a BIG concern...or should be...
"The bill the president signed Sunday, however, goes far beyond the limited reform that all sides had agreed were urgently needed. Because so much of the world's telecommunication infrastructure is located in the United States, even e-mails and phone calls between parties who are both overseas routinely pass through giant "switches" here. The rejected compromise bill would have clarified that interception of such traffic would count as unrestricted foreign surveillance, even if it were conducted domestically with a narrowly-tailored provision:
[A] court order is not required for the acquisition of the contents of any communication between persons that are not located within the United States for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence information, without respect to whether the communication passes through the United States or the surveillance device is located within the United States.
The parallel language of the final bill is notably broader:
Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.
The crucial difference is in the treatment of surveillance "directed at" an overseas party when one end of the conversation is, or may be, located in the United States. The original compromise bill would have licensed broad warrants for such surveillance, requiring only that intelligence specify a "foreign power" as the target of an investigation, without naming the particular people, places, or devices to be monitored. But it would at least have required a warrant, approved in advance by a FISA judge, and established oversight in the form of regular audits by the Department of Justice's Inspector General."
here's a bunch of links to various news sources on the topic...
as i've always said...check out the information, try multiple sources, then decide for yourself...
Excelsior?
98 - Lumpy
It's simple, gonzo. They can and will get away with this because no one can step forward and prove thwy've been harmed, at least up to the point where Hillary starts using it to spy on her loooong political enemies list.
99 - gonzo marx
for Lumpy - no one can step forward to prove they were harmed because no one has been informed that their Rights have been violated by those who did the violation...
hence the root of the problem, the ONLY ones able to investigate/prosecute any abuses are the abusers themselves...
checks and balances are in the system to prevent exactly this kind of shit from happening
but not anymore...THAT is my problem here, and i woudl think most sane people would think in a similar fashion on the topic...
was good for me to read the Reason article linked above...you might want to look at the whole thing as well
Excelsior?
100 - Lumpy
If you can't even tell you've been "harmed" have you actually been harmed? Where is Sartre when we need him?
101 - gonzo marx
yes Lumpy....you have
that pesky 4th Amendment again....you might want to look into it sometime, and why it's Important
Excelsior?
102 - troll
gonzo - welcome to the dark side of the rule of law...developed just like the Books and used to control/manipulate/exploit just like the Books
no less a rule of men than the religions...
that aside - if compulsory voting will not happen here because it is not in the interest of elected officials and special interests what chance does nota have
got any practical ideas for giving a nota movement legs - ?
103 - Dave Nalle
I disagree, troll. I think compulsory voting is very much in the interests of the establishment, because those forced to vote will be even less informed than those who vote now, and they will just vote straight party ticket or based on name recognition which gives incumbents an inherent advantage.
Dave
104 - Nancy
All this is academic anyway. Do any of you seriously think even ONE of those maggots in congress is ever going to support amending election laws so that "none of the above" wins? Or so that 3rd party candidates are encouraged to run - let alone elected? You forget, every single one of those fuckers is a member of the Ruling Junta by virtue of their position. Even the newbies are 'in', because it's in the interests of the Elite to bring them aboard & make them One Of Us so they, too, can be controlled.
I'm sorry now that the flight that crashed in PA didn't make it to the White House or Capitol, whichever was its goal. At the least it would have taken out a few of the cancer cells of our current, very un-democratic, un-representative government of the rich, by the rich & for the rich.
105 - Nancy
I also have to say I caught the Dem debate last night. What a bunch of slimey, pandering professional whoremongering maggots! Jesus! They're just as evil, just as corrupt, just as stupid, just as venal, just as rotten as their GOP collegues; every one of them kissing ass & trying to say nothing & commit to nothing while promising everything if only we'll vote for them. I spent a good deal of it wishing I were able to push a button & every one of them would find themselves in Hell where they belong. Along with the rest of congress, all lobbyists, most of the Pentagon, a majority of federal "consultants", and every last member of this vile administration, including their spouses, kids, grandkids, & pets.
106 - handyguy
But Nancy, the candidates in 1948, 1968, 1988 were mostly as bland and uncontroversial as this lot. [Maybe Truman and RFK stand out...or maybe their hindsight reputations are undeserved.] They're just more cautious than ever in the age of YouTube, about saying anything that will soundbite them in the ass the next day. [It still happens regularly anyway of course.]
At least a Democratic president won't appoint horrible conservative judges who will continue to ruin the country for decades. An HR Clinton administration and a Giuliani administration would not be identical, no matter how much fun you have hurling equally fiery insults at both of them.
I don't know whether you mean everything you write literally, but if you're that unhappy, maybe just move somewhere else. The middle of the road is where politics almost always land in this country...and always have.
107 - Nancy
I don't mind middle of the road. What I don't like & despise is cynical, insincere pandering by assholes who have NO intention of doing anything for anybody that they promise. Like Pelosi. As for moving, why? I was born here, I live here, it's my country as much as theirs. It needs to be cleaned up; not to have all the honest people driven out.
108 - handyguy
Of course you shouldn't move. But take a breath before damning people as utterly different as Barack Obama and Sam Brownback, or John Edwards and John McCain, with the same excoriating language: "whoremongering maggots," "evil...corrupt...stupid...rotten" etc. They're not the same, and taking the conversation down to that low level may help you vent some steam, but accomplishes little else, eh?
109 - troll
Dave - #103 begs the question: what chance does a proposal such as 'nota' have if it is not in the interest of the established elite
...and your *those forced to vote will be even less informed than those who vote now* is something of an aristocratic assumption don'cha know - ties right in with your rabble theory of democracy I guess
110 - STM
Dave: "I think compulsory voting is very much in the interests of the establishment, because those forced to vote will be even less informed than those who vote now."
You are wrong Dave, that is NOT our experience - and it's been going here an awful long time.
111 - STM
And I'll leave it to Chris Fryer to explain why, as his points are valid - and just how we find it.
His major point is how well the elections are run. It takes 10 minutes to vote, with hardly any queues, unlike the US where it can take hours.
112 - Nym Nadal
God this is completely off topic but, I uh... I just did a search for my old AOL Screen Name and saw you responding to tink with "Do you know Nym Nadal"...
Hee hee, and now I HAVE to know... Who 'were' you?
::grins:: visit me blog and send me a message!!!