Obama Sued by Rand Paul Over Phone Surveillance Program
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
> I thought Bush orchestrated the Patriot Act... who knew..?
> Regardless of your opinion of the surveillance, you gotta see this as a cynical political move. Bet he wouldn't sue a Republican president. Isn't good enough to disagree with Obama - a candidate has to demonstrate outrage with him to gain cred with the base.
Everything is right vs left to some people. There is no discussion of the consequences of this action, just name-calling an unsubstantiated claims. I hate discussing politics because the cognitive dissonance and mental gymnastics required to fully support Republicans or Democrats makes my head hurt.
Like it or not, everything literally is partisan politics. No issue in the US rises above partisanship. That's the system we live in, you'll just have to accept that or attempt to change it directly.
> Like it or not, everything literally is partisan politics. No issue in the US rises above partisanship. That's the system we live in, you'll just have to accept that or attempt to change it directly.
Are you kidding me? There is so much to life besides partisan politics. Deciding not to care about partisan politics is one of the best decisions of my life.
It is indeed possible to change the world without using the government and partisan politics. Trying to steer the current political system to do your bidding is a waste of time unless you have a tremendous amount of resources and willpower. For the average citizen, the only winning move is not to play.
> It is indeed possible to change the world without using the government and partisan politics.
For 99.999% of people, no, it's really not. Voting is the most powerful thing you can do to change things in any meaningful way. Those who show up run the show; those who don't show up follow the laws passed by those who do.
In this case we're proving that a wrong occurred by attempting to get retribution for the alleged wrong - whoever is targeted (be they Rep. Dem. Lib.) is inconsequential for the general public, aside from adjusting voting patterns in the future.
Once the suit determines culpability, we can find ways to prevent the wrong from happening in the first place.
You may choose to live like that, but I prefer to judge myself in a way that doesn't make literally everything I do an immoral act.
So even if you didn't intend to, you just made all selfish acts sinful.
I am not a big Rand Paul fan, but I'm curious how you arrived at this conclusion. ISTM that he'd be as almost as much of a pain-in-the-ass to a Republican president from the less-libertarian/isolationist/goldbug wing of the party. Look at the spats he's had with Christie, at a start.
The only notable difference these days is the fringes (where Rand Paul and Tea Party reside) vs the single party.
A much less bizarre example would be the way the parties have moved towards each other on issues like national security, the finance industry, etc.
The national debt is one of the biggest issues in the country right now and both parties are doing little to stop its expansion. As I said in my original comment, the fringe are the ones who are legitimately different from the single party, for example, as you mentioned, the Tea Partiers would support either defaulting or significant restrictions on spending.
I disagree with this claim. Unfortunately, it is also the claim upon which the rest of your claims are founded, so I'll have to disagree with everything else you said, too.
Unsupported opinions are pretty meaningless. How is it not one of the biggest issues?
The national debt story has been making constant front-page of news for 3+ years now. Anyone who doesn't see the huge long-term significance of the massive debt is exhibiting significant ignorance to economics. The USA is making a serious gamble that the economy will be strong and fast-growing for the next 5-10 years. If not, it's going to get nasty.
So has Justin Beeber; that doesn't validate it. In the news != newsworthy.
You know who else is making that bet? The people eagerly buying t-bills. So eager, in fact, that they're loaning us this money at well below inflation - they're more or less paying us to keep their money safe.
We should be sure we're using borrowed money for something reasonable (building infrastructure, smoothing short term needs) rather than on what amounts to consumption, though that distinction may be hard to make.
The place to deal with the debt issue is in budget negotiations, not by refusing to pay bills from past budgets because you didn't agree with past agreements.
The feds have no problem paying the debt service (though of course the growing debt is a problem); it's everything else they can't afford.
Ultimately, it's Congress' problem, not Obama's. He doesn't pass budget bills. But there are almost zero folks in Congress with enough backbone to do anything about it.
Innovation is inherently interdisciplinary. If we aren't exposed to different ways of thought, we won't be able to approach problems from the variety of different perspectives that are both necessary and key to creative problem solving.
In Switzerland, where this is the way the government and lawmaking works, many things are dealt with in parliament to keep the process economic, but they can fairly easily escalated to a plebiscite.
At the same time, the government as far less partisan and generally constituted by member of all mainstream parties.
I'd have to disagree. The main problem I see with politics these days is that it fundamentally disagrees with the way that the world works best, and it puts this incorrect view into action. That's quite contrary to what it should do, and it's a source of frustration. Ideally, politics should change its stance on core issues to be more inline with what it should be, and legislate accordingly.
For most Americans, this may as well be the case (or is the case already... Fox News vs. MSNBC)
From my earliest awareness of politics, I always found it totally bizarre that a person's opinion on, say, gay marriage bore such a strong correlation to their opinions on foreign policy, the economy, social programs, etc. It's absolute insanity, and yet a very small number of people seem to see through it.
This is for publicity purposes nothing more than that. (Of course he also believes in what he is doing but the main driver is to give him even more household recognition).
After all Paul represents Kentucky. So why fight a battle for all of us. I hate when politicians do things like this (In NY Spitzer did this and Schumer does the same). They take on issues that garner much press mention which is not to say they don't have benefits to those in their state.)
See "grandstanding"
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/american-engli...
Perhaps you meant the word "days" literally. The CIA, created in 1947, solely exists to butt into other countries affairs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
When you base your political stance on reason and reflection, you're appealing to a ridiculously small portion of the population. Most people either won't be able to grasp it, or does not have/take the time to do so.
Not to complain, the situation feels pretty good over here, with political power shared between multiple parties. It's still frustrating trying to debate politics, because you cannot argue facts with a person driven by emotions. Trying to means racing against the clock of attention span, while ELI5'ing as best you can, and this is on an individual level, debate panels are even worse because you're even more time-constrained and cannot assess an individual's response to better reach them.
This of course, leads me to my point, politics are what they are because there is no demand for truth, there is only a demand for emotional gratification. It's easier to sell war against satanic evil, than it is to sell funding for research into solar energy hodgepodge technology.
> Water tubes? Why don't I just go in the back yard and fill up some bottles! hah!
but it's ok. go back to sleep.
One surprising one is the power of the executive branch vs the other branches of government. Views on that don't fall along right vs left lines at all, and I think there are plenty in the Republican party (as well as the Democratic party) who will see this as an attempt to limit presidential power, and will be opposed to it on that ground.
It takes a concerted effort to think of political issues purely consequentially.
What's frustrating is that I had to search through 5 articles/blog posts to find it. Why do media outlets post articles on any lawsuit without a link to the complaint?
Since then, I've seen politicians vote on a law and then admit to not having read it. I've seen politicians simply not go to work because they don't want to not vote, but they also don't want to vote. And then I've seen filibustering.
While there are several laws that I disagree with that have been killed by a filibuster, I think it's entirely disgraceful that there is a tactic which can prevent a popular bill from becoming law simply because someone else decides to be an asshole for 17 hours.
And the whole voting on a bill without reading it? I think anyone caught doing that should spend the rest of their life in prison, period.
These guys are master manipulators, most or all of them are ivy league educated, top of their class, cut-throat business men and attorneys. And yet people think these are the guys that should be running a country.
The whole thing, start to finish, is a farce and it's appalling to watch.
Sounds about right.
Afghanistan? I assume you mean Iraq, and still I don't have any idea what speech of Bush's you're talking about. Can you help me out?
A Daily Beast article mentions this: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/30/can-bachman...
Google "v. <any recent president's name>"
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1981/1981_79_1738
which states,
> The Court held that the President "is entitled to absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts." This sweeping immunity, argued Justice Powell, was a function of the "President's unique office, rooted in the constitutional tradition of separation of powers and supported by our history."
If Obama signs a law that says everyone who sells beer has to pay a fine, and you sue him over it, and it's found to be an unjust law, then what you can't do is demand that he personally pay you for the lost business.
What you can do is get the law he signed thrown out.
(This is entirely from me reading Wikipedia earlier today.)
[1] http://s3.amazonaws.com/freedomworks.org/files/nsa_complaint...
However, suing everyone and anyone else (as Paul seems to have done), isn't.
So what Paul has done is a little political theater and a little practical. If Polosi had done the same thing, the result would be the same.
As a legislator though, it seems the far more practical way of ending phone surveillance would be to draft a bill making it explicitly illegal.
And the Fourth Amendment was intended for exactly this case. One of the last actions of the English which precipitated the American revolution was a general warrant issued in a secret court in England which gave English soldiers authority to search any American's home at any time without any reason for suspicion.
He is just cynically trying to stoke the libertarian base.
Read his bills, instead of his press releases, if you want to actually know something about him.
When the Mayor of a town embezzles the city's money... the city is the defendant not the plaintiff.
This is the bulk of page 5.
This piece of trash lied to the Congress (something that hundred of thousands of people commit a jailtime in this moment as i write this) and further explained himself as "i choose the least truthful statement". Well, it wasn't up to him to decide whether he should tell the truth or not, he was answeing to rightfully appointed commision.
Imagine a society you live in where people you pay salaries for (public servant) choose to lie in your face and perfectly get away with it.
This banana republic approach that a cocroach like Clapper can personally decide whether or not he will tell the truth, and not being punished in any way for blunt lies, but rater praised and kept on his post, perfectly summarize the rotten system we live under, where all three branches merge into one and someone like Clapper can call another dirtbag named Holter and asked him not to press charges so life can just abrubtly go on...
Because I vaguely remember some people wanted to sue Bush and were not allowed.