The groupies are beginning to sweat:
The Times lays blame on the Patriot Act, and it's a valid point. The Patriot Act should be reconsidered.
But the problem we face now is not merely a consequence of the Patriot Act. It is the consequence of the amoral gangsters who now pull the levers of the Executive branch in our country. The Patriot Act is the assault weapon. The President is the shooter.
Liberals always blame the crime on the implement, rather than the perpetrator.
Obama is an amoral gangster put in office via the invaluable free public relations services provided by The New York Times, Inc. and their clones.
If the NYT editorial board wants to know who to blame for this junta (and people are beginning to understand that it is a junta), they should look in the mirror.
It's time to repudiate the Patriot Act, along with the gangster in the White House who uses it to accomplish political hegemony, along with the reputation of the disgusting liberalpress campaign aides who put him in office.
But give the Grey Lady credit: it's hard to write an editorial in the dark, living as they have for six years deep up in Barack Obama's butt.
President Obama’s Dragnet
Within hours of the disclosure that federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make, regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.
The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers...
Stunning use of the act shows, once again, why it needs to be sharply curtailed if not repealed.
The Times lays blame on the Patriot Act, and it's a valid point. The Patriot Act should be reconsidered.
But the problem we face now is not merely a consequence of the Patriot Act. It is the consequence of the amoral gangsters who now pull the levers of the Executive branch in our country. The Patriot Act is the assault weapon. The President is the shooter.
Liberals always blame the crime on the implement, rather than the perpetrator.
Obama is an amoral gangster put in office via the invaluable free public relations services provided by The New York Times, Inc. and their clones.
If the NYT editorial board wants to know who to blame for this junta (and people are beginning to understand that it is a junta), they should look in the mirror.
It's time to repudiate the Patriot Act, along with the gangster in the White House who uses it to accomplish political hegemony, along with the reputation of the disgusting liberal
But give the Grey Lady credit: it's hard to write an editorial in the dark, living as they have for six years deep up in Barack Obama's butt.
Barack Obama, his gangster associates, and the lackey press are precisely the deadly confluence of megalomania the Founders (a word that may get me an IRS audit) attempted to impede with their brilliant system of checks and balances.
ReplyDeleteSo far, the the system has worked, if somewhat imperfectly at times. We may thank God for the people's selection of legislators and/or executives in the House of Representatives and a number of state houses.
And we may thank God for what remains of the First, and Second Amendments, and the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution. Although the latter has never yet been tested by fire.
And we may thank God for the conservative/libertarian blogosphere, without which the servile "press" would have been able to conceal the crimes and misdemeanors of this Administration.
Now the citizenry needs to move with a tsunami of lawsuits and mass citizen actions to paralyze the Administration. It's past time, and long overdue.
It was fine under Bush though, because he was totally cool, the kind of guy that Egnor would be happy to have a beer with, not like this Kenyan gangsta.
ReplyDelete-KW
Yawn... KW bores us again with still another moral equivalency argument that boosts his sense of self-righteousness. Hey KW, take a moment and read GWU law prof (and uber-liberal) Jonathan Turley's LATimes OpEd " Obama: A disaster for civil liberties."
DeleteToo busy swooning over The Crease in Barry's slacks? Then here's the subtitle: "He may prove the most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties." And this column was dated 9/29/2011.
Poor Barack Obama. Can't even run his own Administration without following the orders of the Great and Powerful Boosh.
DeleteI find it odd because this constant attribution of Boosh causality for every bad thing simply serves to highlight the utter ineffectuality and fecklessness of Barack Obama.
BO (the President, not the dog) is quite clearly not very bright if George W Boosh has outflanked him on every side and continues to do so until this day.
I agree. Obama is a continuation of Bush as far as civil liberties go. What I’m pointing out is the hypocrisy of conservatives horrified by Obama having these powers after they had defended Bush against these same liberal critics who have been consistent all along. Conservatives will flip on an issue in a nanosecond if they think it helps them politically. It’s either faux outrage or they see thing differently when a black man has these powers, probably both.
Delete-KW
Popeye, why are you so obsessed with race? You bring it up over and over, even when it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
DeleteIt is true that Obama was the beneficiary of affirmative action. He said so himself. And he would not have a Harvard Law degree without it.
Frankly, I think America has been pretty good to 'ol BO, all things considered.
Conservatives, on the other hand, shrug it off:
DeleteJohn Podhoretz: No cause for alarm.
Andy McCarthy: Story blown out of proportion.
You, guys, have to figure out where you stand on this.
Hoo
Why do "we" need to figure anything out? Folks holding right-of-center views differ on many issues, ranging from abortion to economics to foreign policy. Why is the privacy issue special?
DeleteI do understand, though, that diversity of thought is an alien concept to many Progressives. Leftist governments have always had "re-education" camps and sought state control over institutions of learning and the press.
Folks holding right-of-center views differ on many issues, ranging from abortion to economics to foreign policy.
DeleteSo do liberals. Surprise!
Hoo
As backfire is wont to say, there is a difference between liberals and Progressives. My comment was concerned the latter.
DeleteAs backfire is wont to say, there is a difference between liberals and Progressives. Note that my comment was directed to the latter.
DeleteAre there any Progressives here that you are addressing? Or are you talking to no one in particular, as usual?
DeleteHoo
Tell you what... I'll answer your question when you answer mine:
DeleteWhy do "we" need to figure anything out?
@KW:
Delete[I agree. Obama is a continuation of Bush as far as civil liberties go.]
You read your memos, for sure. What crap. Bush never prosecuted journalists, he never used the IRS to target Americans who disagreed with him, he never lied about a dead ambassador and three heroes just to get re-elected. Bush had his issues, but he was and is a decent man. Obama is a gangster, as the world is beginning to figure out.
[What I’m pointing out is the hypocrisy of conservatives horrified by Obama having these powers after they had defended Bush against these same liberal critics who have been consistent all along.]
There's some truth in that, but it applies to both sides. On privacy and executive power issues, conservatives are harder on Obama than they were on Bush, even on those matters (the Patriot Act) which 0 and W share in common. Liberals are the mirror image. I supported the Patriot Act strongly, and in many respects I was wrong to do so. I underestimated the evil of government and the harm they could do, especially under the leadership of a gangster. The libertairians were right.
[Conservatives will flip on an issue in a nanosecond if they think it helps them politically. It’s either faux outrage or they see thing differently when a black man has these powers, probably both.]
Keep race-baiting, KW. I need the laugh.
Bush a decent man? An alcoholic philanderer who joked about executing people and who thought jeebus sent him on a crusade that destroyed millions of lives. You sure have a twisted sense of decency.
DeletePhilanderer? Bush?
DeleteDon't you mean Clinton, who lied about sexual assault under oath and was disbarred, and who had a documented history of sexual assault, including a credible accusation of rape?
Regarding Iraq, I think that a very strong argument can be made against going to war, from a strategic and from a moral standpoint. It certainly didn't "destroy millions of lives" in the balance-- Saddam was a prolific killer and war-monger who killed many many more Iraqis than Bush ever did. It's a good bet that Bush substantially saved lives by deposing him.
If Bush's jokes about capital punishment tar his character, what do Obama's political and personal ties to unrepentant terrorist bombers imply for his character?
Even the ACLU has weighed in:
ReplyDelete"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It’s a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents,” Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in a statement. “It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies.
I happen to agree with that, as well as with many (but not all) of the other "causes" taken up by the ACLU. In fact, I think they don't go far enough in some areas, in particular, 2nd Amendment law.
Even the ACLU has weighed in:
ReplyDelete"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It’s a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents,” Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in a statement. “It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."
I happen to agree with that, as well as many of the "causes" taken up by the ACLU. In fact, I think they don't go far enough in some areas. In particular, I think they need to do more in 2nd Amendment law.
Even the ACLU has weighed in:
ReplyDelete"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It’s a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents,” Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in a statement. “It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."
I happen to agree with that, as well as many of the "causes" taken up by the ACLU. In fact, I think they don't go far enough in some areas. In particular, I think they need to do more in 2nd Amendment law.
Even the ACLU has weighed in:
ReplyDelete"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It’s a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents,” Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in a statement. “It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."
I happen to agree with that, as well as many of the "causes" taken up by the ACLU. In fact, I think they don't go far enough in some areas. In particular, I think they need to do more in 2nd Amendment law.
For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants," [Obama] said...
ReplyDelete--- C/NET (1/'08)
Heh.
Obama bows before Boosh the Great and Powerful and his Dark Lord Cheney.
I was astonished to read that the original NYTimes editorial contained this key line: “The administration has now lost all credibility.”
ReplyDeleteWell, by late Thursday evening (about 4 hours later), the editorial had been changed so that the key sentence read, “The administration has now lost credibility on this issue.” There was no note of any correction.
This shenanigan was also noticed by The Huffington Post (see their Update.
There was obviously a call from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and the slaves did what they were told.
Delete