The bush-men were stoopid, but these guys are plain evil.

drawing a distinction between collecting such data on every citizen and actually using that surveillance

That's small comfort.

Consider the case of Christine O'Donnell. On the day she announces her run for Senate in Delaware, a person in the Delaware state government accesses her IRS files thru a back-channel supposedly only for official business. Shortly after that it is announced that there is an IRS lien being placed on property she no longer owns.

Fast forward 3 years, when Congress becomes aware of this breach, and suddenly the IRS no longer has records relevant to whom in the Delaware government accessed those files. Sorry, the dog ate our records, swearsies.

The object lesson: if the data is collected, someone will use it. Even if illegally, because they know the system will try to protect its own.

Another example is Joe the Plumber, whose only crime was asking a presidential candidate uncomfortable questions. And yet, someone leaked out details on his life.

Don't think it won't happen to you? wait until you show up on someone's radar.

"How many of you who voted for him still find him "better than Bush"?"

The better question would be...is he better than McCain? Sadly, I don't think so.

"The better question would be...is he better than McCain? Sadly, I don't think so."

Cold comfort, isn't it? Sigh. Cnet had an article yesterday, reporting on some info that Reuters(?) had obtained from the Justice Department. Basically, it says that the Department does not consider any form of electronically stored or transmitted data to be protected by the Fourth Amendment, at all. They dug up several examples in which federal prosecutors have been successful in obtaining the contents of emails and other private messages without a warrant, even after a 2010 federal appeals court ruling that barred them from doing so.

Or perhaps he's simply considering deaths resulting from both terrorist attacks and car accidents unfortunate and said it badly?

And perhaps idiots are attempting to make political hay out of a minor gaffe?

Please, there much more delectable tidbits if you want to attack the President. On another message board, someone asked if there was anything that truly embarrassed us about the President. So, I replied that while there was many things about this President to be outraged and angry over, "embarrassed" isn't a word I would use to describe how I feel about the president, except in one case:

His effusive and sickening rhapsodizing of Trayvon Martin (without a single fact at his disposal), sentimentalizing about how, if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon.

Oh, gag me with a chainsaw! (Sorry, was feeling kind of retro.)

Let's hope that the President's hypothetical son would not act like Trayvon Martin, and start pummeling people who commit the damnable crime of following him.

Although his more recent embarrassing hissy fit, refusing to meet with Putin over the Snowden incident, might also qualify as "embarrassing."

But to answer the question, "Do I think he's better than Bush?" Yes. Without question.

"Do I think he would be better than McCain?" No. Never did think he would be.

If Bush had made this "slip of the tongue", the NYT readership would be calling for his head on a stick. Turley's quite the apologist.
So, if Hilary gets elected, will she continue all these policies?

I never considered gaffes to be anything but amusing. Although in some cases, they can be delightfully ironic.

My personal favorites are the ones that people think are gaffes, but aren't gaffes at all.

Funny, yet sad at the same time. I recall a time when someone posted this video on a message board, and the poster was full of shock and outrage over the supposed ignorance Biden displayed. I watched the video, waiting for Biden to do his usual foot-in-mouth display. Instead, after watching the video, I said, "What he said was factually accurate, you imbecile." It was a stupid question, but Biden actually handled it appropriately. (Biden deserves so little credit, but this time, he was correct.)

If you want to get outraged over something Biden said, how about the time he accused the other driver in the accident that killed his wife and children of having "drank his lunch."

The other driver was not drunk. It was an accident and that other driver was not at fault.

"But to answer the question, "Do I think he's better than Bush?" Yes. Without question."

Okay.

How?

'Waste-product, if there was ever an opportunity for you to have a civil exchange with me, you blew it. For now and all time.

Fuck off.

Patrick,

Pretty innocuous comment/question for the response. I'd kinda like to hear the answer as well since it is obvious from your many comments that you hate Bush with the heat of a thousand burning suns.

Hold your breath, caustic one. I don't care whether you're curious about the question or not. Your comment regarding "the heat of the thousand burning suns" (As opposed to what? Suns that just sit there and don't burn?) tells me all too clearly you're not at all interested in the answer.

I was interested in hearing why you dislike him so much but you all too clearly don't have an articulate answer other than to resort to snarkiness. So I'll blow it for now and all time. Fuck Off.

Causticf, thank you.

How many of you who voted for him still find him "better than Bush"?

The members of my family who voted for Obama still think he walks on water, then turns it into a fine Merlot.

And even I would have to say he's better than Bush, a "distinction" he shares with every other President in my lifetime (i.e., since FDR). Obama, after all, didn't create TSA or start any wars on the scale of Iraq.

Rex Little: Obama, after all, didn't create TSA or start any wars on the scale of Iraq.

Thank you. I did want to say this, but there are certain people that I will not dignify with a response.

Blind partisans, like luj and 'Waste-product absolutely foam, spit and gnash over the TSA, and you if you dare refuse to answer their questions on the subject, they will call you a child-molester.

What they seem to forget, or will not admit, is that Bush created the TSA, but somehow, the TSA is proof of Obama's corruption, that he is an evil and dangerous man.

The TSA: "It's only bad if you're Obama."

Bush wiped his ass with the Constitution the day he took office with his "free-speech zones." But that was only the palest foreshadowing of what was to come. And 9/11 gave him license to continue his abuses, on a scale not seen in my lifetime.

He created the TSA, and initiated a war on a nation that never attacked us, solely for the purpose of allowing corporations like Halliburton to pick the coffers clean.

Yep. Bush started the TSA, the Patriot Act and many, many other horrible things. Almost all of which have expanded GREATLY under Obama. Which should mean, logically, that if you hate Bush for starting them you hate Obama that much more for enlarging them.

If you only hate the beginning and not the continuation, well, that doesn't make much sense.

I rather think he actually meant it's unfortunate more people aren't dying from terrosism, deep down inside. Maybe not. Either way, it would have been front page, head of the hour news had Bush said it. He would have been crucified.

I think I prefer his "Gulf cities" gaffe this week, personally. We all know he has NO grasp of geography. Nor do most liberals that support him, either, though, since they thought Palin was being stupid saying you could see Russia from Alaska. And of course, no headlines form that one either.

How has the TSA been expanded under Obama? From what I can see, it was always fondling the unwilling. Or the Patriot Act, for that matter?

And by what logic should you hate the person who supposedly "expanded" these existing programs over the person but for whom they wouldn't have existed in the first place?

Whether the posters on this board admit it or not, the board is quite a bit right of center.

I have heard numerous complaints about the immigration in this country. I point out that Obama already has deported more illegals than Bush has in his entire eight years. Yet, somehow, immigration was not that big of a deal under Bush. Why was Bush deporting enough illegals, but Obama (who has deported more) is not deporting enough?

These are entirely rhetorical questions. I know what the answers are going to be. "Why are you such an Obama supporter?"

Of course, I didn't vote for Obama, either time. But I'm an Obama supporter, because I'm not going to crucify him over stuff that was just peachy-keen for the posters on this blog when Bush was President.

if you hate Bush for starting them you hate Obama that much more for enlarging them.

First, Obama would deserve as much hate as Bush for a given program only if he doubled its size from what it was when Bush left office. If he increased it by, say, 50%, then he'd deserve 50% as much hate.

Second, the above applies only if a President deserves as much blame for enlarging a program as for starting it. I don't think that's fair. Government programs, once started, have a tendency to expand regardless of who occupies the White House. (I believe quite a few non-military spending programs increased under Reagan, for instance, though I don't have figures at hand.)

Please don't take any of this to mean I have any love for Obama. I'm just not quite ready to judge him more harshly than LBJ or Nixon, much less Bush.

My problem with Obama is not the continued denial of the surveillance that was started under Bush, and that Obama probably expanded it.

It's that Obama continues to say the Affordable Care Act is affordable, but is waiving more and more companies, including the delay of the employee mandate. But he didn't request a delay of the individual mandate.

It's that Obama extended executive privilege to the Fast & Furious case as congress was about to get to some decent detail.

It's that Obama and Lerner used the IRS to silence or hold back critics.

It's that Obama supports violating our Second Amendment rights with totally ineffectual laws.

It's that Obama abandoned an ambassador, a charge d'affaires and several special forces members in Benghazi to try and cover up gun running to Syria.

I'm not going to go into the detail of his association with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. I won't count the number of totally redacted pages associated with the most "transparent" administration.

But all of this is just opinion. There are no facts behind it.

No matter how many time you want to blame me Pat, you called yourself a child molester, not me, not Rad, not anyone else

but there are certain people that I will not dignify with a response.

So lets make sure I list them so they can tell I wont dignify them with a response.

Seriously Patrick, that game was old when we played it as petulant children decades ago

>>Yep. Bush started the TSA, the Patriot Act and many, many other horrible things. Almost all of which have expanded GREATLY under Obama. Which should mean, logically, that if you hate Bush for starting them you hate Obama that much more for enlarging them.

Obama's first platform was for change. A few of us who were completely disgusted by the previous Bush administration, thought Obama's change would be to roll back the shit pushed through by Bush. Obama just ran with the ball and betrayed us. I did not vote for Obama a second time. And I still feel he is betraying us, the American people.

"I don't care whether you're curious about the question or not."

And that friends, is pretty much what you need to know. The question differs with who asks it, you see - exactly as with questions of public officials about any of their policies.

When I first advised lujlp that I would be no longer responding to him (which he took as license to call me a pedophile without being challenged on it), you said, I quote, "Can I get in on this deal?"

If you don't want me to respond to you, why would you ask me questions? Wouldn't that be rather stupid?

Amy, since Obama took office this is my take on his hope/change platform: The only change I see is sitting in the bottom of my purse and I hope I can hang onto that!

"How has the TSA been expanded under Obama? "

IIRC, the expansion into other venues besides air travel has happened mostly under Obama. Stuff like highway travel and sports stadiums. And although a lot of people aren't aware of this, the use of flight restrictions has greatly increased under Obama. Hardly a day goes by now that I don't look at the day's TFRs and see a few dozen, around the country, labeled "VIP". The two Disney parks in the U.S. have more or less permanant no-fly zones over them. Stuff like that.

Hey, Mohammed started the policy of owning women. So today's Muslim's are A-OK continuing the practice, even if they escalate it.

We wouldn't want to be inconsistent. And it's so much easier doing nothing about someone who isn't around any more.

You know Pat for a guy who never responds to what I write, you seem to respond to everything I write.

Also again, the only one to call you a pedophile was you. I just said you support the government goons molesting children. Which you do. If you think that makes you a pedophile by proxy all you have to do is stop agreeing with the actions of the TSA.

Crella, Elle, you want to know why I went so over the top?

Patrick does nothing to protest the TSA or roadside cops conducting cavity searches on the side of the road without bothering to change gloves between probing one woman's ass and the next woman's vagina.

But he went completely ape shit over the fact that people filming movies where the actors wearing ski masks and threatening people with machine guns have to get a permit and let the local cops know they arent using real guns.

So yeah I thought such a monumental disconnect needed to be debased as thuroughly and shockingly as possible.

Casue really, I ask you, who goes nuts about film permits to warn cops that those arent real guns, and if perfectly fine with the sexual assault of millions of americans (including children) for no reason what so ever?

... or objects strenuously to a police threat to search a roadside vehicle, yet does not object to patdowns at the airport by non-police?

This cognitive dissonance is apropos for someone who cannot answer, "In what mode of travel is your Constitutional right preserved?"

Honestly, there's been so MUCH noise afterwards, there may have been an answer and I missed it. Likewise for Mike Hunter, asked the same question.

Waste-product, I never told you how I felt one way or another about the TSA. You feel you have the right to assume.

Probably because you can't stand the thought of someone not giving you their opinions when you demand them. Sounds like a massive control issue. You do not know how I feel about what the TSA does, and I'm not going to tell you, because I choose not to discuss it here. As is my right.

I love the contradiction of this statement: "Also again, the only one to call you a pedophile was you. I just said you support the government goons molesting children..."

So, someone who supports molesting children is not a pedophile. Congratulations. You just made this blog's stupidest and most illogical poster of all.

Also, Waste-product, there is a world of difference between "cannot" and "will not."

I am perfectly capable of answering your question. But I will not. Nor will I enter any discussion with you, because I do not respect you, or your opinions. You are a liar and wannabe-bully.

Actually you already did Patrick:

It just amazes me that TSA still exists...this is a plain violation of our civil rights, yet because they made an attractive offer to our government, they went right ahead and gave them this contract.

Past time for the government to admit they screwed up and cut their losses, and kick TSA to the curb. -- Patrick at April 26, 2011 8:20 AM

But since then you have been all over the board. So do you stand by what you said then, or have you changed your mind?

Patrick is twelve. That's what I get from his posts.
Impassioned, CERTAIN he is meaningful, wondering why he isn't understood and pouting whenever asked what he means.
See the name-calling? That's what kids do.

How is Bush worse than Obama? Because he said so, that's all.

Thought 1. The TSA is n ot an independent contracter, they work directly cfor the governemnt doing exactly as the governemnt dictates. THey made no offers

Thought 2. I obviously missed that post so I owe Patrick an apology in some regard assuming he still believes this

Thought 3. Patrick owes a few people an apology for refusing to answer whether or not he supports the TSA when people asked as he apparently used to be willing to

Thought 4. Is the reason Patrick no longer shares his opinion because he changed it?

Thought 5. Dont anyone bother asking as Patrick will get mad and start ignoring you