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  1. #361
    Perfectly Calm, Dude KevinNYC's Avatar
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    Default Re: The BigAss 2nd term thread

    Quote Originally Posted by KevinNYC
    The whole Guardian article on XKEYSCORE was a way of trying to save face, because they took Snowden at his word he had authority to wiretap the president.
    NSA's compliance officer held a conference call with reporters in reaction the Washington Post story

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/us...ule.html?_r=1&

  2. #362
       
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    Default Re: The BigAss 2nd term thread

    longhornfan, just out of curiosity, what would your reply be to any or all of this reply to a post of yours? both posts also quoted below for your convenience:
    Quote Originally Posted by longhornfan1234
    Bush was a National guard, graduated from Yale, ran an oil business, and he invested $600,000 to gain a very small share of the Rangers then convinced the citizens of Arlington, TX to invest in a new Stadium for the team. After the Stadium was built Bush and his co investors sold the team netting Bush a 15+ million dollar profit. He was a successful businessman. Barry was a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER.
    Quote Originally Posted by KevinNYC
    It's always hard to tell what Longhorn believes for real and what is just to troll Democrats. But ever time, I underestimate the kookiness of modern Republican movement, something stupid like this.

    I do think that Longhorn like to tell himself convenient fictions though like this list, most of which are not positives for Bush.
    Bush was a National guard
    True. During Vietnam. And he joined to avoid the draft. And he got in because his Dad was a powerful politician

    graduated from Yale,
    Also True. As had many of his forefathers all the way back to 1844. As had his grandfather, who not only was a US Senator from CT, the state where Yale is, he also was the head of Yale fundraising committee for 12 years. Also Bush went on to Havard Business school. However, if this counts it Bush's favor it should also count for Obama who graduated from Columbia and then Harvard Law.

    ran an oil business,
    True, an oilwhich he was able to start because he was well connected and investors wanted to get close to his politically powerful family and he ran the company very poorly

    and he invested $600,000 to gain a very small share of the Rangers then convinced the citizens of Arlington, TX to invest in a new Stadium for the team. After the Stadium was built Bush and his co investors sold the team netting Bush a 15+ million dollar profit.
    Change invest to "pay for"
    True, I think most folks could see this is not a positive even on its face, but for longhorn's sake I'll spell it out for him. Bush enriched himself at the taxpayer's expense and got to pretend he ran the Texas Rangers and thus position himself for political office. He got a big price despite his small investment because he was the son of the President of the United States at the time and the other businessmen were renting his name.

    He was a successful businessman.
    This is not true.


    Barry was a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER.
    True.
    Why you think this should be held against is the question? If you wanted to say he was positioning himself for running for political office, that would be true.
    But why you would think offering literacy programs, job-training programs, college prep programs in poor neighborhoods is something so worthy of ridicule. The place he worked was set up by Catholic parishes in areas where several factories had just closed. That's right it was a faith-based organization. I seem to remember another politician making a big deal about them....what his name?


    So what's so wrong with being a community organizer? Is it because it helps poor people? Is it because the poor people are black? How many threads does longhorn make about problems in the black community? So why is Obama's early job trying to address some of these problems a bad thing?


    Of course, after being a community organizer, Obama went to Harvard Law where we voted editor of the Havard Law review and then became it's president where he managed 80 editors, it's kind of a big deal.
    He then wrote a well-regarded memoir and taught law at University of Chicago for 12 years and serve in the state senate of Illinois for 12 of them.

    I've been called an Obama-lover on here, but that's not actually what motivates me.....I'm too old to feel that way towards any politician....I remember when Kurt Cobain died....I was too old and jaded for it to really mess me up, it made me laugh, because dying at 27 is such a rock star cliche.
    What motivates me is tendentious or dishonest political arguments against Democrats....like Al Gore claimed he invented the internet. The only way Obama's background is is if you distort it. The right wing tried to claim that Obama couldn't have written his book, it's too good. It's only his speechwriters who make Obama good. It's ridiculous, Obama is an editor and a writer and a damn good one.

    If you switched Bush's and Obama's careers, you know longhorn would be citing all the arguments, I made above.

    It's also pretty hiliarious to not mention Bush's family when discussing why he became the president.

  3. #363
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    Default Re: The BigAss 2nd term thread

    Who cares, they both turned out to be shitty presidents.

  4. #364
    Perfectly Calm, Dude KevinNYC's Avatar
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    Default Re: The BigAss 2nd term thread

    Interesting Pro and Con take on the NSA by the same author.

    5 reasons the NSA scandal ain't all that
    1. What NSA does with the metadata it collects on Americans is orders of magnitude less intrusive that what other government agencies do with what they collect, than what companies do with what we give them voluntarily and without our knowledge, or what political campaigns profess to know about you by buying data you did not intend for them to see.

    2. Many other government agencies do much more to actively degrade American liberty, and they do so without nearly the degree of oversight that NSA subjects itself to internally and externally.

    3. Signals intelligence collection is hard to understand, and many, many news outlets, including some of the ones that revealed the documents, came to conclusions that have not stood the test of even a short period of time.

    4. The reason why Sens. Ron Wyden and Mark Udall know so much about NSA activities is not because of a whistle-blower. It is because of NSA's evolving self-disclosure.
    5. NSA collects foreign intelligence. Its consumers expect to receive such intelligence.
    4 reasons the NSA scandal is troubling
    1. The NSA is the most powerful single institution in the world.

    2. To say that NSA collection does not infringe upon real rights is naive at best.

    3. The Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about whether the NSA collects any information at all in bulk on Americans.

    4. NSA's compliance efforts are not sufficient.

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  6. #366
    Rules #2 dont give fk* travelingman's Avatar
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    Default Re: The BigAss 2nd term thread

    Nothing necessarily new here, but an interesting article on the CIA's usage of "double tap" drone strikes and alleged civilian casualties.

    http://ipad.ivn.us/ivn/#!/entry/doub...27f5d9d00de392

  7. #367
    2nd Greatest Player Lebron23's Avatar
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    Default Re: The BigAss 2nd term thread

    President Obama to visit the Philippines on April 28 and 29.

    http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story...pril-28-and-29

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