One slogan that needs to be attributed to the Republican amendments is

Republicans believe this nation was founded on the principle of taxation WITHOUT representation!

All their efforts are focused on denying immigrants any right to vote while taxing the hell out of them.

In other words, doing nothing for another two decades is better than a little progress today??

Lots of criticism of Rahm, but nothing constructive.

What would you do if mayor of Chicago. Declare bankruptcy like Detroit, except a couple of decades early?

If Chicago teachers are so great and know what to do, why didn’t they put someone up for mayor who laid out a plan to make Chicago schools the best in the nation?

Jon Walker is a telephone? An iPhone? A payphone at the pizza shop?

I am not a telephone. I do not even identify with my telephone.

It seems to me the argument is the media elites have a right to overrule the laws We the People want and elect representatives to Congress to write and pass into law. Clearly, We the People are too stupid to govern ourselves, don’t you think? We the People seem to have no clue about what Congress is or did even when everything is online on the Internet and even broadcast on CSPAN. Therefore, we need a leftist elitist like Greenwald to tell us what We the People are too stupid to know because We the People are too right-wing.

Right, we can not stand to have debates on the laws and policies of We the People debated on the floor of Congress and broadcast on CSPAN because only those with top secret security clearance is allowed in the galleries of Congress or to watch CSPAN and thus here Sen Mark Udall describe in 2010 exactly what Greenwald reported We the People authorized by passing the bill after top secret debate open debate on bills before and passed by Congress that are published in the top secret Congressional record and available online in the top secret Thomas Newt Gingrich had setup to promote open top secret access by the top secret We the People inside top secret United States of America by the top secret Congress of top secret unelected persons elected by We the People in top secret Congressional elections held in top secret on the top secret date of the first Tuesday of November of even years by top secret order of the top secret Congress.

Clearly the reason the unelected top secret members of Congress who voted for this top secret mass data collection were reelected is no one was allowed to know about the top secret elections in 2010 and 2012.

But hey, how do you know Obama is president? The elections in 2012 were top secret and the debates top secret. Clearly I’m one of the few with the top secret security clearance to have watched the top secret candidates for the Republican presidential nomination declare the top secret Ron Paul’s top secret views in opposition to war and the security state called “dangerous”. Obviously you did not watch the top secret Fox News parade pundits who also called Ron Paul “dangerous”.

Bush’s director of the security state admits that he operated on the basis of Bush, “the law”, while Obama runs a bigger security state because he is authorized by the law Congress passed in 2010 which authorized it.

And in opposition, Sen Udall described exactly what is would result in if passed, and then Congress passed it.

Why are people surprised by what We the People authorized by voting for the center right and right wing Congress?

And why are people surprised that a Democrat would execute the laws of Congress rather than declare himself above the law and ignore the laws?

If you don’t like the laws of Congress, change the members of Congress. Don’t look for nice dictators who will operate above or outside the law.

Nothing revealed or said in the past few weeks was not said in the debate in Congress on CSPAN in 2008 and again in 2010.

On Sunday one of the networks played Sen Udall on the Senate floor broadcast in CSPAN describing the spying the bill that passed and became law a few days later in the same terms that Greenwald claims he alone as the crack reporter discovered and brought to the world. Obviously, CSPAN is a top secret government system, as is the Newt Gingrich Thomas archive of Congress action on laws.

The Bush NSA director spying on Americans said the difference between Bush and Obama was that Bush authorized it on his own, while Obama is doing far more spying based on the expanded law passed by Congress in 2010, and that Sen Udall attacked debate on the floor of Congress on CSPAN.

What I find interesting is the argument here that is effectively “Obama should ignore the laws of Congress like Bush did, but in reverse – Bush spied without the authority of Congress, but Obama should refuse the authority of Congress to spy”.

Why did Congress decide that massive data collection was “reasonable”??

Why did the voters reelect the members of Congress who deemed mass data collection laid out by Sen Udall as “reasonable”??

If We the People through our votes for members of Congress want mass data collection as a reasonable search for scary people who aren’t angry or crazy Christians with guns, then who as president should side with the minority who want to die by Muslim just like we die by Christian.

After all, when Obama proposed reasonable limits on guns so Christians wouldn’t kill so many Americans, he was subject to extremely strong attack, just as other Democrats and Republicans were in the 80s and 90s, and then defeated in reelect to Congress.

Are We the People represented by Congress or not? If the NRA can defeat members of Congress as they did in the 80s and 90s, is that because the NRA hands out cash to buy votes? Who got a cash payment from the NRA to defeat those voting for the weak gun control laws? And who got paid to vote for the members of Congress who voted for the mass spying on Americans that Sen Udall described on CSPAN in 2010?

If no one got paid to vote for the members of Congress, then the elections were not bought.

And let’s remember that Ron Paul spoke out on this issue in the Republican debate and was called “dangerous” but virtually every Republican then and later elsewhere. Rand Paul is called basically dangerous by most Republicans, while Democrats to my knowledge do not call him dangerous even when they disagree with him on war and the security state.

If Republicans consider the Republican Rand’s dangerous but Democrats do not, then the voters voting so heavily for Republicans mean half the people find the view that the Paul’s views are dangerous and wars of choice and the security state are needed.

The endless global war and the security state are laid out in laws passed by Congress, and the only way to change the law is to change who is in Congress and that means changing the minds of voters. No one has paid me to vote for anyone. My votes have been based on what I hear and read.

By the way, a lot of what I hear and read is basically “do not vote because your vote does not matter”. If you look at the votes for President and for Congress, almost 10% vote only for president and do not vote for representatives to Congress. Does that mean they want the president to ignore the laws and just be a dictator who is “the law”?

Wyden thinks you were stamped at birth with a phone number so that collecting information on phone numbers is collecting information in specific persons. Payphones change their number based on the stamped at birth phone number of the payphone user.

You are your telephone number? No one other than you ever uses your telephone number? Your telephone number is a replacement for your DNA as an identifier? Do payphones change their number to your telephone number when you make a call on a payphone? If you borrow a friend’s cell phone because you don’t have one, does the telephone number of the cell phone change to your unique telephone number?

The data collected is about phone numbers which is not even unique to a physical phone. If your phone takes a sim card, the number is keyed to that card – the way things are done outside the US where people buy phones, instead of the US method of buying phone service with a phone thrown in. And if you use something like skype, the phone number is associated with the computer you tell the software to use.

This was deemed reasonable by something like a hundred million voters last December because in 2010, Sen Udall on the floor on CSPAN described exactly what information was going to be collected if the law being debated was passed. The law was passed by Congress, with Udall voting against, but far more voting for it. How many members of Congress were defeated in 2012 (or 2010) for their votes on unreasonable search and seizure of information on telephone calls and emails? I think the number is zero, meaning the hundred million voters basically believed this degree of spying is reasonable.

I found it bizarre to see and hear Greenwald boast only he revealed what the law authorized, repeating what Sen Udall said in 2010 on CSPAN was authorized by the law. And on Fox, the Bush administration spymaster said the difference between Bush and Obama was:
1. Bush authorized the spying based on his own view he had the power, while Obama was spying based on the laws passed by Congress in 2008
2. Obama was collecting a lot more data because of the law passed in 2010, the one that Sen Udall stated very clearly on the floor of Congress in debate on the bill and as broadcast on CSPAN the law would lead to.

Conservatives tout the Constitution, and then say that Bush’s word is good enough but Obama is obviously wrong. Obama said that the authority of the president is rooted in the laws of Congress because that is what the Constitution says. So, conservatives and progressives object to Obama’s actions under the laws of Congress passed on the open and validated in elections afterward as illegal because the actions of Congress which represents the people are unreasonable, even though the people reelected those totally unreasonable representatives to Congress.

Conservatives want to replace the Congress. Progressives want to replace Obama with a good Bush who will ignore the Constitution and the laws.

For those in Mass, Romneycare is better than the previous system and has 90% public support, far greater support than any proposal that would limit choices. In Mass, there is a lot of competition compared to 80% of the other States, ranging from HMOs to robust neighborhood clinic operations serving majority poor to providers who deal mostly with the middle class and wealthy to the teaching hospitals who serve highly diverse international populations.

The only State with similar diversity is California, but 30% of the population today is limited in their access to the system, and the neighborhood clinics are not robust and are underfunded. The next two years will certainly be like Mass with explosive growth in these clinics with their staffs exploding in size leading to more specialists, more computerized records, more onsite lab work, more support staff focused on patient care, and a lot less time spent on financial issues.

In both cases, the clinics are the most important response – putting access to care within easy reach of the working poor, and their rapid growth and growing pains will be pointed to as the proof of the failure of Obamacare and the looming disaster.

But can anyone explain how Medicare for All would have produced better results? Would Medicare for All suddenly materialized robust doctor practices and roust hospitals in the poor parts of cities to serve the new Medicare beneficiaries who are now covered by Medicare? Do you think Medicare providers are focused on providing easy access to workers and to children by running evening and weekend hours and lots of pediatricians?

What will be interesting is whether Wal-Mart and CVS et al will try to develop a clinic system in California – both partner with local medical providers where are opening clinics today. Will a clinic chain seek to be an ACO and sign up newly covered people with a Statewide record system so doctors and nurses have ready access everywhere and at all times so patients can stop in at a clinic in Wal-Mart to get seen for most problems, with referrals in the system to a “full service” clinic nearby when needed. The chain might implement Internet based telemedicine at every Wal-Mart clinic so a nurse can deal in person with the patient 16 hours a day with access to a doctor so the patient and nurse and doctor can work together. Will this happen?? Who knows, but what are the odds that government run clinics would be opened in poor and working class neighborhoods with advanced technology and no doctors locally? Those would be attacked for political reasons, so the clinics would be fewer and have 10 hour days at best and be a big government budget item subject to cuts with few lobbyists fighting cuts. Obamacare in five years will have so many providers dependent on the government revenue that they will be heavily lobbying to increase funding.

Oh, and are you going to whine about Wal-Mart forcing doctors to work for slave wages? It would be horrors of horrors if Wal-Mart were force doctors to work for $100K a year by buying them a degree and residency with a ten year labor contract. This is the type of solution Federal law supports to put doctors in rural communities, but it is not high profile and does not deliver thousands of doctors into the system because each small town has to figure out the system while Wal-Mart would do it on a mass scale. Obama or Clinton vs the AMA on $100K income doctors would be a huge political fight, but Wal-Mart vs the AMA would be pitting the billionaire Waltons against the millionaire doctors – class warfare among the 1%. And Wal-Mart is so huge because they accepted lower profit margins than competitors like Sears and Wards but generating much higher volumes. The AMA is the advocate of small high profit doctor run businesses, that has fought the doctor-as-employee shift for decades.

People who voted for Reagan were, in my opinion, smarter than many eligible voters today. Back in 1980, the meme that voting doesn’t matter or that voting never changes anything, had less credibility, or at least was a view held in equal measure by left, right, middle, indifferent.

But today, conservatives have been taught their votes matter much more than liberal votes, because the liberals have been taught that voting never matters and therefore do not vote.

And back in 1980, everyone saw a big difference between Democrats and Republicans, but now progressives say Democrats are worse than Republicans, so voters who think the Republican Party has gone nuts do not become Democrats but instead become indifferent.

And back in 1980, voters across the board looked to the next election to vote for replacing the candidates who opposed what they wanted while in Congress, but today, progressives give voting a chance every decade or so, and when that fails to deliver results quickly, give up on elections.

Lots of things have changed since 1980, and the change has been for the better if you are a conservative, because conservatives are convinced that campaigning on the message “government is the problem” is the best way to gain power and use government to do the things you can’t do without government – conservatives believe in the power of Congress even more than liberals do, even though conservatives are constantly blaming government, or rather, when conservatives blame government, they make it clear why they want greater control of government: so they can dictate better outcomes.

For example, when killing unions off does not generate greater economic growth through greater consumption, they turn to driving down wages to generate higher growth, and when that doesn’t work, they promote using the market and debt to generate higher growth, intercutting these moves with tax cuts of course. The failure of these economic prescriptions to deliver results merely leads to conservatives doubling down on getting greater control of Congress – at some point, they might argue that restoring slavery will boost economic growth. Quoting Lincoln in that campaign, I’m sure.

I thought the solutions to all the problems of government was term limits, term limits shorter than death, of course.

You seem to be suggesting that perpetual membership in legislatures is a virtue?

As usual, people who want to change the status quo need to be careful what they wish for.

the real problem is Obama and the DNC have their collective heads up Pete PEterson’s ass. Obama the DNC most of Dems in congress care ONLY about MONEY. They could care less about us.

Why care about you? You either don’t vote, or you vote Republican who campaigned on cuts of all sorts, cuts in taxes, cuts in deficits, cuts in entitlements.

The one thing conservatives count on is progressives and half the Democrats not bothering to vote unless they are voting for a president. If you want your vote to count double, vote in the off years, and if you want it to count five times, vote in special elections.

What Obama cares about is what it takes to get laws through Congress, a Congress that was determined by progressives not bothering to defeat Republicans 100% for Congress. The DNC worries about losing complete control of Congress, and they can’t count on progressives and need to figure out how to win as many former Republicans as possible.

Voters voted Republicans because they wanted tax cuts? Is Obama wrong to ignore the voters who gave him a Congress opposed to every tax hikes?

After all, Obama campaigned on tax hikes, and the Democrats did not win Congress.

According to his recent budget President Obama’s entire plan for preventing these possible future cuts to Social Security benefits is to start cutting benefits right now.

The voters have spoken by electing the Republicans to control Congress and Republicans campaigned on cutting entitlements, so President Obama is doing what We the People have indicated he should do: cut entitlements. And he is starting with the entitlements that Republicans depend on most: Social Security.

If the people over 65 or over 5o do not want their entitlements cut, they should vote overwhelmingly for Democrats who will hike taxes to pay for the entitlements voters want.

Why Democrats think they need to protect the entitlements of Republicans who want cuts to entitlements is beyond me? Does Jon Walker vote Republican for Congress because he wants tax cuts but voted for Obama because he wants entitlements?

I love it when progressives share the same enemies as conservatives – it just means the conservatives should be able to win, except for Obama boxing them in by doing as the voters want: behaving like a conservative in an effort to get bipartisan government.

The discouraging thing is conservatives know the power is in Congress while progressives think the power is in the executive – the executive only has the power Congress gives it, and conservatives gave the executive lots of power because they wanted the leftist denied any speech.

If you want reporters to have the freedom to elicit and publish top secret information, go to work to elect a Congress that would make that law. Don’t depend on a benevolent dictator. If you want less secrecy, then elect a Congress that rolls back secrecy and declassifies a lot more information, and be prepared to defend Americans dying as a result of less secrecy, because that will be the counter argument so argue that Americans are willing to die for liberty.