Recent scandals

[Mandalore]

Iz been banned for a lot less than this spat.

[Yanoda]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the 'umbrella scandal' or 'the President bowed to a foreign leader scandal' or 'the corpsmen scandal' yet!

On a serious note.
WD, I have to side with Darth Crater on this. Saying "to watch the news" is a weak argument and using insults will not support your stance in any way - no er how one looks at this.

Thus I would also like to see some links supporting your stance on the issue, otherwise it will just continue like the Creationist (Claims/Assumptions) vs Evolution (Evidence) discussion. Also, if you provided at least one reputable link to support your argument, then you would have spent less time arguing here... unless you have no link to actually support your claims/beliefs/assumptions/accusations.
Also, if you're going to call someone "moron" or "[m'kay] stupid" then at least make sure your grammar and arguments are decent.

Cheers

[MATTHEW'S_DAD]

The Benghazi scandal will continue for the next 3 1/2 years as the original cover up was done so for reelection purposes. So until Barack is gone, it continues as he holds an office that perhaps he shouldn't. For what it's worth, I would NOT like to see him impeached as it would be embarrassing for our country, economically bad, deepen any racial divide and honestly I think Biden scares me more than Barack. I do believe there is just cause for impeachment, but again, I believe the consequences would be devastating.

The same will be said for the IRS scandal as it was purely for reelection purposes.

Look, the point here is the more government is allowed to grow the more of this crap we will see. Government = control, it's natural tendency is to expand and grow. NO government will ever shrink itself on its own. The people have to constantly push back or they will succumb to an unacceptable level of government intervention within their daily lives. The reason you see so much push back right now is because this administration is wielding their power and desire for more power in a very flagrant manner. You can tell a lot about a president by the people he surrounds himself with and this president has surrounded himself with thugs, amateurs and complete incompetence. As you go through life you will meet a multitude of people and this will build your "life experience" that I tend to harp on quite a bit. I rely on this life experience to understand the personalities I see working for this administration and I know they desire growth and power beyond what I FEEL is appropriate. I have no links or data to support this. All I have is 40 years of being here.

Democrats using tools put in place by republicans to invade our privacy and monitor our every move under the guise of "security".

Still believe there is any difference at all between "parties"?

Dad is a wise man.

[MATTHEW'S_DAD]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the 'umbrella scandal' or 'the President bowed to a foreign leader scandal' or 'the corpsmen scandal' yet!

I prefer this....

Obama is a sissy.

[ProfessorDreadNaught]

I wasn't aware that the IRS or Benghazi things were still "going on." You're right that we still need more information about the AP probe; I haven't heard anything more yet though.

The Verizon phone records collection? It's completely lawful. And by "phone records" they mean the time of the call, length, and people involved, not anything spoken during the calls.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22809541

A senior congressman, House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, told reporters that collecting Americans' phone records was legal, authorised by Congress and had not been abused by the Obama administration.

He also said it had prevented a "significant" attack on the US "within the past few years", but declined to offer more information.

Now, if you don't want that to be lawful, feel free to push for the Patriot Act to be repealed.

Matt's original post cited Benghazi, the IRS, AP/Fox and the Verizon revelation as evidence of an over-reaching and unrepentant government. That after having been proven to abuse nearly any power granted it, our government retains those powers and dares anyone to say they shouldn't have it is what he means by "still going on." Duel and WD (et al) point out the current state of apathy of the American people because of (rightly or wrongly) the inability of some to accept what is reported as news because of slant or political affiliation. If you don't like what is reported, switch to another channel who will denounce it as propaganda (rightly or wrongly) or tune out almost entirely (switch to HBO or the BBC). People don't want to think of their government as doing something wrong. Please understand, just by shear inertia, our government is worse than it has EVER been. We are more blind than ever before.

Verizon is an EXCELLENT case. Through Federal rules governing the operation of companies like Verizon, AT&T, Sprint et al. each is required to keep phone record metadata on their own data servers (online or archived) for 5 years for Law Enforcement to be able to search with a court order. Consider the difference between what the known policy is and the secret one revealed by this scandal is. In the past, in order to look at someones phone records to find metadata you had to get a judge to grant you permission, submit a request to the carriers with a search scope as defined by the courts, wait for the response then comb through the information supplied by multiple carriers.

In secret, a group of judges has allowed our government to force the carriers to give up ALL of their customers information to the government to be stored in their own secret system on a perpetual basis. The oversight of which is NONE. Though they are SUPPOSED to make a second request of a judge before looking at and through the database there are no physical barriers to circumventing this minor detail. This database contains a great deal of information a law enforcement official (or political appointee) may want to use to start an investigation which would have otherwise required probable cause to open up.

Again, they are granting themselves in secret, a power we would so stupidly grant them openly. (as evidenced by the Congressman and Senators (and video game players) who have come out defending this program)

I despair of it getting better without bloodshed.

[WD-40]

Iz been banned for a lot less than this spat.

Yeah...That was a bit rough. I was up for close to 24 hours after just getting back from overseas.

Sorry Crater, But based on all that's been going on over the past 5-6 years, nothing surprises me anymore.

On a serious note.
WD, I have to side with Darth Crater on this. Saying "to watch the news" is a weak argument and using insults will not support your stance in any way - no er how one looks at this.

Thus I would also like to see some links supporting your stance on the issue, otherwise it will just continue like the Creationist (Claims/Assumptions) vs Evolution (Evidence) discussion. Also, if you provided at least one reputable link to support your argument, then you would have spent less time arguing here... unless you have no link to actually support your claims/beliefs/assumptions/accusations.
Also, if you're going to call someone "moron" or "[m'kay] stupid" then at least make sure your grammar and arguments are decent.

Cheers

Yep, I shouldn't have, so I apologize for what I said to Crater and how I said it. If I could erase or rewrite it, I would. Got some sleep so here I am.

Back to topic:
I guess the Justice Department admitting the Attorney General did, in fact, sign the affidavit to go after a Journalist(s), after he already denied (under oath) knowing anything about it doesn't count(?) A lot of links to that.

That Top IRS Official Lois Lerner pleading the 5th into what she knows didn't help them in the eyes of the public. If there's nothing to hide, why not tell Congress what they want to know? Maybe she just didn't feel like it?
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-top-irs-official-pleads-5th-amendment-20130522,0,5853268.story


The Cincinnati IRS had a problem with taking orders from Washington DC too, then getting thrown under the bus by Washington IRS burocrats:
http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/02/cincinnati-irs-employee-washington-was-basically-throwing-us-underneath-the-bus/

IRS Chief Shulman paid the Obama White House 157 Visits and Never Mentioned Anti-Right Persecution? That's once every 9 days Obama's been in office. Now just why would the IRS Chief need to go to the White House so often?...Plotting ways to hurt 'The Opposition' for the next election?...Nahhhhh!..Couldn't be!...That's just not Obama's Chicago style of politics

However, That's 3 times more than his 'Cabinet Level' Boss Treasury Secretary Geitner visited. Certainly Obama knew Shulman was there that many times...surely he and Obama must have talked at least once during all those visits about IRS stuff(?)...Shulman certainly had a hard time giving Congress reasons as to why he visited so often...even using his first response as "Taking his kids there for the Easter Egg roll" in a sarcastic way. That is an example of the attitude of this administration. Compare this guy's number of visits to Cabinet Level heads of Departments visits to the White House on the link below (graph). Hmmmm.....I guess he'll come clean to Congress, tell the truth about all that happened and who did or said what regarding the scandal....yeah...sure...

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/irs-commissioner-shulman-visited-obama-white-house-157-times-and-never-discussed-political-targeting/

Even if he was still the IRS Commissioner when the story broke, he would just get fired just for the effect that Obama actually did something about it, fall on his sword, then get rewarded later, like Susan Rice did, making false or inaccurate talking-point statements about Benghazi, then getting rewarded with White House National Security Advisor later.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865581187/Topic-of-the-day-Susan-Rices-expected-nomination-as-national-security-advisor.html?pg=all

I agree, that one has to be careful what they read or hear on the news, as they will sensationalize topics or make 'assumptions' that turn out right or wrong. But with all the things going on, with all the pieces coming out, I believe the Dam is about to bust wide open. Perhaps Obama targeting Journalists might be the straw that broke the camel's back. Maybe, the liberal media is now pissed off enough to report the whole truth instead of burying facts to help protect him. Guess we'll see.

[LordFred]

Government is force.

The only true government is self-government. The only true religion is a private and personal one.

[Duel of Fates]

Just curious if people are enjoying the weather, or afraid anything they post here will end up in a NSA database?

[Son]

Just curious if people are enjoying the weather, or afraid anything they post here will end up in a NSA database?

Little bit of both

[haasd0gg]

Plenty of both. Does Costa Rica have broadband? Thinking about making a move...