Aint No Right

This kind of thing will never end because some people can't handle the truth

Essence_Smith wrote:This kind of thing will never end because some people can't handle the truth

Such a profound statement. Thank you so much for this brilliant contribution.

Jasper wrote:

Essence_Smith wrote:This kind of thing will never end because some people can't handle the truth

Such a profound statement. Thank you so much for this brilliant contribution.

Seriously, I think the majority out there don't mind living with blinders on and there are things our government does that would cause riots in other countries...americans are a pretty apathetic bunch in general imho...

LJF wrote: That's sad to think people don't care about what is very clearly a coverup. The IRA just happened to misplace key e-mails, sure ok got it. This is what is scary about people that follow one party or the other blindly. For them it's just the other party is on a witch hunt. Take the blinders off and look up what is happening. Also this IRS scandal is very much about a politician.

When we stop questioning our so called leaders bad shit will and does happen. Stop hiding behind the right is just out to get obama. This issue isn't just about targeting groups, it about the cover up. What would you have thought if this was under w's administration? Don't have blind faith in your party.

I agree, LJF, that our leaders, whichever party they may belong to, need to be questioned and held accountable. On this particular issue, I don't think there is much of a which hunt at all, for it's barely in the news at all unless you listen/watch a news station with an express agenda to drum it up into one. Personally, the IRS could hand over emails from Obama that directed the IRS to scrutinize tax exempt applications for political action groups, and I would still have no problem with it, especially considering what a joke that status appears to be for 501c3/4s (again, whichever party or politician they are affiliated with). But I do agree that coverups make matters worse, and that that appears to be the case here. Indeed, the Obama administration has had it share of coverups. Far more concerning to me, however, are coverups like these: the ATF gun-running scandal, Obama's "kill-list," the drone program (if we consider this program as one without anywhere near the transparency it ought to have), the NSA's apparently near total data collection and mining.

Our president is the man who knows nothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/world ... .html?_r=0

I agree, LJF, that our leaders, whichever party they may belong to, need to be questioned and held accountable. On this particular issue, I don't think there is much of a which hunt at all, for it's barely in the news at all unless you listen/watch a news station with an express agenda to drum it up into one. Personally, the IRS could hand over emails from Obama that directed the IRS to scrutinize tax exempt applications for political action groups, and I would still have no problem with it, especially considering what a joke that status appears to be for 501c3/4s (again, whichever party or politician they are affiliated with). But I do agree that coverups make matters worse, and that that appears to be the case here. Indeed, the Obama administration has had it share of coverups. Far more concerning to me, however, are coverups like these: the ATF gun-running scandal, Obama's "kill-list," the drone program (if we consider this program as one without anywhere near the transparency it ought to have), the NSA's apparently near total data collection and mining.[/quote]


So if there were e-mails that directly tied obama to this targeting you would have no problem with that? First that would prove that he falt out lied about not knowing about this targeting until the press reported it. Which seems to be his answer to everything that happens. Second you would be comfortable that the president used his power to target groups?

Also just because it isn't in the news, which I don't agree I seem to see reports about it, doesn't mean this isn't important. I could say what most people think and that is the news, except Fox, is biased towards liberals and maybe they are deciding not to cover this so not to make the president look bad. Any cover up is important.

One the first part, yes, that is what I said, though you left off from bolding the part directly afterward: (again, whichever party or politician they are affiliated with).. I think 501c3/4s are a joke and applications for them should be scrutinized, whatever their political affiliation. I start from the premise that no one starts with tax-exempt status, and I think using the word "targeting" is a sleight of hand in the same way that the term "enemy combatant" is (though I also know it is the term most frequently used in coverage of the scandal). When you apply for a home loan, should the lender verify the information you've provided? Should they ask for additional paperwork or materials to ensure you meet the criteria of the loan before approving it? Are such practices targeting? (Bare in mind that the lawsuits that have recently been won regarding home loans are about shoe-horning minorities into sub-primes, and NOT verifying application information diligently.) The groups in question may have been held to a more rigorous standard and that should have been more even handedly applied for sure, but we have had this discussion before. And, though I admittedly have not been following it, the only group to have actually been denied status under this process seems to be democratically aligned: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/15/meet_th ... democrats/ So I guess I struggle to see where any undo burden or suffering was incurred, though perhaps some people were inconvenienced as they laid political plans.

Secondly, if we want to get upset and out a politician who lies, the halls of government will be pretty vacant (in my best John Lydon). I am not saying that is a good thing, rather that if the bar for outrage is prevarication and questionable ethics, it seems odd for people to have tunnel vision on Obama. How about some consistency, that hobgoblin of small minds? Every president during my lifetime has flat-out lied to the public, and many of those lies have been much more weighty than those you allege Obama has told about the IRS scrutinizing political action groups' applications for tax exemption. (Yellow cake anyone?)

Thirdly, a quick google search and you will find that the top hits for "IRS scandal" (today, as of this post) are Fox News, Breitbart.com, Huffington Post (with a story about Jon Stewart's correction of where the true "scandal" lies), and the National Review. I'm not saying that that is all or that the news of the issue is non-existent, but that the majority of the noise around it is agenda driven--and if that is the case, it is hardly any more sound than the allegations it hopes to prove in my book. Moreover, the trope that the news is liberal is tired. Sure, some news outlets lean conservative (like my immediate news paper, the OC Register or the Wall Street Journal), while others lean liberal (like the NY Times), but those biases can be accounted for in one's assessment of the news they provide. Other sources hardly provide news at all (Fox or CNN) and seem more intent on entertaining their demographics (if CNN even has one anymore!), at times descending into base fear-mongering.

My point here is not that if Obama lied, it's unimportant because, well, he's a democrat and not a republican and so he should not be held accountable. Nor is it that everyone in Washington lies so this lie should be excused like all the others. Rather, I am saying that if this issue sits at the top or anywhere near the top of someone's concerns, I cannot agree with the weight it has been afforded against other Obama-driven problems like those I listed in a previous post.

That said, I do understand your concern about the matter. In the end, I would actually like to see more outrage about the shit our government does, supposedly in our name. I think I just write these long, tiresome posts in response to you, LJF, because the outrage often seems particularly channeled toward the democratic party and Obama and not the rampant hypocrisy, cronyism, and all-around shady ethics of so many who hold power in the US. Maybe I just missed those other posts...

I hate Woodrow Wilson and Col House personally

Tvrec you are right I've been going after Obama and yes I can't stand him, but also because he is in office. Also the president should be held to a higher standard and if the president lies it is a very big deal. I 100% agree that we should go after everyone of them, politicians, that lies. It seems we as a country have just grown to accept that they will lie and that is just the way it is. That's a shame since they were elected to serve us not lie to us.

One of my biggest issues with our current president is his standard answer of I didn't know about it until the news mentioned it. He is either least informed person or lying, either one is bad. As a leader you need to be on top of things, I know he can't know everything, but he knows nothing. If he really doesn't know anything who is running the country. If he knows take responsibility that's what real leaders do.

One person I wish the media would stop giving a voice to is Palin. Let her go back to looking at Russia from her front door.

LJF wrote:Tvrec you are right I've been going after Obama and yes I can't stand him, but also because he is in office. Also the president should be held to a higher standard and if the president lies it is a very big deal. I 100% agree that we should go after everyone of them, politicians, that lies. It seems we as a country have just grown to accept that they will lie and that is just the way it is. That's a shame since they were elected to serve us not lie to us.

One of my biggest issues with our current president is his standard answer of I didn't know about it until the news mentioned it. He is either least informed person or lying, either one is bad. As a leader you need to be on top of things, I know he can't know everything, but he knows nothing. If he really doesn't know anything who is running the country. If he knows take responsibility that's what real leaders do.

One person I wish the media would stop giving a voice to is Palin. Let her go back to looking at Russia from her front door.

Here, here, LJF. Totally with everything you've said here.

I try to think of politicians as nothing more than place-fillers for positions that voters, courts, media, independent watchdogs, etc., are tasked with continually checking for corruption. The people can't generally be relied upon to pick the best candidates for any of these positions, but with organization and diligence we can try to get rid of the worst people in power. That's the real virtue of democracy. It's an absolutely terrible way to choose a good leader, but it's absolutely the best way of (and really the only way of perpetually) avoiding being stuck the worst leaders.

It really scares me when politicians start saying things like "My enemies trying to remove me from office through the legal system is undemocratic!" (See: Rob Ford.)

Never let them convince you of that. It's not. It's the essence of the value of democracy.

The fact that Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush, or whoever you think is a terrible politician, was elected isn't a sign that there was something good about them. The fact that they aren't still in power is a sign that there's something deeply good about the American political system.

Adurentibus Spina wrote:I try to think of politicians as nothing more than place-fillers for positions that voters, courts, media, independent watchdogs, etc., are tasked with continually checking for corruption. The people can't generally be relied upon to pick the best candidates for any of these positions, but with organization and diligence we can try to get rid of the worst people in power. That's the real virtue of democracy. It's an absolutely terrible way to choose a good leader, but it's absolutely the best way of (and really the only way of perpetually) avoiding being stuck the worst leaders.

It really scares me when politicians start saying things like "My enemies trying to remove me from office through the legal system is undemocratic!" (See: Rob Ford.)

Never let them convince you of that. It's not. It's the essence of the value of democracy.

The fact that Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush, or whoever you think is a terrible politician, was elected isn't a sign that there was something good about them.

The fact that they aren't still in power is a sign that there's something deeply good about the American political system.

Yes something called term limits.

LJF wrote:

Adurentibus Spina wrote:I try to think of politicians as nothing more than place-fillers for positions that voters, courts, media, independent watchdogs, etc., are tasked with continually checking for corruption. The people can't generally be relied upon to pick the best candidates for any of these positions, but with organization and diligence we can try to get rid of the worst people in power. That's the real virtue of democracy. It's an absolutely terrible way to choose a good leader, but it's absolutely the best way of (and really the only way of perpetually) avoiding being stuck the worst leaders.

It really scares me when politicians start saying things like "My enemies trying to remove me from office through the legal system is undemocratic!" (See: Rob Ford.)

Never let them convince you of that. It's not. It's the essence of the value of democracy.

The fact that Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush, or whoever you think is a terrible politician, was elected isn't a sign that there was something good about them.

The fact that they aren't still in power is a sign that there's something deeply good about the American political system.

Yes something called term limits.

Not for Congress though they're who keeps fucking this country up being career politicians

this is pretty hilarious

Curt Clawson, congressman from Fla., mistakes U.S. officials for Indian diplomats

A freshman congressman’s minute-long speech may be one of the most embarrassing in Capitol Hill history.

Rep. Curt Clawson (R-Fla.) spoke directly to two U.S. government officials during a congressional hearing on Thursday, explaining his familiarity with their country – which he mistakenly believed was India.

Clawson continued speaking about his hopes for the future of India while Nisha Biswal, State Department assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asian affairs, and Arun Kumar, who holds multiple titles in the Department of Commerce, stared in disbelief.

“I am familiar with your country. I love your country,” the congressman continued, addressing the Indian-Americans. “I’m hopeful with the new change in regime that the future and the land of promise and the land of opportunity of India can finally become so.”



After Clawson praised the country and its people, he asked the high-ranking U.S. officials for cooperation from the “Indian” government.

“Just as your capital is welcome here to produce good-paying jobs in the U.S., I’d like our capital to be welcomed there,” he said. "Can I have that?"

There was a moment of silence before Biswal answered.

"I think your question is to the Indian government," she said. "We certainly share your sentiments and will advocate that on behalf of the U.S. government."

Then Clawson realized his mistake and attempted to backtrack by clarifying that he was just asking for their opinion on the issues. But it was too late.

A video uploaded to Vimeo by Foreign Policy on Friday of the congressman's speech has been viewed more than 575,000 times.

According to USA Today, the politician has since apologized.

“I made a mistake in speaking before being fully briefed and I apologize. I’m a quick study, but in this case I shot an air ball,” Clawson told the newspaper.

In Canada, for some reason there aren't term limits -- the PM just has to CALL an election at some point within 5 years of the previous one. Usually they do this when the analyists they pay say they will win again. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister for 16 years. Jean Chretien was Prime Minister for 10, and Stephen Harper has been PM for around 8. It's pretty absurd that we've been independent since 1867 and have only had 22 leaders. But that includes several who were only around for a few months (Kim Campbell, Arthur Meighen, John Turner, Joe Clark, and two other nobodies all served less than a year). If you take them out, that means real PMs serve an average of 9 years a piece. Which is ridiculous, but nothing compared to our local politicians. My town's mayor has been mayor for over 30 years. There are a ton of towns like that, including a major city whose mayor is in her 90s, and has been mayor for at least 40 years...

Yes, "electing" incumbents over and over and over again is technically "democratic", but it's the shitty side of democracy... the side Churchill was talking about when he said it was the worst form of government. The only thing it gets you, IF you're lucky, is the same thing you get with a monarchy or a dictatorship (from which it is indistinguishable if checks and oversight are not employed or enforced) -- IF you're lucky: stability. The rest of the time... it's shit.

But it's still worse to elect "small government" nutcases.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-aimed-wrong-wa ... ction.html

sad state this country finds itself in.

Three-quarters of Americans doubt the federal government will address the important problems facing the country this year, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

That's not surprising. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magaz ... .html?_r=0

More than half of fourth graders taking the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress could not accurately read the temperature on a neatly drawn thermometer. (They did not understand that each hash mark represented two degrees rather than one, leading many students to mistake 46 degrees for 43 degrees.) On the same multiple-choice test, three-quarters of fourth graders could not translate a simple word problem about a girl who sold 15 cups of lemonade on Saturday and twice as many on Sunday into the expression “15 + (2 * 15).” Even in Massachusetts, one of the country’s highest-performing states, math students are more than two years behind their counterparts in Shanghai.

Why on Earth would what Americans doubt or believe or just think in general tell us anything about reality?

I guess it is a good thing Perry was indicted on only two felony counts; he would not have remembered a third.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/us/go ... .html?_r=0

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas Is Indicted on Charge of Abuse of Power
By MANNY FERNANDEZ AUG. 15, 2014

AUSTIN, Tex. — A grand jury indicted Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts on Friday, charging that he abused his power last year when he tried to pressure the district attorney here, a Democrat, to step down by threatening to cut off state financing to her office.

The indictment left Mr. Perry, a Republican, the first Texas governor in nearly 100 years to face criminal charges and presented a major roadblock to his presidential ambitions at the very time that he had been showing signs of making a comeback.

...

The president is which a worthless piece of shit. He goes on vacation comes back and says he has no strategy for ISIS yet really great. Also Putin is running crazy, but don't worry Romney you were so wrong that Russia is a big theat this isn't gone 80s anymore. Wow is he in over his head. Also so nice to see that you or someone from the WH went to the general's funeral a few weeks back.

Essence_Smith wrote:

tubro wrote:the biggest twat of them all, rudolf guiliani (about whom, in fairness, having been in my apartment two blocks from the World Trade Center on 9-11, i'll always say that if you can absolutely guaranty that airplanes will fly into buildings, he can be my mayor but aside from the 10 days after that happens, isn't qualified to be dog catcher).

Say what you will about Rudy and the tactics he and his corrupt police commissioner used at the time, there were parts of Brooklyn you couldn't even walk through without getting robbed before they did what they did...I grumbled at the "quality of life" enforcement etc in my late teens but looking back they cleaned up a lot of mess that Dinkins and Koch left...they did it like some thugs, but they did clean this place up considerably...

it's a myth, like most everything about guiliani's legacy. community poilicing, started by bratton, during dinkins, and continued during rudy's first term until rudy fired bratton because he was getting deserved credit, made brooklyn better. that plus the fact that clinton spent so much on crime fighting extra police budgets that crime dropped hugely in the US in his first term, which was also rudy's first term. urban crime stats nationally went down far more than in nyc during that period. also the crack epidemic ended and that too made bad neighborhoods less scary. rudy that racist cunt just took credit for it but he hired kelly and then that crook kerik to run the po-po dept and they abandoned the boroughs, a trend that continued thru bloomberg's administration. after the first term, 'quality of life' cleanup mostly meant getting on the nightly news for having his cops rough up some squeegy guy or shoot an unarmed brother in the boogie down. but the only borough that had hugely different crime numbers in rudy's second term was manhattan, again riding the wave of the clinton economy and also as a result of the trend started by koch and continued by dinkins and rudy and blumberg to toss the negroes out of mixed neighborhoods and make them all white and rich.

don't believe the rudy myth, even on this one issue. he was the worst.

Not a politician, but Sean Hannity. Jesus, where did he come from? Is he in direct competition with Bill O'Reilly??

I must say I don't have much time for Choudary either. This is like an arguement you would get at high school. Pathetic.

tubro wrote:

Essence_Smith wrote:

tubro wrote:the biggest twat of them all, rudolf guiliani (about whom, in fairness, having been in my apartment two blocks from the World Trade Center on 9-11, i'll always say that if you can absolutely guaranty that airplanes will fly into buildings, he can be my mayor but aside from the 10 days after that happens, isn't qualified to be dog catcher).

Say what you will about Rudy and the tactics he and his corrupt police commissioner used at the time, there were parts of Brooklyn you couldn't even walk through without getting robbed before they did what they did...I grumbled at the "quality of life" enforcement etc in my late teens but looking back they cleaned up a lot of mess that Dinkins and Koch left...they did it like some thugs, but they did clean this place up considerably...

it's a myth, like most everything about guiliani's legacy. community poilicing, started by bratton, during dinkins, and continued during rudy's first term until rudy fired bratton because he was getting deserved credit, made brooklyn better. that plus the fact that clinton spent so much on crime fighting extra police budgets that crime dropped hugely in the US in his first term, which was also rudy's first term. urban crime stats nationally went down far more than in nyc during that period. also the crack epidemic ended and that too made bad neighborhoods less scary. rudy that racist cunt just took credit for it but he hired kelly and then that crook kerik to run the po-po dept and they abandoned the boroughs, a trend that continued thru bloomberg's administration. after the first term, 'quality of life' cleanup mostly meant getting on the nightly news for having his cops rough up some squeegy guy or shoot an unarmed brother in the boogie down. but the only borough that had hugely different crime numbers in rudy's second term was manhattan, again riding the wave of the clinton economy and also as a result of the trend started by koch and continued by dinkins and rudy and blumberg to toss the negroes out of mixed neighborhoods and make them all white and rich.

don't believe the rudy myth, even on this one issue. he was the worst.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on the crime issue...quality of life meant WAY more than what you seem to have in mind (and bear in mind I wasn't a fan of it as it played out)...also I will agree there was a shift that began in 89 with Dinkins but the visible presence of more police on the streets, etc was totally during Rudy's time. I can't really see how the national stats play into what was going on it NY...I can speak to MANY neighborhoods like Flatbush, Crown Heights, Bushwick, East NY, etc that I was regularly in where people would regularly try to rob you in broad daylight or sell you drugs openly where this trend stopped pretty much in the middle of Rudy's admin. Now I'm not saying I "believe" in Rudy being the main person behind it all...I'm saying that's when I saw it end. City parks that were long abandoned by the city for years (including a number I would smoke and drink in myself) were cleaned up considerably between 95-97...I remember a kid I knew from Brooklyn College got a ticket for having his bag on a subway seat...you could go to jail for hopping a turnstile...lots of petty crimes that were overlooked became a big deal and guess what? If you were in the hood and believe me I was, it was indeed a fairly effective deterrent for a good number. Again I was not and am not a fan, but I saw results...I concur the police acted like thugs and yes the way Rudy dealt with the issue of unarmed black people getting killed by police was HORRIBLE...but I can respect the results all day long whether you want to say it was Rudy or Clinton or Kerick or whoever.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-New ... is_twitter