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I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship and egocentric control-freakism. Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely

by kunai 13y ago

I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship and egocentric control-freakism. Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely? He is part of the problem, and it's this "us vs. them" attitude in government that never lets us have any progress at all. Instead of trying to advance his party or career, he should have used this opportunity to illustrate how NSA and IRS should both be surveyed equally if the spying is justified. But, no. He's just being a Grade-A politician, trying to claw at the Democratic party and trying to make an example out of them. I have lost respect for what he is trying to accomplish, if not because it's shameful and disgusting. Before anyone accuses me of left-right bias, I support third-party efforts and am independent.

baddox 13y ago
Welcome to politics. I've been burned several times having a political conversation where it appears I'm in agreement with the other guy, only to realize later that the other guy only "agrees" with me because what I'm saying happens to make his side look good.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mtgx 13y ago
I know what you're saying, but ever since this started, I immediately thought of Nixon and Watergate. This scandal deserves to be as big as Watergate, so then we should see everything, and all docs related to this should be declassified. Enough of this "we should know everything about you, but you can't know anything about us - so trust us".
- shardling 13y ago
  Watergate was unambiguously targeting rival political parties. That's why it was such a big deal. Nothing that's come to light so far is on that type of level. No matter how strongly you think the government is overstepping its bounds, it's at least possible for reasonable people to think they were justified.
  - jalanco 13y ago
    Watergate was about a group of powerful political elites targeting a rival group of powerful political elites. The present IRS scandal is about powerful political elites targeting nearly powerless regular citizens who were trying to organize, and in many cases prevented, or very significantly delayed, from doing so. So yeah, the IRS scandal is worse than Watergate.
    - shardling 13y ago
      1. The IRS thing is completely separate from the NSA stuff, and the comment I responded to was discussing the NSA. 2. The IRS stuff is also way more complicated than it seems. They're supposed to target political organizations, because they don't qualify for the tax-exempt status. And there was really only one large political movement forming new organizations in that time frame. I haven't seen any actual ( as opposed to speculative) connection to the "political elites" yet. Everything I've read points to institutional laziness rather than a politically instigated targeting. Now, I'm not saying these things shouldn't be investigated! But claiming that they should currently be as big a scandal as Watergate doesn't sit right with me. It diminishes just how fucked up Watergate was.
      - protomyth 13y ago
        "They're supposed to target political organizations, because they don't qualify for the tax-exempt status." This is untrue given that the former Obama campaign organization converted (and was approved) to change to a 501(c)4 and has the mission of advocating his 2nd term agenda. This was political targeting just like what FDR did many years ago. Who actually approved it is the question.
        shardling 13y ago
        By "political" I really meant "involved in elections". (Which the organization you mention no longer is.) Sorry, sloppy language on my part.
danielweber 13y ago
Opposition parties are essential for clawing at the scandals of the other side. You can't count on them for "truth," but that doesn't make them useless.
shailesh 13y ago
"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians." - Charles de Gaulle
dpearson 13y ago
This subpoena has nothing to do with PRISM; it's really more of an effort to link the White House to the IRS targetting of conservative groups (which was apparently just an agent running amok). Ultimately, though, there's the classic adage about the president: "The buck stops here." If Obama was aware of PRISM (which I have to believe he did), then he also had the choice of stopping it. The same is true of the IRS scandal. Even if he did not (unlike Nixon) direct the programs, knowing about them and not stopping them (again, if true; I really don't know) is tantamount to running them.
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
This is congress. They could repeal the patriot act and be done with it and start passing laws to limit the NSA's power. Oh right, instead the GOP will pin this on the president for short-term gain while we all suffer from long-term loss.
Goladus 13y ago
Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely? He's a republican, and Obama set himself up for this by defending the NSA.
- krapp 13y ago
  You might as well dispense with the latter half of that sentence.
stfu 13y ago
Politics is not about reasonable arguments. It is about building momentum for a cause. Both, the harassment of political opponents by the IRS as well as the NSA spy policies were run under President Obama's leadership. He is as personally responsible for these things - just as much as is President Bush was for the Iraq war. Both are extremely resistant to admit any wrong doings except for some half hearted apologies without any consequences. I am all for bashing partisanship when it is based on making mountains out of molehills (in my view the Benghazi story was one of these). But the IRS and NRA cases demonstrate that the United States under the presidency of Obama is using intimidation tactics and intensive surveillance mechanisms that are up-to-par with paranoid third world dictatorships. His line of If he [President Obama] has nothing to hide he has nothing to be afraid of. is exactly hitting home on the hypocrisy of the Obama administration that once campaigned on transparency and accountability.
- AmericanOP 13y ago
  IRS scandal wasn't a scandal. The only evidence the WH was involved are partial transcript (cherry-picked) vague quotes from junior staffers (literally: "told by a supervisor that "Washington, D.C., wanted some cases."), while the true source of the audits has been identified as decidedly not-Obama: http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-takes-credit-tea-party-150337890.html http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-ta.... All of this is completely ignoring the completely legitimate reasons for auditing these clearly political groups in the wake of Citizens United. Just like how Fast & Furious was in no way a scandal, but a symptom of Arizona's lack of gun laws. Law enforcement was unable to arrest or even restrict people linked to cartels as they purchased weapons- the best they could do was keep track of serial numbers. There was no gun running, but that didn't stop Republicans from fabricating another 'scandal:' http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-fast-and-furious-investigation#axzz2W8TQ9U44 http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-fast... Even this article should clue you in to Issa's obvious political theater for his base. Obama sucks at fighting misinformation, but he is certainly not a dictator.
  - stfu 13y ago
    But don't you see that this "oh, it was some low level employee - how could he know" strategy is getting abused over and over again. Sure, it gives those who want to see innocence the ability to believe in some hypothetical "plausible deniability". If you go down this line of argument with Obama you need to do it equally with Bush: than there was nothing wrong of invading Iraq, because some low level CIA employee foreign intelligence services/some nutty informants were confirming the WMDs. If your intention is to let somebody at the top look good and they are smart enough to have others keep them out of the loop of controversial issues, you can always attach the wrongdoings to some low level figure. But it is in the end like saying the Walmart CEO has absolutely no responsibility of having bad numbers this year, because well, he is not the guy is selling the milk bottles in all the stores.
Daniel_Newby 13y ago
> I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship ... There's a good chance the NSA leak is a gambit by Hillary Clinton's faction to attack the administration. You know, like the IRS leak. Anyway, they are all just responding to incentives. American culture has degenerated into soviet-style communism, which means central committees frittering away resources on intelligence catfights and insane megaprojects. The American people are getting the government they deserve, and they're getting it good and hard.
cscurmudgeon 13y ago
Didn't Obama have this big us vs them attitude during 2008?
- ironic_ali 13y ago
  change you can believe in.
AJ007 13y ago
The problem with secret executive orders, secret courts, secret decisions, secret rulings, secret spying, secret actions taken as the result of the spying -- is that the public, and elected officials, don't know what the hell is going on. A closed society is one where paranoia is both frequent and justified. Dictators spy on their opponents, execute them, and quickly imagine new enemies. Eventually no one trusts anyone. I would suggest that the best way to understand what is going on is to imagine that, but rather than a single individual as dictator, instead a large group of individuals suffering from fear & paranoia. When we think that the NSA is spying on terrorists, then we assume that the NSA is using judgement and discretion, focusing on a narrow vertical of individuals. That is certainly what I believed in the past. When it is disclosed that it goes far beyond terrorists, collects deep meta data on the entire US population while logging all electronic communication on a group of a million or so, our imaginations run wild -- and justifiably so.
newnewnew 13y ago
Sometimes I wish we had a king back. It would be more honest and less corrupt.

by kunai 13y ago

baddox 13y ago

Welcome to politics. I've been burned several times having a political conversation where it appears I'm in agreement with the other guy, only to realize later that the other guy only "agrees" with me because what I'm saying happens to make his side look good.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mtgx 13y ago

I know what you're saying, but ever since this started, I immediately thought of Nixon and Watergate. This scandal deserves to be as big as Watergate, so then we should see everything, and all docs related to this should be declassified. Enough of this "we should know everything about you, but you can't know anything about us - so trust us".

shardling 13y ago
Watergate was unambiguously targeting rival political parties. That's why it was such a big deal. Nothing that's come to light so far is on that type of level. No matter how strongly you think the government is overstepping its bounds, it's at least possible for reasonable people to think they were justified.
- jalanco 13y ago
  Watergate was about a group of powerful political elites targeting a rival group of powerful political elites. The present IRS scandal is about powerful political elites targeting nearly powerless regular citizens who were trying to organize, and in many cases prevented, or very significantly delayed, from doing so. So yeah, the IRS scandal is worse than Watergate.
  - shardling 13y ago
    1. The IRS thing is completely separate from the NSA stuff, and the comment I responded to was discussing the NSA. 2. The IRS stuff is also way more complicated than it seems. They're supposed to target political organizations, because they don't qualify for the tax-exempt status. And there was really only one large political movement forming new organizations in that time frame. I haven't seen any actual ( as opposed to speculative) connection to the "political elites" yet. Everything I've read points to institutional laziness rather than a politically instigated targeting. Now, I'm not saying these things shouldn't be investigated! But claiming that they should currently be as big a scandal as Watergate doesn't sit right with me. It diminishes just how fucked up Watergate was.
    - protomyth 13y ago
      "They're supposed to target political organizations, because they don't qualify for the tax-exempt status." This is untrue given that the former Obama campaign organization converted (and was approved) to change to a 501(c)4 and has the mission of advocating his 2nd term agenda. This was political targeting just like what FDR did many years ago. Who actually approved it is the question.
      - shardling 13y ago
        By "political" I really meant "involved in elections". (Which the organization you mention no longer is.) Sorry, sloppy language on my part.

danielweber 13y ago

Opposition parties are essential for clawing at the scandals of the other side. You can't count on them for "truth," but that doesn't make them useless.

shailesh 13y ago

"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians." - Charles de Gaulle

dpearson 13y ago

This subpoena has nothing to do with PRISM; it's really more of an effort to link the White House to the IRS targetting of conservative groups (which was apparently just an agent running amok). Ultimately, though, there's the classic adage about the president: "The buck stops here." If Obama was aware of PRISM (which I have to believe he did), then he also had the choice of stopping it. The same is true of the IRS scandal. Even if he did not (unlike Nixon) direct the programs, knowing about them and not stopping them (again, if true; I really don't know) is tantamount to running them.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

This is congress. They could repeal the patriot act and be done with it and start passing laws to limit the NSA's power. Oh right, instead the GOP will pin this on the president for short-term gain while we all suffer from long-term loss.

Goladus 13y ago

Why is this Congressman pushing the blame on Obama solely? He's a republican, and Obama set himself up for this by defending the NSA.

krapp 13y ago
You might as well dispense with the latter half of that sentence.

stfu 13y ago

Politics is not about reasonable arguments. It is about building momentum for a cause. Both, the harassment of political opponents by the IRS as well as the NSA spy policies were run under President Obama's leadership. He is as personally responsible for these things - just as much as is President Bush was for the Iraq war. Both are extremely resistant to admit any wrong doings except for some half hearted apologies without any consequences. I am all for bashing partisanship when it is based on making mountains out of molehills (in my view the Benghazi story was one of these). But the IRS and NRA cases demonstrate that the United States under the presidency of Obama is using intimidation tactics and intensive surveillance mechanisms that are up-to-par with paranoid third world dictatorships. His line of If he [President Obama] has nothing to hide he has nothing to be afraid of. is exactly hitting home on the hypocrisy of the Obama administration that once campaigned on transparency and accountability.

AmericanOP 13y ago
IRS scandal wasn't a scandal. The only evidence the WH was involved are partial transcript (cherry-picked) vague quotes from junior staffers (literally: "told by a supervisor that "Washington, D.C., wanted some cases."), while the true source of the audits has been identified as decidedly not-Obama: http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-takes-credit-tea-party-150337890.html http://news.yahoo.com/conservative-republican-irs-staffer-ta.... All of this is completely ignoring the completely legitimate reasons for auditing these clearly political groups in the wake of Citizens United. Just like how Fast & Furious was in no way a scandal, but a symptom of Arizona's lack of gun laws. Law enforcement was unable to arrest or even restrict people linked to cartels as they purchased weapons- the best they could do was keep track of serial numbers. There was no gun running, but that didn't stop Republicans from fabricating another 'scandal:' http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-fast-and-furious-investigation#axzz2W8TQ9U44 http://www.thenation.com/blog/168673/facts-get-way-gops-fast... Even this article should clue you in to Issa's obvious political theater for his base. Obama sucks at fighting misinformation, but he is certainly not a dictator.
- stfu 13y ago
  But don't you see that this "oh, it was some low level employee - how could he know" strategy is getting abused over and over again. Sure, it gives those who want to see innocence the ability to believe in some hypothetical "plausible deniability". If you go down this line of argument with Obama you need to do it equally with Bush: than there was nothing wrong of invading Iraq, because some low level CIA employee foreign intelligence services/some nutty informants were confirming the WMDs. If your intention is to let somebody at the top look good and they are smart enough to have others keep them out of the loop of controversial issues, you can always attach the wrongdoings to some low level figure. But it is in the end like saying the Walmart CEO has absolutely no responsibility of having bad numbers this year, because well, he is not the guy is selling the milk bottles in all the stores.

Daniel_Newby 13y ago

> I hate how something as interesting as this is ruined by partisanship ... There's a good chance the NSA leak is a gambit by Hillary Clinton's faction to attack the administration. You know, like the IRS leak. Anyway, they are all just responding to incentives. American culture has degenerated into soviet-style communism, which means central committees frittering away resources on intelligence catfights and insane megaprojects. The American people are getting the government they deserve, and they're getting it good and hard.

cscurmudgeon 13y ago

Didn't Obama have this big us vs them attitude during 2008?

ironic_ali 13y ago
change you can believe in.

AJ007 13y ago

The problem with secret executive orders, secret courts, secret decisions, secret rulings, secret spying, secret actions taken as the result of the spying -- is that the public, and elected officials, don't know what the hell is going on. A closed society is one where paranoia is both frequent and justified. Dictators spy on their opponents, execute them, and quickly imagine new enemies. Eventually no one trusts anyone. I would suggest that the best way to understand what is going on is to imagine that, but rather than a single individual as dictator, instead a large group of individuals suffering from fear & paranoia. When we think that the NSA is spying on terrorists, then we assume that the NSA is using judgement and discretion, focusing on a narrow vertical of individuals. That is certainly what I believed in the past. When it is disclosed that it goes far beyond terrorists, collects deep meta data on the entire US population while logging all electronic communication on a group of a million or so, our imaginations run wild -- and justifiably so.

newnewnew 13y ago

Sometimes I wish we had a king back. It would be more honest and less corrupt.