The 2013 Obama Scandal omnibus thread- Benghazi, IRS, AP, EPA, Congressional cloak room

 

 

Stig, both parties suck...there's no denying it.

 

The biggest issue we seem to have with our current president is he has bucked the trend way too much compared to anyone before him (either party). Clinton, Jimmy Carter didn't incite anywhere near as much wrath as this guy does. The timing couldn't have been better for a guy to push revolutionary agendas as his inauguration coincided with the start of the recession, plus America's sour taste of Bush's foreign policy.

 

He hasn't been particularly liked by his predecessors either, particularly Bill with this quote:

 

"“I’ve heard more from Bush, asking for my advice, than I’ve heard from Obama. I have no relationship with the president — none whatsoever. Obama doesn’t know how to be president. He doesn’t know how the world works. He’s incompetent. He’s an amateur.”

 

 

Stig, both parties suck...there's no denying it.

 

The biggest issue we seem to have with our current president is he has bucked the trend way too much compared to anyone before him (either party). Clinton, Jimmy Carter didn't incite anywhere near as much wrath as this guy does. The timing couldn't have been better for a guy to push revolutionary agendas as his inauguration coincided with the start of the recession, plus America's sour taste of Bush's foreign policy.

 

He hasn't been particularly liked by his predecessors either, particularly Bill with this quote:

 

"“I’ve heard more from Bush, asking for my advice, than I’ve heard from Obama. I have no relationship with the president — none whatsoever. Obama doesn’t know how to be president. He doesn’t know how the world works. He’s incompetent. He’s an amateur.”

 

Interesting thing from Clinton. No doubt the bar was set low to begin with - then raised VERY high for Obama. Everyone expected a savior and an instant turnaround. The incitement of wrath seems to be completely manufactured from the other side. Criticism of specific policies is one thing, calling him a Marixst/Socialist/Communist/N-word is another. The state of the GOP is really bad - my favorite senator Dick Lugar, a true statesman and old school conservative from Indiana got ousted by the batshit crazy Tea Party Republican nominee Richard Mourdock, who LOST the election to a very conservative democrat. Again - the batshit crazies who think black helos are coming for the guns and Bibles are out voting in swarms.

 

Perhaps, as Americans, we wanted too much too fast (in 2008)? Maybe just a no-name, pushing no agenda and just cleaning up the mess would have sufficed. How do you fix this country in four or eight years? How do you campaign and say "Hey, I'm not going to change anything except just try and make things better - against all odds of the other party who HATES my guts and wants me tried for war crimes, impeached, hung, shot, and made a fool of." As a nation we are more conservative than most of our Western allies, we spend more on defense and health care than anyone else (several of those combined even), yet we are ill-equipped to handle problems like an embassy attack or carry out a basic war (thank you Rumsfeld), can't seem to have a healthy country, and really are lacking in education.

 

Oh, and fcuk the vets. We don't care about you. Good luck on the street with PTSD and hope you find a way to get by. (Sarcasm). NO President has made real concerted efforts to reform a serious issue with homeless, crime, or education (all issues I think we can all agree on).

 

In the meantime, we should all go to Detroit and buy a house for $150, and wonder what the holy hell our country has turned into. If you want to blame the black guy for the past few years - and pin this all on him, go for it. I think we need to put down the pitch forks and stop attacking each other over bullshit manufactured issues and go after the real problems - campaign finance, term limits, and the assholes in Congress who keep getting reelected...

Am I an Obama fan? Not by any means. But I think a lot people confuse the power of the president with that of the Senate and House.

 

Mostly the Senate IMO...we need term limits or a major overhaul. Those guys need to go and we need to start fresh. Less emphasis needs to be placed on getting re-elected (thus less pork) on more on passing the correct/proper laws.

In the meantime, we should all go to Detroit and buy a house for $150, and wonder what the holy hell our country has turned into.

 

Consider this: Detroit, since 1962 has seen every Mayor as a Democrat. They've worked with the unions in the auto and education fields to an absurd level. Able to push through damn near ANYTHING they wanted. Their policies, their desires, and THEIR wishes.

 

Don't mind the rampant corruption. See Kwame Kilpatrick, and the still discovering "family deals" he arranged with 'cousins.'

 

Don't mind the focus on retirement and perks packages for teachers in the union and not the education (illiteracy in Detroit is 47% 47%!)

 

Don't mind that Detroit has a higher murder rate than Columbia. Wonder why housing is so cheap?

 

Detroit is the poster child for Democratic and liberal policy. It's reaping the seeds that were and have been sown for more than 50 years.

 

Just some food for thought.

http://lavabit.com

 

Private email service that Snowden was using has been shut down.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-swit...phone-searches/

Just dipping my toe into this thread...

 

No not the detaining of a partner of a journalist that lead with the story in London... no or MI5 going to that same newspaper and watching the journalist destroy a computer with all of the info copied from it no...

 

Lets talk about Manning.

 

Pte Manning faces 35 years

 

Except... new twist.

 

Bradley Manning, the US soldier who leaked secret US government documents to the Wikileaks website, has announced he wants to live as a woman.

 

"I am Chelsea Manning," Pte First Class Manning said in a statement to NBC's Today programme. "I am a female."

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23798253

 

He's going to make a real nice bitch in prison....

He's going to make a real nice bitch in prison....

 

Might have been his aim all along.

Back to Snowden...

 

This will make you roll your eyes and shudder at the same time.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23898580

 

David Miranda row: Seized files 'endanger agents'

 

Details in files seized from Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald's partner could risk intelligence officers' lives, a senior cabinet adviser says.

 

Deputy national security adviser Oliver Robbins said one file seized from David Miranda included 58,000 "highly classified UK intelligence documents".

 

Mr Miranda, who denies wrongdoing, was held for nine hours at Heathrow Airport under anti-terror laws on 18 August.

 

His lawyers said the government's claims were "sweeping and vague".

 

During Mr Miranda's detention, police seized a number of electronic items he was carrying, including a laptop, additional hard drive, and mobile phone.

 

Last week, High Court judges granted a temporary injunction that police examining the material seized at the airport would only be able to examine it for national security purposes.

 

The court was due to meet again to decide whether to extend the injunction.

 

But, at the start of the hearing, Mr Miranda's lawyers said that he and other parties had reached an agreement that would allow police to carry on examining the material under similar conditions.

 

In a statement presented at the High Court, Mr Robbins said that the files Mr Miranda was carrying were "highly likely to describe techniques crucial in life saving counter-terrorist operations".

 

He added that intelligence staff were identifiable in the information, posing a danger to them in the UK and overseas.

 

Although many of the files were encrypted, Mr Robbins said, Mr Miranda was also carrying a "piece of paper containing basic instructions for accessing some data, together with a piece of paper that included the password for decrypting one of the encrypted files on the external hard drive".

 

"Work continues to access the content of the other files on the hard drive and the USB sticks," he added.

 

Mr Miranda's partner Glenn Greenwald has worked with former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden on stories about US and UK surveillance programmes.

 

Mr Snowden fled the US in May after revealing extensive details of the workings of US intelligence agencies.

 

Reports based on data he had obtained accused the US National Security Agency (NSA) of gathering millions of telephone records, and collecting data from the systems of US internet giants including Google and Facebook under a previously undisclosed surveillance programme called Prism.

 

Mr Miranda was detained for nine hours under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 as he travelled from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Mr Greenwald.

 

The law allows police to hold someone for up to nine hours for questioning about whether they have been involved with acts of terrorism.

 

But Mr Miranda plans to argue at a judicial review in October that his detention was a misuse of the powers.

 

His lawyer Matthew Ryder said his client had been questioned and his property seized "under threat of criminal prosecution in a coercive use of schedule 7 which was unlawful".

 

But Mr Ryder said Mr Miranda had taken a "pragmatic approach" and accepted that the issues could be "better canvassed" during the judicial review process.

 

The Metropolitan Police said they were "pleased" by the agreement with Mr Miranda.

 

"The examination of this material is necessary for the purposes of an ongoing criminal investigation and to protect public safety," a spokesman said.

 

Scotland Yard also believes the detention of Mr Miranda at Heathrow was "legally and procedurally sound".

 

In a statement outside the court, Gwendolyn Morgan, also representing Mr Miranda, said the government's assessment of the seized material was "sweeping and vague".

Back to Snowden...

 

This will make you roll your eyes and shudder at the same time.

 

If anybody should know their rights.......

The Internal Revenue Service said Monday that Lois G. Lerner, the woman at the center of the tea party targeting scandal, has retired from the agency — though because of privacy rules it could say nothing more.

 

Ms. Lerner, who had been on paid administrative leave, was the director of the division that reviewed the applications for tax-exempt status from political groups over the past few years and that, according to an internal audit, gave extra scrutiny to tea party and other conservative groups.

 

She remains subject to congressional investigation.

 

Her actions put her at the center of the controversy, and several congressional committees had been looking into her behavior and into emails that seemed to suggest she was looking for reasons to deny political groups approval for tax-exempt status.

 

Last week, acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said he had asked both a review board and the agency’s inspector general to look at the emails.

 

Republicans said Ms. Lerner’s resignation, while a first step, isn’t the end of the scandal.

 

“Just because Lois Lerner is retiring from the IRS does not mean the investigation is over. Far from it,” said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. “In fact, there are many serious, unanswered questions that must be addressed so we can get to the truth.”

 

Ms. Lerner had previously refused to testify to Congress, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. But when she appeared before Congress she also delivered a brief statement claiming innocence, which some members of the House oversight committee said means she waived her right to silence.

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/s...candal-retires/

One of the groups at the center of the IRS scandal has finally received its tax-exempt status after a three year delay prompted by a politically driven move to block Tea Party and other conservative groups, many that slammed the president during his reelection, from winning the special status.

 

TheTeaParty.net, one of the nation's largest tea party groups, told Secrets that the long-sough declaration arrived Monday, well over three years after they applied for 501c(4) tax-exempt status in March of 2010, the start of the Tea Party movement. The notice came in a letter from the IRS.

 

The group said that the IRS branch headed by the recently retired Lois Lerner endured harassment by agents targeting mostly conservative non-profit groups for their political donors, agenda and even reading lists, all against the rules.

 

"After four years battling Lois Lerner's shock troops, we are relieved that the IRS has relented and finally recognized our right to operate as a non-profit,” said Todd Cefaratti, founder of TheTeaParty.net. “First they tried to ignore us. Then they tried to discredit us. And then they tried to deny our legal rights. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end to a sad chapter in our government’s targeting of its own citizens," he added.

 

Commenting on the long legal battle, the group’s lawyer, Dan Backer, said legal threats from the group helped squeeze out the positive decision. “It just proves the only way to beat the overreach of government is to fight back,” he said.

 

In addition to winning the IRS ruling, the group joined with another titled the “Contract From America” to form a partnership to highlight the original GOP Contract With America that turned 20 years old this week. They plan to promote the contract during the midterm elections, when the original was used to help win the Republicans their first control of Congress in decades.

 

http://washingtonexaminer.com/three-years-...article/2536672

So the Affordable Healthcare Act is to cover assholes like this? I can't believe it.

 

"Don't tap into that beer money to cover your medical bills. We've got it covered!"

 

I shit you not, this is a real ad put out by the ThanksObamacare Campaign of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

 

 

http://gotinsurancecolorado.org/index.php?id=2

So the Affordable Healthcare Act is to cover assholes like this? I can't believe it.

 

"Don't tap into that beer money to cover your medical bills. We've got it covered!"

 

I shit you not, this is a real ad put out by the ThanksObamacare Campaign of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

 

 

http://gotinsurancecolorado.org/index.php?id=2

There are plenty of non-profits that are incredibly dumb, although this ad campaign is ridiculously stupid, as it is undermining the policy they are trying to support.

Please, please tell me that's a joke

That cant be real. Dont they refer to it as affordable care act?

Please, please tell me that's a joke

 

Just click your heals three times...

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/20...ance-keg-stands

 

 

Then you wake up, and find out the nightmare is real.

Guys, the advertisements aren't from the government or any political party. Just a silly non-profit.

http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/10/22/obam...ng-act-exposed/

Italy is looking better and better every day

Italy is looking better and better every day

 

I'm right there with you. Although their political system isn't much better.

I'm right there with you. Although their political system isn't much better.

Food is better

Italy is looking better and better every day

 

theres a saying: it always looks fatter in someone elses hand

 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/ferrar...ory?id=16401014