Pardon my disinclination.

[madamesilverspurs]

In the left corner, two men (currently Prez and Veep) whose records of public service show consistent efforts toward improving the common good.

In the opposite corner, a whole slew of people with no such record and whose stated purpose over the last few years has been to discredit and disrupt, by any means possible, the efforts of the other guys.

In the middle, yet another steaming pile. The opposite corner, noted for its numerous steaming piles, is yowling - again - that this one originated in the left corner. And I’m expected immediately to assume that a massive and fundamental shift toward treasonous and sociopathic policy has taken place in those whose histories give no such recommendation? Pardon my disinclination to set my hair on fire. Again.

[graham4anything]

1. k&r

[Aristus]

2. Well said.

Concur, 100%.

[dkf]

3. Obama isn't king. He will leave, but his spying apparatus will be here.

In perpetuity.

This is his legacy, a surveillance state and all the power he will have bequeathed to his successors.

[grantcart]

5. The national security apparatus question existed before and will exit after this President

and the next 5 Presidents.

That is why this is essentially a question of Congressional oversight and not of any particular program or of any particular President.

[dkf]

8. Ask Sen. Susan Collins how much oversight they've been providing.

The fact that ANY senator is shocked at any revelation is a scandal and proves adequate oversight did not exist.

Unless you think they are lying to us.

[grantcart]

9. Sen. Collins is a habitual liar on national security matters

She openly lied about Benghazi

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/impeachy-not-so-keen-sen-susan-collins-also-doesnt-see-impeachment-over-benghazi/

“If that is so,” Crowley said, “is it not a cover-up on a scale of — I mean, why do you think they would do this? Do you think it was to help the President get reelected?”

“I believe that because we were in the midst of the final weeks of a very contentious presidential re-election campaign, that one of the themes of this administration was that Libya was a success, that the military intervention had produced a stable pro-United States country that was moving toward democracy, and that al Qaeda was on the run. And what happened in Benghazi proved that neither of those narratives was accurate.”

Whatever the reasons for the revisions to the talking points, however, Collins’ claim is undercut by the fact that the President repeatedly referred to the attacks as an “act of terror” in the days following the attacks, and Amb. Susan Rice talked, specifically about al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia, during her Sunday news show interviews.

I am basically in agreement with your position that we cannot make policy based on the assumption that Obama/Biden are good guys. That is why it is important to defeat Republicans, get control of Congress and elect as many Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren types as we can. I don't see any other real solution.

President Eisenhower gave an impassioned speech before he left office about the control of the Military/Industrial alliance and the waste that it creates. He did not however spend his capital while in office trying to challenge it.

[1StrongBlackMan]

18. And besides ...

It is no feather in one's cap to excuse one's lack of oversight by arguing "they didn't tell me."

[LeftInTX]

13. Yes, but there was Nixon, Reagan and Bush

They were all horrific. Nixon and Reagan oversaw Dem congresses. You know all about Nixon, I assume. A few years later Reagan comes along, he participates in an illegal war. Congress finally had to shut him down.

Then, came Bush and the Patriot Act.
Did LBJ set the stage for the Nixon atrocities?
Did Jimmy Carter set the stage for Reagan's illegal war and Iran Contra? Did Bill Clinton set the stage for the Patriotic Act?

The point I'm making is presidents change and they change things. Bush by the way was intercepting the same amount of phone information and internet information. It may seem like Obama might be doing more, but I think it is the way the law is being applied. I'm currently watching a show about NSA: Their foreign fiber optic internet cables are currently combined with domestic cables. It doesn't have to be this way.
It is this way because of inefficient design. NSA could have put intercept facilities where the cables enter the country, but they didn't, thus leaving Americans at risk for internet surveillance.

This happened under Bush. But I can't even give Bush credit for this technical mess. He didn't design the cables.

[dkf]

14. The technology has only now caught up to the data. The types of surveillance achievable here

Were not possible back then. That is why it stops here or never.

Freedom my ass. What Obama is setting us up for is a crime against humanity, nationally and internationally. Shame on him. Constitutional law professor...he needed to be flunked.

[struggle4progress]

15. It's not his apparatus: it's the apparatus that he inherited. If you have ideas

about how we can push appropriate modifications of it through Congress, we're all interested

[Hekate]

17. Jesus. Where were you between 2001 and 2008? This is BUSH/CHENEY's legacy.

I myself said here on numerous occasions in the 2008 election season that if we elected McCain we might as well kiss the country goodbye, because he would continue and expand every Bush/Cheney policy.

I said that if we elected Obama it would at least give us a CHANCE of BEGINNING to right the country, but that it would only be a CHANCE, because ONE MAN could not undo all the damage that had been done.

Then, unbeknownst to anyone, a cabal of Congressional Repubs got together on Inauguration Day and swore to block everything proposed by Obama.

And to the best of their ability, they have done so. It should amaze any reasonable observer that Obama and the Dems in Congress have managed to pass any legislation at all.

You are right about one thing: Obama is not King. He can't pass laws -- that is Congress's job. He can't change laws, either. He has no magic scepter. His is the Executive function, and the Commander in Chief, and stuff like that. But there is a whole lot of shit he CANNOT DO WITHOUT CONGRESS.

And then there is the Intelligence gathering branch of government --> BUSH/CHENEY'S LEGACY in its current iteration <-- which apparently runs semi-autonomously, like a 4th branch of government. CONGRESS is going to have to untangle this rat's nest. But the Repubs in Congress seem to only be interested in rat-f***ing, which is dirty tricks as done by Tricky Dick Nixon.

As for bequeathing power to all his successors, Obama quite recently TOLD CONGRESS TO SCALE BACK some of the powers of his office. Congress is the entity that has to do that, since they expanded the powers of the office to oblige BUSH/CHENEY.

[Kolesar]

19. You should go underground and get off the internet if you are so concerned

about being tracked.
I was about all the facebook posts about taking away our privacy electronically .

[grantcart]

4. Your points are well taken.

One of the difficult parts of the entire recent controversy is that it is being said that it has been, in the past, a very valuable tool. Unfortunately we don't have access to the information that would show exactly what threats have been stopped. That leaves us with a tool that looks at trends in communications to isolate foreign terrorists on one side of the equation with nothing on the other side to show its value.

Now having said that other collateral items have come out that validate a reasonable discussion about the general problem of security and civil liberties.

1) You are right about Obama/Biden being trustworthy. It is interesting to note that Edward Snowden revealed the plan on the basis of theoretical (this could be done, that could happen) without any evidence that any individual American had been abused.

The problem is how would you feel with this type of power in the hands of a Michelle Bachmann/Ted Cruz type of administration. So I don't think raising the issue is without merit. What is the oversight involved? For me it raises more important questions about Congress than it does the President.

After this controversy dies down there will still be an enormous national security apparatus in place. Is Congress doing its job in providing oversight? If you are worried about the misuse of national security apparatus then vote out every Republican and ask questions of Democrats in power.

2) The other problem that it has revealed is the question of waste.

Edward Snowden a person of some intelligence, limited education and questionable judgment (his move to Hong Kong) makes in excess of $ 200,000 a year.

A surgeon working for the VA makes only $ 160,000.

One of the problems of using sub contractors for this type of work is that it is on a cost plus basis. Their profit margin is based on a percentage of their expenses. They are incentivized to increase expenditures.

Also there is a question about efficacy. We know that Al Queda adapts. The government says that once revealed the program is worthless. Certainly AQ has known for years that its communication is easily tracked and has adapted to it. We continue to make tanks for a WWII type conflict. Once these programs get institutionalized they are very difficult to stop.

Because there is so little transparency there is no outside pressure to question the efficacy of any particular program, unlike the defense budget where wasted expenditure on tanks and submarines that will never be used can be easily identified.

It may well be that the President has decided to focus on passing the immigration bill and in a politically paranoid environment that makes mountain ranges over mole hills (Benghazi) is limiting himself to getting the big things passed.

So while I agree with you that people on the internet who are equating the US to a totalitarian state are ridiculous it doesn't mean that all of the questions raised are without merit. I also suspect that the President doesn't mind that some of these questions are being raised.

I am not unhappy that DU is a place that raises questions. My advice to fellow BOGgers is to ignore those who are affected by ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) and enter into useful conversations with those who have legitimate concerns.

It is useful to note that President Eisenhower issued a warning about the entrenched Military bureaucracy on the eve of leaving the Presidency but didn't find it useful to launch a full scale reform effort in the 8 years he was President. Perhaps he would not have been unhappy to see a grass roots effort to question the amount of resources that went to the military during that time.

[madamesilverspurs]

6. Thanks, grantcart.

I do believe that rational evaluation, discussion and oversight are certainly warranted.

It is sad, really, that setting one's hair on fire is somehow now demanded as a mark of devotion to best practices.

[grantcart]

7. Perhaps using "setting one's hair on fire" as pejorative may not be helpful in bridging chasms

although I am sure that I have used it at times out of frustration myself.

It does reveal the extraordinary character and class of the President that he doesn't respond in like or kind to the constant river of hate and opposition that he has faced from the very first second he took his oath.

How he doesn't just unload on Issa and McConnell is beyond me.

His calm and measured approach, and his willingness to look past the emotional nonsense continues to amaze me.

[ucrdem]

10. LOL.

Never saw a bigger bunch of low-information swing voters in one place. And they fall for the ratfuck every single time.

[Cha]

11. Well said, madame..

So glad I learned about the big picture long enough ago that it helped steer my own life in a better direction.

And, that's what Pres Obama and VP Biden are doing for our country.

[Major Hogwash]

12. It seems to me that a lot of those whiners would have been happier than hell if Romney would've won

. . . last year.

Then they could bitch their asses off and say, "See, told ya so, Obama was 'One and Done' just like the Republicans said he would be."

If Romney were President now, the NSA program would have been expanded, and the FISA court would go back to being ignored, because that is what Bush did for all of those years after he got in to the White House!!

So, those kids can stay and make as many mud pies as they want to, but they are the ones that are going to have to eat them.

[Cha]

16. Oh yeah, they'd find some

way to bring a negative insult on Pres Obama into the discussion about what a "fascist" mittload is.

"That Obama..he wasn't any better." "It was Obamacare that did him in.. if only he had waved that magic wand 3 times while saying "Single Payer"!

[Andy823]

20. I couldn't agree more

To many people are ready to jump on the bandwagon, the "Obama's fault" bandwagon, every time some new "fake" scandal comes out. The don't need "facts", nope those facts just get in their way. They "know" it's Obama's fault simply because. I have seen way to many posts where people asked for some "facts" to back up their claims against the president, and so far no facts have been produced, just a lot of double talk to get out of answering the question.

The same people are the ones accusing the "other side" of being drones who simply follow their leader no matter what. They can't seem to understand that other people have a different view than they do because even with not "facts" the "know" they are right and anyone on the other side is wrong.

Funny thing is that over the years it seems to be pretty much the same crowd that sets their hair on fire long before any "facts" are put out, and even then they deny the facts and continue on till the next "scandal" comes up when they once again jump back on the anti Obama band wagon.

[IrishAyes]

21. It's a lot more fun to set fire to GOP hair(balls).