Charlie Savage, in today’s NYTimes:
An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down.
The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.
The report is likely to inject a significant new voice into the debate over surveillance, underscoring that the issue was not settled by a high-profile speech President Obama gave last week. Mr. Obama consulted with the board, along with a separate review group that last month delivered its own report about surveillance policies. But while he said in his speech that he was tightening access to the data and declared his intention to find a way to end government collection of the bulk records, he said the program’s capabilities should be preserved…
The report also sheds light on the history of the once-secret bulk collection program. It contains the first official acknowledgment that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court produced no judicial opinion detailing its legal rationale for the program until last August, even though it had been issuing orders to phone companies for the records and to the N.S.A. for how it could handle them since May 2006…
Defenders of the program have argued that Congress acquiesced to that secret interpretation of the law by twice extending its expiration without changes. But the report rejects that idea as “both unsupported by legal precedent and unacceptable as a matter of democratic accountability.”
The report also scrutinizes in detail a handful of investigations in which the program was used, finding “no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.” …
Ellen Nakashima, at the Washington Post, adds:
… It rejects the reasoning of at least 15 federal surveillance court judges and the Justice Department in saying that the program cannot be grounded in Section 215. That statute requires that records sought by the government — in this case phone numbers dialed, call times and durations, but not call content — be relevant to an authorized investigation.
But the board found that it is impossible that all the records collected — billions daily — could be relevant to a single investigation “without redefining that word in a manner that is circular, unlimited in scope.” Moreover, instead of compelling phone companies to turn over records already in their possession, the program requires them to furnish newly generated call data on a daily basis. “This is an approach lacking foundation in the statute,” the report said…
And while we’re on the topic of getting value for money from our Security-Industrial Complex, a note from UPI:
The Justice Department accused the firm that conducted a background check of U.S. secrets leaker Edward Snowden of defrauding the nation of millions of dollars.
US Investigations Services LLC of Falls Church, Va., methodically filed more than 660,000 flawed background investigations in an alleged “dumping” practice that became the subject of internal jokes, prosecutors said in a civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Ala…
The firm — whose website tagline is “ensuring a safer future today” — is the largest private firm conducting security-clearance background checks for the federal government. The company, with 6,000 employees, handles 45 percent of federal background checks used by the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and more than 100 other federal agencies…
The Justice Department adds to the case, accusing top USIS executives who have since left the company of directing the alleged fraudulent scheme to secure nearly $12 million in bonuses from the federal government, which thought the company was providing checks that had gone through the full review process…
Comrade Scrutinizer
But Snowden is a poopyhead. And the private sector is better than the government for doing things right!
OzarkHillbilly
So, lawyers disagree. This is news? Lawyers are paid to disagree.
OzarkHillbilly
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I had to straighten out yet another billing screw up with my for profit hospital yesterday. I swear to Dog, if I had all the money they lost due to their own f-ups thru bad billing every year, just on my accounts alone, I could retire.
AxelFoley
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Debate is good, as long as it’s grounded in facts. Looking forward to reading the report.
NotMax
As it is an Open Thread, what the hell? Was he brought up under a rock?
Villago Delenda Est
Outsourcing security background checks is, quite frankly, insane.
If you want it done RIGHT, the first time, you don’t rely on those seeking to extract profit from it, because it’s waaaaaay too tempting to cut corners to do so.
You do it in house, with civil servants, who don’t think it’s a great way to extract money from Uncle Sam.
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax:
Do the Brits consider it a capital crime to be that fucking stupid? Do they have death panels to process those who are that fucking stupid?
Poopyman
660,000 flawed BIs? That’s gotta have security officers across the DoD and Intel world wetting their pants. Somebody’s gonna have to go back through all of those BIs and re-vet the candidates, and I’m guessing it’s going to be outsourced.
(Full disclosure: I’m possibly one of the candidates for re-vetting, although the time’s coming up for my periodic poly anyhow.)
Poopyman
On a different, more immediate note: does anyone know how to thaw out the windshield washer systems when it’s 2 degrees outside?
NotMax
@Poopyman
Other than finding a heated garage and parking it there, probably the method with the least chance of damaging the reservoir container and associated little hoses is to run the engine for an extended period and let the heat from that thaw things out, then add a generous helping of windshield washer fluid formulated for colder temps.
gene108
Cold, so cold…and I can’t just stay at home and wait till Spring / Summer…that’s the most frustrating part…
Baud
Virginia AG won’t defend state same-sex marriage ban.
No difference!
Poopyman
@NotMax: Sadly, it sits in a heated garage at work and works fine, but once Mrs. P is on the road (it’s her car w/ the prob) it freezes up again. It doesn’t help that that tiny squirrel under the hood doesn’t out out much heat.
NotMax
Da crazy, it don’t stop.
Steeplejack (tablet)
A new personal record for my time in NoVa: it’s 2° outside. ¡Caramba! I have a good friend in Fairbanks, and my weather page is showing her at 24° right now. I opened the oven on low to boost the heat a little.
Poopyman
@gene108: The kicker is that summers here in Southern MD are high 90s/high humidity, so we’ll be stuck inside again 6 months from now.
The thermometer on the side porch says -2 F.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Not being a lawyer, I have still managed to wade thru a legal brief or 2 over the years. Now I pay the ACLU to do it for me. Much better deal.
And to be honest, I just can’t get all that worked up about this whole NSA mess. The data cat is out of the bag and we aren’t shoving it back in. The old Ella Fitzgerald song comes to mind:
Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let’s do it, let’s collect data
In Spain, the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Latts do it
Let’s do it, let’s collect data
The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Fins
Folks in Siam do it…
Etc etc. Meaning only that, go ahead, let’s rein in the NSA. And if that makes you feel secure in your data, well good for you.
NotMax
@Poopyman
Hm. Best I can think of in that case is to get some washer fluid concentrate (the kind that you are supposed to dilute), and add a generous amount of that to what is already in the reservoir, undiluted, while the car is in the heated garage. Then spritz several times to work it through the assembly.
Poopyman
@NotMax: Oh, that graph you pasted was just the tip of the iceberg:
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I say we should string up Quentin Tarantino.
jon
The Holy Bieber rented a Lamborghini in Miami. You can guess the rest.
gene108
@Poopyman:
I am OK with summertime heat and humidity. It is relaxing to go out in shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops knowing not only will I not freeze to death, but I will not even be cold.
Poopyman
@Poopyman: That whole article is full of win. What did Shakowsky do to deserve such opponents?
OzarkHillbilly
@Poopyman: Hmmmm, a match in a half empty gas tank?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve never been worked up over the issue, but I don’t believe laws and procedures are meaningless. If we can use this opportunity to improve safeguards, I’m in favor of it.
NotMax
@
Nothing against Ella’s version, but she was all of 11 when Cole Porter wrote it for a Broadway show in 1928.
Trivia: “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it” was the revised version, also done by Porter. The original lyrics as performed were “Chinks do it, Japs do it, up in Lapland little Laps do it.”
Billie Holiday performing the original lyrics.
DecidedFenceSitter
I’m from VA, and I’ve got qualms about the “I just won’t defend it” methodology, but a lawyer friend of mine said it better than I could:
Baud
@DecidedFenceSitter:
“I won’t defend this” is rare, but it wasn’t invented for gay marriage. True, like the filibuster, Republicans will abuse it, but if we don’t exercise any power than Republicans will abuse, then we can’t exercise any power.
Comrade Jake
The firing of the gay teacher who got married at a Catholic school in Washington ( where my nephews attend) has reached the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/gay-marriages-confront-catholic-school-rules.html?_r=2&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=U.S.&action=keypress®ion=FixedLeft&pgtype=article
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Laws and procedures are definitely not meaningless. That’s why I have outsourced the worry to the ACLU. They have the time, the expertise, and the desire to get things right. Which allows me to concentrate on things a little closer to home.
amk
@DecidedFenceSitter: Mebbe repubs will realize now that two can play the game?
Poopyman
@amk: And then what? Laws become quaint anachronisms?
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Thanx Max. I could not remember and just took the lyrics site’s word for it.
amk
@Poopyman: Didn’t Obama’s DOJ drop defending doma, which got shitcanned by the supremes? Some laws, especially the ones enacted by rw’ers, are quaint anachronisms.
WereBear
I never thought the mass data collecting was for counter-terrorism. I thought it was a wet dream of the big corporations to get demo-data.
And like so many RW fantasies, got piled onto the Patriot Act.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
You speak of your (and Ella’s) … nonchalance? lack of anxiety? resignation? … but does the illegality and the opportunity cost of the minimal usefulness not concern you?
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes:
Ahh, you found some lawyers who said it was illegal. I found some judges who say it is legal. As to concern, I put my money where my civil liberties mouth is. But if you want my opinion on this whole brouhaha, it is that constraining the NSA with out constraining all the other actors in the world (private, corporate, government, etc ), well, I say again, if it makes you feel better, good for you.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
OK, so you are not convinced that it is illegal? Or do you actually think it’s not illegal?
And what about usefulness? Are you convinced by some judge who says it’s useful?
That’s fine. I wasn’t asking about my opinion, I was asking about yours. Thanks for clarifying somewhat.
Lurking Canadian
@Poopyman: from your description, it sounds like you don’t have winter washer fluid in there. The stuff they sell us at this time of year is guaranteed not to freeze above -35C.
I would go to your heated garage, spray the thing empty, and re-fill with winter-rated fluid.
ericblair
@Poopyman:
I guess it depends whether it’s whole investigations that got blown off or made up or “oh no, we don’t have two different references for where this guy lived for two months six years ago for a Secret reinvestigation.” The whole background investigation process needs to move off of collecting an enormous amount of irrelevant detail using archaic tools and processes. Apparently there’s a big review going on right now, but who knows.
This may finally take down USIS, and as far as I understand good riddance. There are both federal employee and federal contract investigators, and the known error rate for both is about the same, but the contract outfits are sweatshops.
Omnes Omnibus
@DecidedFenceSitter: I think your lawyer friend is more right than not. At the same time, prosecutorial discretion comes out of a lack of resources to prosecute every case with equal vigor. Individual lawyers and prosecutor’s offices at any level have to set priorities. Some cases and types of cases will get higher priority than others – this is pretty much an immutable law. This is one of the reasons that it is important to elect good people to public office – so that they will prioritize well or appoint people who will do that.
rikyrah
People Got What They Deserved
by BooMan
Wed Jan 22nd, 2014 at 10:30:21 PM EST
Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell began his higher education in an admirable way. He received a B.B.A. in management from Notre Dame University and an M.B.A. from Boston University. In between he worked in the Army. Something went a little screwy, however, when he sought a joint M.A./J.D. degree from the Christian Broadcasting Network University. That school is now known as Regent University. It became a feeder school for the Bush administration, with predictably disastrous results. You can probably blame Kay Coles James or, I don’t know, her pal Duke Cunningham.
But, I digress. We were talking about Bob McDonnell and his Regent University law degree. How is that tied to the other Republican governor who was elected in 2009?
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2014/1/22/223021/836
rikyrah
Christie admin scandal draws FBI scrutiny
01/23/14 08:00 AM—Updated 01/23/14 08:06 AM
By Steve Benen
Gov. Chris Christie’s bridge scandal remains an ongoing problem for the New Jersey Republican, but it’s his administration’s other controversy that’s drawn the attention of federal law enforcement.
Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer (D) alleged over the weekend that two top officials in the Christie administration, including Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno (R), threatened post-Sandy relief funds unless the mayor approved a private land-development project in her city. As Rachel noted on the show last night, Michael Isikoff reports that FBI agents have questioning witnesses as part of an investigation into the matter.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-admin-scandal-draws-fbi-scrutiny
scav
I’m not sure we’ll ever get the nebulous out of the law, let alone goverment. Anything to do with people, important issues and changing contexts — can’t get all the inconsistent bits out of math and citizens of that realm are far more well behaved than we. If at least we’re playing by rules with precedent and not made up wholesale to get round obstacles, it’s not complete calvinball.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
When I first saw that, I thought the politician was from UKIP or the National Front or some such gang of right-wing nutters. Not a mainstream party, let alone the one in power.
And this is the justification he offers for a Nazi-themed bachelor party? Sigh.
rikyrah
Engel: Sherman offers no apologies for outburst … nor should he
SEATTLE —
For me, it is “bitch.’’
For Richard Sherman, it is “thug.’’
For you, well, only you know what your word is.
But there is a word that society calls each of us when it wants to put us in our place, when it wants to shut us up, when we have been too loud, too big, too opinionated, too successful, too far beyond what is considered acceptable for whatever group we fall into.
Society says this to make us play smaller, or mostly to cram us into boxes its feels comfortable with. Boxes like: Pretty-little-girl columnist. Or non-threatening successful black male athlete.
Or in the case of the Seahawks cornerback: Respectful, smiling, PC postgame interviewee.
Instead, after making a big-time play that sent his team to the Super Bowl, Sherman dropped the choke sign on Colin Kaepernick and then unleashed a passionate and angry postgame interview in which he word-whipped 49ers wideout Michael Crabtree.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/engel-seattle-seahawks-cb-richard-sherman-offers-no-apologies-for-outburst-nfc-championship-game-san-francisco-49ers-012214
rikyrah
Freedom Industries: other chemical is ‘proprietary’
01/22/14 04:50 PM
By Steve Benen
About two weeks ago, a coal-processing chemical leaked into the Elk River, leaving 300,000 residents in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley without water service. Freedom Industries owns the ruptured storage tank that leaked the chemical, known as MCHM, which is used to wash coal, and which can be dangerous if consumed.
The emergency has unfolded in painful ways ever since – including contradictory messages as to who can drink water and when – but yesterday, the story took a turn for the worse. Investigators learned that another chemical was also in ruptured storage tank just upstream from West Virginia American Water’s regional drinking water intake.
And what, pray tell, was this other chemical. It appears Freedom Industries doesn’t want to say too much about it.
Wait, what?
Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Freedom Industries – the company’s actual name – accidentally leaked a coal-washing chemical into the into the Elk River, creating a health hazard for hundreds of thousands of people. Two weeks later, Freedom Industries let officials know that, by the way, the coal-washing chemical wasn’t the only thing that leaked.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/second-chemical-proprietary-wva
rikyrah
LOLGOP @LOLGOP
Follow
6 million have signed up for Medicaid since October AKA the greatest victory for the middle class since Medicare. http://medicaid.gov/AffordableCareAct/Medicaid-Moving-Forward-2014/Downloads/December-2013-Enrollment-Report.pdf …
3:35 PM – 22 Jan 2014
rikyrah
ThinkProgress: Mitch McConnell Boasts About Supporting Government Sponsored Health Care In New Campaign Ad
Sen. Mitch McConnell is out with a new campaign ad touting his success in securing free preventive health care services for Kentuckians. The spot, titled “Cares,” tries to paint the Senate Minority Leader as a compassionate Republican who carries a moral obligation to provide sick people with access to government-sponsored health care.
It’s a message you wouldn’t expect from a Republican senate leader who has voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and continues to oppose its implementation in Kentucky. But the minute-long ad, featuring Robert Pierce, an energy worker and throat cancer survivor, highlights the Republican Senate leader’s effort to secure “cancer screening programs” for Kentuckians and provide them with government compensation.
The assistance is the result of an entitlement McConnell secured for former employees of a plant in Paducah, Kentucky who were exposed to high levels of uranium throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and who now suffer from cancer or other ailments …. McConnell had initially “kept the plant’s doors open” to guarantee jobs for his constitutes, even as “the plant’s toxins had spread through the air and into the ground, slowly killing its own workers and tainting the surrounding area.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/22/3190671/mitch-mcconnell-health-care/
rikyrah
6 Million People Have Enrolled In Medicaid Since Obamacare Launched
Dylan Scott – January 22, 2014, 4:13 PM EST5593
Some 6.3 million people have enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program since Oct. 1, when HealthCare.gov and its state counterparts went live, according to a new report from the Obama administration. The report covers Medicaid enrollments through the end of December.
That figures includes people who are newly eligible for Medicaid because their state expanded the program under the health care reform law, people who were already eligible but not enrolled and, in some states, people who were renewing their eligibility.
Thirteen states included renewals in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report, though their exact number out of the 6.3 million could not be determined.
States that expanded Medicaid saw a boom in enrollments in December, corresponding with a similar surge in private coverage enrollees through the insurance marketplaces. Medicaid enrollments were up 73 percent in those states last month compared to the pre-Obamacare monthly average. In states that didn’t expand Medicaid, enrollment was up 3 percent in December.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/obamacare-medicaid-enrollment-december
rikyrah
Poll Shows Most Republicans Think People Are Poor Because They Don’t Work Hard Enough
Tom Kludt – January 23, 2014, 7:31 AM EST
Whether you’re rich or poor, Republicans believe that’s on you.
Findings released Thursday by Pew showed that most Republicans think rich people are largely responsible for their socioeconomic status. They also feel the same way about poor people.
Fifty-seven percent of GOP voters said that a person is rich because “he or she worked harder than others,” while just 32 percent attribute it to advantages they enjoyed. The results are almost completely flipped among Democrats.
Overall, 51 percent of Americans said that people are wealthy due to advantages in life, while 38 percent said it had more to do with hard work.
Pew also found that 51 percent of Republicans believe that people are poor due to a lack of hard work, compared with just 32 percent who attribute it to circumstances beyond their control.
Those results also put Republicans out of step with the rest of the country.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/republican-voters-pew-income-inequality-poor-rich
rikyrah
Jim Stuart: Our Transformational President
Have you read David Remnick’s article in the current New Yorker? If not, do. Soon. Remnick listens to Obama without apparent lenses. He even discards the almost always present lens of “Are you succeeding or failing?” Healthcare is hardly mentioned. The article almost seems to me to exist without apparent intention or angle. We are invited to experience the President, through his own words, almost in slow motion, as he answers Remnick’s many thoughtful questions. Obama (to my view) neither lectures nor sells. He expresses himself, sometimes taking a long moment before beginning. Remnick notes this characteristic of the President, not as judgment, but rather so we can experience this too. The words. And the space between the words.
A brilliant piece. The first one I’ve found where the author isn’t trying to figure Obama out, and where we are gently told not to bring all our judgments to the reading, but to relax, sit back, simply experience the man.
Remnick does not say that Obama is a transformational leader. That’s my conclusion …. Let me move to my evidence…
http://jimstuartnewblog.blogspot.ie/2014/01/our-transformational-president.html
OzarkHillbilly
@Cervantes:
I think what I think doesn’t really matter. What the SC decides is what matters. And legality is beside the point, constitutionality is what really matters.
For the sake of argument, let me concede that it is totally useless, that it serves absolutely no purpose, that all the data is no better than 5 million tons of moldering flour in a New Orleans warehouse. Where’s the problem? Where is the threat? Either it is useful (a threat) or it isn’t (no threat).
Every X-mas I renew my membership in the ACLU and in July I give myself a little b-day present and send them some more $. I let them worry about whether this is serious or not, and how best to deal with it. This allows me to worry about matters a little closer to home, like the “Defund Missouri Schools Act.”
Elizabelle
OT: breakfast time for the Richmond, VA zoo cheetahs. Here’s the live cheetah cam. Cubs are three +months old now.
They’re fed about 9:15 a and 4:15 p daily.
Very playful. Five cubs. They purr a bit as they eat. Almost a birdlike sound.
It’s about 18 degrees in Richmond today. The cheetahs don’t seem to mind.
Omnes Omnibus
@OzarkHillbilly: Well, if it is useless, is it not a waste of resources?
Elizabelle
@rikyrah:
Thanks rikyrah. There’s some Keith G bait. Grade A.
[PS: I am in the hell yes Obama is a transformational leader category. Looks like a good read.]
rikyrah
The Volokh Conspiracy And Washington Post’s Move To The Right
Blog ››› January 22, 2014 4:30 PM EST ››› JUSTIN BERRIER
The announcement that The Washington Post is partnering with and hosting the conservative and libertarian-leaning blog The Volokh Conspiracy is evidence that the Post may be moving to the right in the wake of the paper’s acquisition by Jeff Bezos.
On January 21, The Washington Post announced that it had entered into a partnership with The Volokh Conspiracy, a blog that has operated since 2002 and largely focuses on legal issues but has strayed into other areas, including climate denialism. The Post praised the blog in its announcement of the agreement, calling it a “must-read source [that] will be a great addition to the Post’s coverage of law, politics and policy.” In his first official post, the blog’s founder, Eugene Volokh, revealed that the Post granted him “full editorial control.”
The move was celebrated by right-wing media outlets such as the American Spectator, which praised Washington Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for highlighting a blog that provides legal commentary “from a [generally] libertarian or conservative perspective,” writing, “Perhaps it should stand to reason that a man who made a fortune offering people choices, should offer the same alternatives to his readership. What a novel concept in today’s news atmosphere.” TownHall editor Conn Carroll cited the acquisition as evidence that Bezos was “clearly moving” the Post “in a libertarian direction.”
Breitbart.com’s John Nolte also cheered the decision to host The Volokh Conspiracy, writing that it will “give the Post the sorely needed voices of legitimate conservatives, but unlike Klein the Volokh Conspiracy won’t attempt to hide their ideology.”
Even before the addition of a conservative-libertarian legal blog, the Post has come under scrutiny for years for leaning to the right. Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has been heavily criticized for promoting climate denialism, for supporting cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and for leading the Post’s support for the Iraq War. The opinion pages regularly feature conservative columnists such as Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and Jennifer Rubin, who used her prominent blog to repackage presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s messaging during the 2012 general election as part of her patently dishonest campaign to aid his candidacy.
In August of 2013, after the announcement that Bezos had bought The Washington Post, Fortune magazine senior editor at large Allan Sloan reacted to rumors that Bezos was libertarian by writing a column asking Bezos to reveal his political ideology. Sloan wrote “No matter what Bezos says now, once his purchase of The Post closes, scheduled for the fall, he’s almost certain to begin imposing his standards and beliefs on The Post, or at least on its opinion pages.” If the addition of The Volokh Conspiracy is evidence that Sloan’s prediction is coming true, it doesn’t bode well for the future of The Washington Post under Bezos.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/22/the-volokh-conspiracy-and-washington-posts-move/197694
rikyrah
“Company says 2nd toxin in West Virginia spill”
http://on.msnbc.com/1dWvJty
rikyrah
Why Wendy Davis Terrifies The GOP
By Jason Sattler
——————————–
State Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) rose to speak for 14 hours against laws that were clearly designed to close as many clinics as possible, making an abortion far more difficult to obtain, and then ban the procedure earlier than the Supreme Court had previously ruled was Constitutional.
Imagine if you couldn’t purchase a gun in 87 percent of the country. Imagine if nearly every day in some state a new piece of legislation was being considered that didn’t close gun shops but made it impossible for them to operate, forcing buyers into the black market. Gun owners may not mind that because buying a gun from a private individual is less of a hassle. But the industry, which finances the NRA, would never let that happen.
——————————————–
http://www.nationalmemo.com/why-wendy-davis-terrifies-the-gop/
Cervantes
@DecidedFenceSitter’s friend:
The bolded statement is imprecise. In this case Herring is asserting the unconstitutionality of the law in question, not just that he disagrees with it. In fact, he isn’t just not defending the ban; he’s going so far as to say that he will side with the plaintiffs who are seeking to have the ban struck down.
rikyrah
Greg Sargent ✔ @ThePlumLineGS
Follow
Also from Pew: Only Rs beileve economic system is generally fair. Everyone else thinks it favors rich: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/01/23/the-morning-plum-a-nation-of-redistributionists-and-class-warriors/ …
8:32 AM – 23 Jan 2014
Citizen_X
I just heard the words on the news that we have all longed to hear:“Justin Bieber is in police custody.”
Citizen_X
@Omnes Omnibus: Alternatively, if the analysis is a wash (i.e. “this judge said it was worthless, that one said it’s not”), then why pay the cost and endure the privacy violation? There has to be a strong positive case for continuing the program.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, it matters to me.
Plus it mattered enough to you that you were moved to enlist Cole Porter in the struggle!
Not claiming it “serves absolutely no purpose.” That’s your language. The panel’s conclusion is that the collection has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts. This is not to say that the data, once neatly collected, can’t be used or abused by someone, in some other effort, to serve some other purpose.
Perhaps you want to revisit your own questions: “Where’s the problem? Where is the threat?”
This I understand completely and with gratitude.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen_X: I agree.
Elizabelle
Aggravating AP story, c/o the Richmond Times Dispatch (aka the Disgrace):
AP poll: People see Obama as likable, so-so president
Methinks Mr. Parker voted enthusiastically for GW Bush (twice!) and maybe Mitt “Bain Capital” Romney too. He won’t call himself a Republican, though. Maybe some kind of glibertarian, maybe GOP in “independent” clothing …
That is interesting.
rikyrah
Wendy Davis is being Swift-boated
By Margaret Carlson
Published: 22 January 2014 02:47 PM
Updated: 22 January 2014 06:03 PM
In politics, lying is the new sex. Even the lesser sin, exaggeration, is grounds for questions about your suitability to run for office. Americans may be becoming more like the French in tolerating peccadilloes (just ask Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina or Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana about surviving a sex scandal), but get a detail wrong about whether you divorced at 21 or at 19, and woe unto you.
That’s what happened to Wendy Davis over the weekend.
You may know her as the Texas state senator in pink sneakers who delivered an 11-hour filibuster against abortion restrictions in June. The onetime teenage single mother who lived in a trailer park and graduated from Harvard Law School was so well-spoken, impassioned and appealing that she is running for governor less than a year later.
But now she’s being Swift-boated. The story of the courageous, articulate and inspiring lawyer has become the tale of a fabulist who can’t be trusted after the Dallas Morning News raised a swirl of questions about her personal history, some provided by her ex-husband. She says the allegations came from her would-be Republican opponent in the gubernatorial race, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. The attacks won’t work, she says, “because my story is the story of millions of Texas women who know the strength it takes when you’re young, alone and a mother.”
Nonetheless, Republicans fact-checked her life story and found the timeline wanting. Davis herself acknowledged that “my language should be tighter” when it comes to the details of her biography and promised to be “more focused on the detail.”
I may be soft on anyone who takes a good story and makes it better. I grew up in an Irish family where Sunday dinner would have been no more than well-done roast beef and mashed potatoes had it not been for uncles outdoing one another about the size of the fish they’d caught and the poker pot they’d won. And what is journalism but organizing facts into a compelling narrative.
Davis has the bad luck to have a second ex-husband giving his side of the rags-to-riches story (he says he supplied the riches). Yes, she and her daughter lived in a mobile home, but only for a few months before moving into an apartment, and she worked two jobs. Enter the second husband, an older lawyer with whom she had a second daughter. They divorced in 2005 but not before, he says, he paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and for Harvard Law, and kept her two daughters while she was there. Davis said that she and her husband cashed in a 401(k) and took out loans to pay for her tuition and that she split time between Massachusetts and Texas. When they divorced, he asked for and got custody of the two girls, and Davis was doing well enough by then to pay child support.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20140122-wendy-davis-is-being-swift-boated.ece
JoyfulA
@DecidedFenceSitter: PA AG Kane won’t defend anti-gay marriage legislation either. She says recent SCOTUS decisions make the PA law indefensible..
rikyrah
TheObamaDiary.com @TheObamaDiary
Follow
#Obamacare will DESTROY this President & his party!!!!!
Oh …. wait …. Obama’s approval up 9 pts since November.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-americans-split-on-obama-approval/ …
8:53 AM – 23 Jan 2014
rikyrah
Anti-gay measure advances in Indiana
01/23/14 09:52 AM
By Steve Benen
When it comes to culture-war issues, the right has started prioritizing some issues above others. As Rachel noted on the show last night, for example, efforts to restrict reproductive rights have become a singularly unifying policy for the entire Republican Party at every level.
But what about the GOP’s opposition to gay rights, a staple of the conservative movement for years? Anti-gay animus remains common on the right, though it doesn’t seem to be a front-burner issue the way abortion is. (Much of this is because the fight has shifted to courts after the success of conservative efforts during the Bush/Cheney era.)
That said, while marriage equality makes strides from coast to coast, and states continue to expand civil rights for same-sex couples, there are exceptions.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), for example, recently used his State of the State address to urge lawmakers to approve a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. The proposal didn’t seem to be going anywhere, though as Amanda Terkel reported, that changed this week.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/anti-gay-measure-advances-indiana
gwangung
@rikyrah: Just FYI…a link to on-the-field video just after the interception:
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-films-sound-efx/0ap2000000316744/Sound-FX-Sherman-and-Crabtree-clash?campaign=Facebook_videos_sherman
rikyrah
GOP threatens new debt-ceiling crisis
01/23/14 10:31 AM—Updated 01/23/14 10:51 AM
By Steve Benen
If given a choice, would you rather think about another debt-ceiling crisis or perform oral surgery on yourself? Or how about sleep on a bed of thumbtacks? Or maybe drop an anvil on your foot?
Well, like it or not, I’m afraid it’s time to consider the latest chapter in a remarkably, painfully stupid story. The debt ceiling is back, and however tempting it may be to ignore it, time is of the essence.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew formally alerted Congress yesterday that lawmakers will have to extend the nation’s borrowing authority by late February – roughly five weeks from now. As has been the case, the White House will not negotiate on this, telling Congress that there can be no negotiations on the full faith and credit of the United States. Either lawmakers raise the debt limit or Congress will push the nation into default.
The response from congressional Republicans was not at all encouraging.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-threatens-new-debt-ceiling-crisis
Mnemosyne
@DecidedFenceSitter:
It’s tricky, though. Here in California, our state Supreme Court found that our state’s constitution guaranteed equal protection, so gay marriage could not be banned. Then a voter initiative banned it. So whose word does the California attorney general go with — the California Supreme Court, or the will of the people that decided they don’t give a shit about equal protection, they just don’t want gays getting married?
Villago Delenda Est
@NotMax:
People like this can believe anything they want.
However, they have no business whatsoever anywhere within 1000 miles of the levers of power.
chopper
@Poopyman:
run the car a while, while hitting the nozzle section with a hair drier.