They’re discussing the Syria situation now. Obama is throwing cold water on the notion that the US will escalate in any significant way. He said everyone should be reluctant to rush into another Middle Eastern war since we know how that turns out.
Now discussing China. Stand by for Snowden!
Obama on the security state: “Let’s examine current surveillance practices and make sure we’re making the right trade offs.” Invoked concepts in recent speech on rethinking perpetual war footing.
Obama: I have no problem with what NSA is doing. On FISA court’s 100% approval rate: There are a small number of requests, and investigators don’t request warrants without reasonable suspicion. Congress has oversight.
Says he has convened privacy panel, including “fierce civil libertarians,” and wants to have a national conversation about it. When asked if Snowden’s leak caused damage, Obama deflected on the specifics but said the government needs some leeway to conduct counter-terrorism, hacking, etc., investigations.
Obama on the charge that he is Bush Lite: We ended “enhanced interrogation” and put checks and balances in place. But there are folks on the left who are not going to be satisfied, and that’s a healthy thing. This debate wouldn’t be taking place five years ago, and “I welcome it…it’s important to have critics out there checking government power.”
Obama on our biggest challenge now: Economy doesn’t work for everyone. Could lead to second rate status if we don’t address it.
Climate gets a shout out! But back to growing inequality. Trend line is continuing, partly due to globalization and technology, but must be addressed. Will focus on it for remainder of presidency and focus on that in addition to making sure no one blows us up (last part is pretty exact quote).
And that’s it…Rose wishes Obama a Happy Father’s Day in pre-recorded interview. They shake, and it’s over. Conclusion: History’s greatest monster!
*An exaggeration: Mild tipsiness at the worst.
rda909
Botsplainers Unite!
Jay C
President Obama is drunk-blogging? On Charlie Rose?
Poopyman
@Jay C: No, silly. Charlie Rose is drunk blogging
onat the POTUS.Jim, Foolish Literalist
no no no
Obama surrendered to Clinton-McCain. A man ran through my virtual neighborhood naked and smeared in beagle-poop screaming that it was so.
I gather MoDo was also calling for “Barry” to bomb Syria into peace.
Chris
This is like that time he didn’t say he was going to take people’s guns away, and then he proceeded to not take anyone’s guns away, and that was the smoking gun proving that he was TOTALLY coming for our guns.
WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!
Xecky Gilchrist
Not that any of this will stop the confirmation-bias-addled ‘baggers of whatever stripe from shitting their pants.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Chris: I think you just summed up the last 5 years of US politics. Sigh.
MikeJ
Walk without rhythm and it won’t attract the worm.
Narcissus
@MikeJ: You ever try to actually do that I mean it is tough stuff
the Conster
All the NSA intelligence in the world can’t save your Blackhawks now, NObama – bwaaaahaaaaahaaaa!
Chris
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Oh, it was nothing, really.
ETA: Hopefully, the history books will remember what got accomplished (passing the ACA, getting Bin Laden and recovering instead of dipping into the austerian disaster that’s happened in the EU) and all the bullshit will fall by the wayside (after all, people nowadays remember MLK, not George Wallace). I’ll definitely remember the bullshit, though.
Xenos
@MikeJ: Very droll.
Little Boots
obama is being dragged into another stupid war. he better shut this shit down, quickly.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Little Boots: Which other war did he get dragged into?
LesGS
@MikeJ:
For a flying Christopher Walken. Listen to the lyrics.
Betty Cracker
@Little Boots: If you mean Syria, I agree it would be a mistake to get dragged into it, but from his comments tonight (and the tepid statements the admin has been putting out through lower level peeps since Friday), it doesn’t appear Obama has any intention of seriously getting involved. Looks like posturing to push a political settlement. We’ll see, I guess, but I am reassured for now.
Little Boots
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
didn’t mean that.
meant, we as a nation have fallen into two stupid wars in the past 10 years, and now, obama is on the brink of another. he is smart enough to know how stupid that is, and has got to head this shit off. quickly.
MikeJ
@LesGS: Actually I was just watching The Work of Spike Jonze and the line seemed appropriate. Of course I’m closer to the thread title than Frau Cracker is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
has anyone seen a break down on which Senators attended the NSA briefing and which ones skipped out?
David Koch
This proves he’s Worst than Bush11!11!11!
Odie Hugh Manatee
“But there are folks on the left who are not going to be satisfied, and that’s a healthy thing.”
In some cases, namely the sane and intelligent. In others it feeds into their paranoid conspiracy theories and there isn’t a damned thing you can do to satisfy them short of acceding to their every demand.
Culture of Truth
I was just liveblogging that on twitter!
Culture of Truth
Rose begged him to go into Syria, cut the debt and re-appoint Ben Bernanke.
David Koch
@Culture of Truth: link or it didn’t happen
Little Boots
@Culture of Truth:
maybe he’ll appoint paul krugman.
oh, how we laughed.
rda909
EXCLUSIVE video of Glenn E. Snowald celebrating tonight, now that they’ve made the President have to refer to them by name, thanks to the complicit media:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl_NpdAy3WY
And that’s really all this non-story is about (wow, countries spy on each other, and even surveil citizens after getting warrants to do so…who knew?!?). It’s all about Edward G. Greenden’s sad, lonely soul finally feeling validation, for once in his life.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve looked high and low and wasn’t able to find a list. Some local papers called out their deadbeat reps, but that’s about it.
Well, what can you expect when a meeting is scheduled for Thursday afternoon! It would be cruel to expect them to work more than 3-1/2 days.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Little Boots: OK.
As far as I can tell, he seems to be doing a pretty good job of not being dragged in. For all of his flaws on hoping the Republicans will suddenly decide to grown up, he seems to act, with regard to foreign policy, like he knows he’s the one who has to decide and to live with his decisions. I haven’t seen much where his decisions regarding other nations are influenced by Boenher, McCain, or Bill Clinton.
Suffern ACE
@Culture of Truth: really? You know nothing is stopping him from buying a Greek sub and sending it to Syria.
Little Boots
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
and hopefully he won’t be, but the neocons have a wedge. and they will not stop until there’s a war.
he needs to shut it down, firmly.
and soon.
these people are cockroaches and never stop burrowing. obama gets that, but he can be so damn accommodating sometimes.
Keith
It actually kind of happened about 7 years ago, when a whistleblower said that AT&T let the NSA have access to their servers via a dedicated room in the switchboard building. The debate lasted about 5 minutes (without about that much news coverage) and ended when Congress granted immunity to companies doing this.
Betty Cracker
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I think Obama went out of his way to politely brush back the idea that McCain or Clinton had any influence whatsoever. When asked about that issue, he said nobody who hasn’t been in the Situation Room and looked at the information has a clue what’s going on. He also specifically acknowledged that the US has no business getting in the middle of a sectarian conflict and that there are terrorist shitheads on both sides.
David Koch
If the NSA is so scary omnipotent, why can’t they find Jimmy Hoffa?
David Koch
@Keith: as you know, when it comes to media debating any issue, IOKIYAR
Little Boots
@David Koch:
damn gravediggers and their omerta
Suffern ACE
@David Koch: Clapper has cuff links made from Emilia Erhart’s teeth. Does that count?
David Koch
@Suffern ACE: that’s gonna be a shock to Emilia Erhart’s family, as it was Amelia Earhart who was FDR’s reconnaissance spy, who was also banging Gore Vidal’s dad.
Little Boots
@David Koch:
it always comes back to gore vidal.
mk3872
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: MoDo literally called Obama a “wussie” in her classic Sunday screed saying that only REAL MEN get her presidential seal of approval when they are unflinching in attacking another country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mk3872: well, she got that word from Bubba, who used it to suck up to John McCain. That man is gonna make it hard for me to support his wife, assuming, etc. I will, but I know he’s gonna piss me off at least once a month. Her, too, I suspect.
David Koch
The whole DC notion that Obama was pushed by clinton is ridiculous as Obama refused to listen to Clinton when he said Romney shouldn’t be attacked for vulture capitalism and recommending extension of the bush’s tax cuts for the rich.
Remember it’s well known Obama’s advisers (including Biden/Clinton) told him not to do healthcare, not to do DADT, not to do contraception, and not to raid bin Laden’s compound. Ironically, even Biden told the president not to support gay marriage because it would hurt them in older states like Ohio.
Little Boots
@David Koch:
biden said that? is there a source?
David Koch
@Little Boots: I heard Jonathan Alter say it.
Suffern ACE
@mk3872: I do not believe that we have ever been subjected to a Hezbollah attack. Maybe in Lebanon, but I don’t know if they even existed back When we tried to be “peacemakers” and take sides at the same time in a civil war.
And while the Nigerians apparently rounded up some the other week who may or may not have been plotting something, I hope Modo realizes that whomever controls them has been keeping their focus on their specific concern and not on some global war.
Her failings as a human are one of our big problems. We need a way to make her feelings irrelevant.
Another Halocene Human
If Obama really pushes on economic inequality he will not only usher in a decade of Democratic dominance, he might actually become a real liberal, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Mike in NC
I just hope that Obama refuses to sit down with fucking Bill O’Reilly in the future, since that cocksucker always likes to feel sorry for the guy who he thinks is in over his head.
Another Halocene Human
@the Conster: I feel so bad for my Chi-town relatives, but, gahh, not even love is going to make me root for the Blackhawks.
Another Halocene Human
@mk3872: ugh, won’t somebody order her a Hello Kitty back massager, postage paid?!
David Koch
@Another Halocene Human: repealing DADT, supporting gay marriage, passing Matthew Sheppard Hate crimes law, opposing DOMA, passing Lilly Ledbedder, eliminating pre-existing conditions and rescission, excutive orders on the Dream act, ending torture, terminating banks from student loans, rescuing the auto industry, appointing more women to the court then all his predecessors, raising the gas mileage standards to 54.5 mpg, and withdrawing from Iraq makes you a fake liberal?
Carolinus
Here’s video of the interview:
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12981
Chris
@Suffern ACE:
The embassy and Marine barracks bombings were Hezbollah, or a nascent version of it, if memory serves, heavily supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. That’s all I can think of, though.
Interestingly, from what I’ve read about them, Hezbollah seems to have an even better and more comprehensive global network than al-Qaeda does. They’re just much smarter about using it.
Kropadope
@David Koch: Where’s the unicorn that rectally excretes free health care?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Chris: It was actually “Islamic Jihad” who carried out the Marine barracks bombing, though it appears that they are considered a precursor to Hezbollah, which didn’t exist yet at the time.
srv
But what does Peggy Noonan think?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Kropadope: Max Baucus and Harry Reid have a special dungeon under the Capitol where they have it chained up.
Amir Khalid
Off topic, but The HAZE is back in South-east Asia. The usual cause: out of control forest fires in Indonesia, caused by illegal jungle clearing. Not as bad, yet, as the big one in 1997-98. But people here can expect to have filter masks, like you’d wear in a dusty work environment, issued to them at work.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That Bailey’s isn’t as strong as it used to be, and that’s a shame. And that when the lights were off, Jeff Greenfield was twice the anchor Peter Jennings was.
eric
@srv: assumes facts not in evidence
Chris
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
The theory of one of the CIA analysts I’ve read was that “Islamic Jihad Organization” was a moniker the Iranian Revolutionary Guards came up with in whose name they claimed terrorist operations. Which is also possible.
It was the early eighties, that whole Shi’a movement was still just getting off the ground.
David Koch
@Kropadope: see, that’s what you do, you move the goal posts.
Next you’ll want free ice cream coming out of your cable modem.
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
@Amir Khalid: I was hoping the HAZE was some hip Malaysian alt weekly that had hired you to write movie reviews. It looks dreadful.
rda909
@Suffern ACE: “nothing is stopping him from buying a Greek sub”
I think first he wants to spanakopita that Ass-ad first.
Amir Khalid
@Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound:
Dreadful enough to deserve the all-caps, sure.
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
I’m really not going to be comfortable that Syria will go well, assurances that our role will be tiny aside. It might help if someone, anyone, from the “this war could suck donkey’s” side were writing regularly in the papers. Is there a single columnist at the times, post, time magazine, the weekly reader or the daily planet who aren’t just thrilled at the prospect of another intervention?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound:
Tweety is ranting against it also.
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
@Amir Khalid: I guess it could be worse. You could have to wear a mask, use Visine 3 times a day and be forced to leave your house to watch the 300 sequel.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid: I was on Skype earlier today with friends who just moved to Iskandar (Johor region of Singapore) for the next year, and they were talking about the fires and haze from Indonesia. Don’t know whether filter masks are standard issue for them where they are. They’re going to K.L. In a few days, but I think just for the weekend.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: Ugh, that’s nasty. I hope you can take proper precautions yourself (indoor air filtration, etc), and that the experience of the 1997/98 disaster helps the proper authorities get things under control quickly!
And since everything is interconnected… as I recall, the travelling aftereffects of that last HAZE ended up affecting America’s west coast after six? nine? months — Juicers in CA, check your mudslide policies, even if you can’t smell the woodsmoke you’ll notice the torrential downpours.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
@SiubhanDuinne:
Had not clicked on your link when I sent #67 but I now see the article is about Singapore. Hadn’t realized how bad it is, but it’s been 15+ hours since I talked to my friends and I suspect the haze has gotten much worse since then.
Echoing other commenters’ wishes for you to stay safe and well throughout this.
xian
the idea that any of Obama’s options on Syria are “good” or will “end well” is sort of ludicrous
Triassic Sands
@Chris:
Holy shit! Where the hell ARE my guns?
Damn the Kenyan usurper.
Kropadope
@David Koch:
That would be nice….
Matt McIrvin
That “national conversation” formulation really doesn’t work here. The only reason there’s a national conversation is Snowden’s leaks! Presumably he doesn’t want such leaks to occur, so in his ideal world, how do we have the national conversation about something that nobody knows about? How do we have the national conversation about the stuff we still don’t know about now?
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: This is nobody’s ideal world.
Keith G
Even on Balloon Juice?
NickT
@Matt McIrvin:
So you’d rather we had no conversation at all?
Kropadope
@Matt McIrvin:
If you think Snowden’s leaks revealed anything, you weren’t paying much attention.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: They may not have revealed much, if any, new information, but they did jumpstart interest in the topic. Given that, I think we should start trying to figure out where the appropriate balance between privacy and security should be.
Betty Cracker
@Keith G: As far as I’m concerned, yes. Not that anything said on Balloon Juice amounts to a fart in a whirlwind as far as an actual effect on “government power” is concerned…
MomSense
April 22nd on Fox Business Rand said this.
“I have never argued against any technology being used against having an imminent threat, [or] an act of crime going on,” Paul said, referring to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and 50 dollars in cash I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”
MomSense
@MomSense:
I need more coffee. This was supposed to be on the Rand thread. WTF? Need more sleep or caffeine.
MomSense
@Little Boots:
Even the “announcement” about arming Syrian rebels was really old news. Biden admitted as much in the VP debate with Marathon Man.
Matt McIrvin
@Kropadope: As I said in an earlier thread, they didn’t reveal anything particularly surprising, but the fact that they were surprising to so many people was kind of disturbing, and suggests that secrecy is suppressing the public pushback that needs to happen if surveillance isn’t to become abusive.
Keith G
@NickT:
I am thinking that your interpretation is off the mark. I figured that Matt was indicating that it is hard to have a conversation when one side seems to have little desire to be open, or indeed even show a desire to initiate said conversation.
As OO typed just above,
A beginning point would be to have more reliable information on the table, as “balance” implies a weighing of information..